October 29, 2019 | International, Naval

After a leadership shakeup at General Dynamics, a murky future for submarine building

By: David B. Larter

WASHINGTON — Submarine building, the pride of the U.S. Navy's shipbuilding efforts over the past decade, is facing a mountain of uncertainty, a point underscored by the replacement of senior members of General Dynamics leadership, compounding delays with construction of the Virginia-class submarine and nagging questions about the quality of the work after a high-profile welding issue threatened to trip up the Columbia-class ballistic missile sub program at the starting line.

Adding to the uncertainty for General Dynamics, which operates the Electric Boat shipyard in Connecticut, are indications that profits from constructing Virginia-class subs may be slipping. And challenges in training new workers in the complex world of building subs as well as concerns that the Columbia program might negatively affect General Dynamics' bottom line are impacting General Dynamics' partner yard Huntington Ingalls Industries in Newport News, Virginia, as well as the U.S. Navy.

Furthermore, a contract for the significantly larger Block V Virginia-class submarine, expected to be one of the largest in the Navy's history, has been repeatedly delayed amid disputes over labor rates, sources told Defense News. That contract is more than a year past due, according to Navy budget documents.

In September, General Dynamics pushed out Electric Boat President Jeffrey Geiger. Industry and Navy sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Geiger's replacement was the culmination of mounting frustration on the part of the Navy. That came to a head when quality control issues surfaced with missile tubes in production destined for the Virginia Payload Module, Columbia-class subs and the United Kingdom's replacement ballistic missile sub.

Geiger's ouster came on the heals of General Dynamics replacing long-time executive John Casey as head of the Marine Systems division when he retired earlier this year.

The shakeup, delays and lingering issues put the Navy and the submarine-building enterprise at a crossroads. It's clear that the Navy's efforts to ramp up production of its Virginia-class attack boats ahead of Columbia have encountered myriad issues and delays. But while delays may be acceptable for the Virginia program, the interconnected nature of submarine building means those delays could eek into a program that the Navy has for years insisted cannot be delayed any further: the replacement of its aging Ohio-class ballistic missile subs, part of the nuclear deterrent triad.

The Navy has said Columbia must be ready for its first patrol in 2031 to ensure the nation doesn't fall below a dangerous threshold where retiring Ohio-class submarines leaving the country without an adequate number of boats to execute its deterrent strategy. But to head that off, the Navy may have reduce its expectations of the industrial base's capacity to build submarines, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank and a retired submarine officer.

“The Navy is going to have to reduce its appetite for submarine capacity while it gets the construction process in a better position,” he said. “All of the things we have seen in the past year in the submarine-building enterprise are the results of the ramped-up production levels and the challenges that EB [Electric Boat] faces in hiring more workers up in Connecticut.

“They've been growing capacity, investing in infrastructure; they're trying to hire a bunch of workers and design engineers. [But] there just isn't a large workforce of those kinds of people up there as opposed to in Hampton Roads or the Gulf Coast. So there are a lot of challenges in ramping up production to [increase] Virginia-class production and, in addition, starting Columbia and beginning the Virginia Payload Module-equipped Virginias, which is a 30 percent larger submarine.”

A bridge to Columbia

In March, Defense News reported that all the Virginia-class submarines under construction were between four and seven months behind schedule. Naval Sea Systems Command pointed to the cumulative effect of ramping up to building two Virginia-class submarines per year. In a statement, the service's top acquisition official said the Navy was continuing to confront material, labor and shipyard infrastructure issues.

Labor issues in particular hit the Newport News yard, which told investors in a recent earnings call that profits had slipped by about 23 percent on the Virginia sub building because of delays associated with labor issues.

In the face of the mounting issues, the Navy should be willing to make difficult choices to get back on an even footing, Clark said.

“Are we going to make some tough choices and dial back submarine construction deliberately to make sure we can get Columbia started correctly?” he asked. “And that means maybe we slow down Virginia, maybe we go to one per year for at least a couple of years to catch up.”

Clark said the Navy should continue to fund two submarines per year but should expect that they will take longer to build while General Dynamics and Newport News stabilize their labor and parts issues.

Paring back submarine production is a tough pill to swallow for the Navy, as it's been fighting for years to prevent a shortfall of attack submarines in the coming decade. The Navy expects its inventory of attack boats to drop from 52 to 42 by the late 2020s as Cold War-era Los Angeles-class attack subs retire.

Furthermore, there's the question of whether scaling back production might invite a funding cut, which could make matters worse. The supplier and labor issues, after all, primarily stem from the 1990s when the Navy all but stopped buying submarines, which resulted in a contraction of the number of businesses that built submarine parts and a loss in skilled laborers who knew how to build them.

Less funding would likely have a detrimental effect on sub-building efforts, said Bill Greenwalt, a former Senate Armed Services Committee staffer.

“Under our current budget and appropriations process, slowing down — which likely implies cutting program funding — would exacerbate industrial base problems as it already has in the past due to lack of program demand,” Greenwalt said. “Congress and the Navy need to be prepared for industrial base surprises and seriously face the past problem of the underfunding of naval shipbuilding.”

