What a difference a year makes. At the 2014 iteration of the US Navy League’s annual event there was much hand wringing and looking in the community’s rear view mirror, about the service’s long-range budget stability, the behind schedule and over-cost Lockheed Martin F-35 programme and other matters. In retrospect, the confluence of events were out of the hands of all but a few senior military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon’s E-Ring, and political leaders across the Potomac River on Capitol Hill. However the malaise drifted down through the ranks of the military-industry team. The Navy simply looked adrift, seeking a course with calm and following seas in the turbulent post-Afghanistan and Iraq wars era.
In 2015, a seemingly revitalised US Navy (USN) is addressing festering doubts and issues about high visibility programmes – including its Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) programme. In this instance the service is embarking on a new frigate subprogramme to address what was to be hull numbers 33-52. The service’s embryonic frigate programme belatedly addresses long-standing doubts on the waterfront and inside the Washington, DC Beltway about the survivability of the hull platform and lethality of onboard weapons systems for current LCS-1 and -2 classes.
At the same time, the service is more aggressively and purposefully embracing unmanned systems by establishing offices on its Pentagon staffs to better guide the service into the era of unmanned missions – and none too soon.
One rapidly moving technology project on the service’s burgeoning unmanned vehicle list is the Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS) effort being supported by Textron. Bill Leonard, the director of Unmanned Surface Units at Textron Systems, told MT on the very busy Navy League conference floor that last September his company was the sole source winner of the competitive contract award. “We accomplished our second major milestone, the preliminary design review, last week,” he said. “We’ll have a series of critical design reviews over the next four months. Then we start building up the system, then test it and hand it over to the Navy in September 2016.” Textron is using its Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV) as its baseline vehicle technology in the UISS programme.
Very telling remarks by the service’s leaders made it clear that program managers will literally be looking on both sides of the Atlantic – and possibly beyond – for materiel solutions. While long gestating, deliberately paced R&D projects are still necessary to bring high risk, cutting edge technologies to operators, in some instances the service cannot wait to navigate the very unwieldy Pentagon acquisition process. So, while Pentagon leadership deserves credit for recently implementing its new Better Buying Power 3.0 acquisition strategy, some programmes, including the rapidly evolving frigate (LCSs-33-52) programme quickly need mature technology solutions, ranging from weapons to communications systems.
Sensing opportunities in the US maritime defense market, a number of oversea companies exhibited at this year’s Navy League conference. The Canadian and UK pavilions offered the USN customer and US industry members to view and discuss capabilities ranging from shipbuilding to diesel engines.
On the topic of R&D and “the future,” the service signaled its intentions throughout the conference that it is expanding the realm of possibility as it pursues and fields next-generation weapons and weapons systems. Indeed, Cpt. Mike Ziv, the programme manager for Directed Energy and Electric Weapons Systems at Naval Sea Systems Command, told conference attendees the service will conduct the first at-sea test firing of its electromagnetic gun in late summer 2016.
The railgun will conceptually fire a hypervelocity projectile at three times the velocity of the service’s legacy-era 5in gun shell.
The service’s programme of record calls for operational deployment of a shipboard electromagnetic weapon in the mid-2020s. The development will provide intriguing opportunities to revolutionise (not evolve) the naval gunfire support mission.
Concurrently, the USN is looking to move forward with friends and allies who operate the same weapons systems and weapons platforms. Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations, provided some very telling comments on Day 1 of the conference. The service chief stated his interest to continue cooperating with the UK on a Common Missile Compartment that would be used in the new classes of US and UK SSBNs. And not lost on delegates was the reiteration the US and its Australian Navy counterparts will operate identical Boeing P-8s – opening the door to synergies through the aircrafts’ life cycle.
One of the more peculiar omissions on the conference agenda was the absence of panel discussions and briefings by service leaders on the Middle East. While the USN and its sister services, the Marine Corps and Coast Guard, still support the Afghanistan war and an increasing list of other missions in the Middle East and North Africa, there was a glaring absence of formal discussion about the services’ plans for future engagement and operations in the regions.