“A flexible schedule and more realistic and flexible funding mechanisms will be needed to meet whatever industrial base challenges ... will inevitably arise,” he added. “In the near term we may even need to look at some of our allies' capabilities to meet shortfalls and help us keep on schedule until we rebuild U.S. capacity.”

Greenwalt's view tracks with that of General Dynamics, according to a source with knowledge of the company's thinking on the difficulties it has faced. The company considers ramping up production on the Virginia-class sub as essential to building a sufficient labor force and supplier capacity so the resources are available to build Columbia class on schedule, the source said.

‘Two-hump camel'

The Navy's top acquisition official, James Geurts, has similarly described the issue. On the possibility of building a third Virginia-class submarine in 2023, Geurts told the House Armed Services Committee's sea power panel in March that it would benefit the Columbia-building effort.

“We can get some of the additional workforce trained up, get some more of the supplier base and get some of the supplier builds out of the way before Columbia gets here,” he said.

Officials everywhere seem to agree that the labor force is the most critical factor when it comes to getting submarine building on track. In an exit interview with Defense News in August, outgoing Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said turnover at shipyards was a challenge but also an exciting chance to build a new generation of skilled labor.

“We're asking a lot of the submarine industrial base right now to continue with Virginia, two to three per year including that payload module, and deliver Columbia,” Richardson said. “And the workforce is going through a transformation.

“The people who built and delivered the Virginia program, the Los Angeles program and Seawolf — those folks are retiring. We used to have this two-hump camel in terms of the demographics of the shipyard: You had the Cold Warriors and you had the post-9/11 folks. And that Cold War hump is gone. And I think that although it's going through some friction right now, it's really inculcating, indoctrinating and educating a brand-new workforce.”

Richardson also sounded a note of warning about work quality, saying that the managers overseeing the work for the submarine-building enterprise must be on top of their jobs.

“We've had some welding issues: We've got to be on that,” he said. “[It's] a lot closer oversight as we educate this new team.”

Clarification: The story has been updated to better reflect the arguments surrounding the future of submarine building.

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/10/28/after-a-leadership-shakeup-at-general-dynamics-a-murky-future-for-submarine-building/

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January 18, 2021 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

Secrets of Tempest’s ground-breaking radar revealed
Tom Kington ROME — Radar engineers on the Tempest fighter program have said they expect to break data-processing records. The secret, they explain, is all about miniaturization and going digital. The sixth-generation jet — planned by the U.K., Sweden and Italy and set to enter service after 2030 — will bristle with new technology, from its weaponry and propulsion to a virtual cockpit projected inside the pilot's helmet. But the group set the bar high in October by announcing the fighter's radar would process a quantity of data equivalent to nine hours of high-definition video — or the internet traffic of a medium-sized city — every second. Few details were given to back up the claim, but now U.K.-based engineers with Italian firm Leonardo, who are working on the radar, have shared clues with Defense News. Boosting performance will mean rethinking today's electronically scanned radars, which have grids of small Transmit Receive Modules, or TRM, on the antenna, each generating an individual radar beam which can follow different targets or combine with others to create a larger beam. The TRMs in the array are formed into groups, and the signals received by each group are fed to a receiver which digitalizes the data before passing it to the radar's processor. Due to their size, the receivers must be positioned back from the aircraft's nose and accept the incoming analogue radar signal down coaxial cables, which incurs some data loss before the signal is digitalized. To remedy that, Leonardo is working on miniaturizing the receivers so they can be moved up into the nose and integrated within the antenna, cutting out the need for a coaxial cable. The data emerging from the receiver must still travel to the processor, but by now it is digital and can flow down fiber-optic cables, reducing data loss. “Miniaturized receivers can digitalize the signal within the antenna much earlier in the receive chain,” said chief engineer Tim Bungey. That's one step up from the new state-of-the-art European Common Radar System Mark 2 radar that BAE Systems and Leonardo have signed to deliver for RAF Eurofighters, which will use coaxial cables. “Digitalizing the data closer to the array means more data can be received and transmitted, the data can be more flexibly manipulated, and there is more potential for using the radar as a multi-function sensor such as for data linking and for electronic warfare,” said Bungey. There is also a second advantage to miniaturized receivers: Many more can be installed, meaning each one handles fewer TRMs. “To improve performance and flexibility within the system, a key challenge is to divide the TRMs into more groups containing fewer TRMs, handled by more receivers,” said Bungey. “By achieving that, together with supporting wider bandwidths, you can generate significantly more data, giving greater flexibility for beam steering and multi-function operation,” he added. “We are aiming to increase the number of groups of TRMs, and therefore the number of receivers, beyond what will be offered by the MK2 radar for Eurofighter,” he added. While the radar may push the envelope, Duncan McCrory, Leonardo's Tempest chief engineer, said it would be a mistake to consider it as a stand-alone component. “The MRFS will be integrated within the wider Tempest Mission System, which incorporates a full suite of electronic-warfare and defensive-aids capabilities, EO/IR targeting and situational awareness systems, and a comprehensive communications system.” he said. “The data captured by these systems will be fused to create a rich situational awareness picture for the aircrew,” he added. “This information will also be fused with data received from other aircraft and unmanned systems, with machine learning used to combine and process the overall situational awareness picture for the aircrew. This avoids information overload in the cockpit, enabling the aircrew to quickly absorb data and make decisions based on suitably processed and validated information, and rapidly respond to threats in highly contested environments,” he said. McCrory added that Leonardo demonstrated aspects of human-machine teaming recently in a trial organized with the British Army and the MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, in which a Wildcat helicopter crew tasked a semi-autonomous UAV provided by Callen-Lenz to gather imagery and feed it back to the cockpit display via datalink. “It is these human-machine teaming principles that we will be building upon for Tempest,” he said. “The MRFS will be integrated within the wider Tempest Mission System, which incorporates a full suite of electronic-warfare and defensive-aids capabilities, EO/IR targeting and situational awareness systems, and a comprehensive communications system.” he said. “The data captured by these systems will be fused to create a rich situational awareness picture for the aircrew,” he added. “This information will also be fused with data received from other aircraft and unmanned systems, with machine learning used to combine and process the overall situational awareness picture for the aircrew. This avoids information overload in the cockpit, enabling the aircrew to quickly absorb data and make decisions based on suitably processed and validated information, and rapidly respond to threats in highly contested environments,” he said. McCrory added that Leonardo demonstrated aspects of human-machine teaming recently in a trial organized with the British Army and the MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, in which a Wildcat helicopter crew tasked a semi-autonomous UAV provided by Callen-Lenz to gather imagery and feed it back to the cockpit display via datalink. “It is these human-machine teaming principles that we will be building upon for Tempest,” he said. As Tempest development proceeds, McCrory said design of the integrated mission system was proceeding in parallel with the design of the aircraft itself. “We are effectively designing the aircraft from the inside out; by this I mean we are working closely with the MoD to understand future sensing, communications and effects capability requirements, and then working with the Team Tempest partners to ensure the aircraft can accommodate and support the required avionic systems.” Leonardo is working with BAE Systems to ensure the airframe will accommodate sensors, with Rolls Royce to ensure there is sufficient powering and cooling for the systems, and with MBDA, said McCrory, “to give weapons the best available data prior to launch, and to keep them informed after they are released and receive data back from them as they progress towards the target.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/home/2021/01/15/secrets-of-tempests-ground-breaking-radar-revealed/
February 1, 2022 | International, Naval