Alternatively, senior leaders from the US naval services did highlight their challenges and opportunities in the Pacific Region. Of particular interest were the expanding number of US partnerships and collaborative programs with nations in the region, most noticeably the USMC's evolving regional presence program that allows it to rotate units into bases in Australia for training and short-notice employment.
In 2015, a seemingly revitalised US Navy (USN) is addressing festering doubts and issues about high visibility programmes – including its Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) programme. In this instance the service is embarking on a new frigate subprogramme to address what was to be hull numbers 33-52. The service’s embryonic frigate programme belatedly addresses long-standing doubts on the waterfront and inside the Washington, DC Beltway about the survivability of the hull platform and lethality of onboard weapons systems for current LCS-1 and -2 classes.
At the same time, the service is more aggressively and purposefully embracing unmanned systems by establishing offices on its Pentagon staffs to better guide the service into the era of unmanned missions – and none too soon.
One rapidly moving technology project on the service’s burgeoning unmanned vehicle list is the Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS) effort being supported by Textron. Bill Leonard, the director of Unmanned Surface Units at Textron Systems, told MT on the very busy Navy League conference floor that last September his company was the sole source winner of the competitive contract award. “We accomplished our second major milestone, the preliminary design review, last week,” he said. “We’ll have a series of critical design reviews over the next four months. Then we start building up the system, then test it and hand it over to the Navy in September 2016.” Textron is using its Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV) as its baseline vehicle technology in the UISS programme.
Very telling remarks by the service’s leaders made it clear that program managers will literally be looking on both sides of the Atlantic – and possibly beyond – for materiel solutions. While long gestating, deliberately paced R&D projects are still necessary to bring high risk, cutting edge technologies to operators, in some instances the service cannot wait to navigate the very unwieldy Pentagon acquisition process. So, while Pentagon leadership deserves credit for recently implementing its new Better Buying Power 3.0 acquisition strategy, some programmes, including the rapidly evolving frigate (LCSs-33-52) programme quickly need mature technology solutions, ranging from weapons to communications systems.
Sensing opportunities in the US maritime defense market, a number of oversea companies exhibited at this year’s Navy League conference. The Canadian and UK pavilions offered the USN customer and US industry members to view and discuss capabilities ranging from shipbuilding to diesel engines.
On the topic of R&D and “the future,” the service signaled its intentions throughout the conference that it is expanding the realm of possibility as it pursues and fields next-generation weapons and weapons systems. Indeed, Cpt. Mike Ziv, the programme manager for Directed Energy and Electric Weapons Systems at Naval Sea Systems Command, told conference attendees the service will conduct the first at-sea test firing of its electromagnetic gun in late summer 2016.
The railgun will conceptually fire a hypervelocity projectile at three times the velocity of the service’s legacy-era 5in gun shell.
The service’s programme of record calls for operational deployment of a shipboard electromagnetic weapon in the mid-2020s. The development will provide intriguing opportunities to revolutionise (not evolve) the naval gunfire support mission.
Concurrently, the USN is looking to move forward with friends and allies who operate the same weapons systems and weapons platforms. Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations, provided some very telling comments on Day 1 of the conference. The service chief stated his interest to continue cooperating with the UK on a Common Missile Compartment that would be used in the new classes of US and UK SSBNs. And not lost on delegates was the reiteration the US and its Australian Navy counterparts will operate identical Boeing P-8s – opening the door to synergies through the aircrafts’ life cycle.
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| Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jonathan Greenert. |
One of the more peculiar omissions on the conference agenda was the absence of panel discussions and briefings by service leaders on the Middle East. While the USN and its sister services, the Marine Corps and Coast Guard, still support the Afghanistan war and an increasing list of other missions in the Middle East and North Africa, there was a glaring absence of formal discussion about the services’ plans for future engagement and operations in the regions.
Alternatively, senior leaders from the US naval services did highlight their challenges and opportunities in the Pacific Region. Of particular interest were the expanding number of US partnerships and collaborative programs with nations in the region, most noticeably the USMC's evolving regional presence program that allows it to rotate units into bases in Australia for training and short-notice employment.
Marty Kauchak