Philippines signs deal for BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missile
The Philippines has signed a contract with an Indian company for shore-based medium-range supersonic anti-ship missiles, enhancing the U.S. ally's ability to target adversarial ships from land.
December 10, 2018 | International, Aerospace

Why the Navy will deactivate an F-35 Squadron next year
By: Mark D. Faram The Navy will deactivate the Grim Reapers of Strike Fighter Squadron 101, consolidating all Joint Strike Fighter operations and training at California's Naval Air Station Lemoore, officials confirmed on Friday. The squadron has been based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. It was reactivated in 2012 as the Navy's initial F-35C fleet replacement squadron. At the time, the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Joint Strike Fighter replacement squadrons were located there as well. The move of the Grim Reapers' 15 aircraft is slated to be effective on July 1, according to OPNAV notice 5400. “The Navy is moving forward with the deactivation of VFA-101 at Eglin AFB next year, and the re-alignment of F-35C assets into Strike Fighter Squadrons to support VX-9 Detachment Edwards AFB, Air Warfare Development Command (NAWDC) at NAS Fallon and maintain Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) production at VFA-125, while transitioning Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet squadrons to the F-35C Lightning II,” wrote Lt. Travis Callaghan, a Naval Air Forces spokesman, in an email to Navy Times. The shift to California should see the Grim Reapers' 29 officers and 239 enlisted personnel replace their patches with those of the “Rough Raiders” of Strike Fighter Squadron 125, Lemoore's F-35C replacement squadron. “This will co-locate the fleet replenishment squadron production of pilots directly into the operational squadrons scheduled for transition to F-35C,” according to a note in the directive ordering the move. The extra aircraft, pilots and maintainers at Lemoore are expected to help the Pentagon meet its testing and evaluation requirements for the the Navy's first operational fleet F-35C squadron, VFA-147, That major milestone for the Navy's JSF program is still slated to happen in 2019. The maiden overseas deployment of VFA-147 is anticipated in 2021 while embarked on the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson. Deactivating VFA-101 wasn't the Navy's original plan. Officials wanted to move the squadron to Lemoore in early 2017. Then the Navy decided to keep VFA-101 at Eglin and stood up a second training squadron, VFA-125, at Lemoore. At the time, officials told Navy Times there was “no plan in the foreseeable future for VFA-101 to be stood down” because “the requirement is for two FRS while we are transitioning squadrons.” The Grim Reapers could be resurrected if the Navy chooses to have an F-35 replacement squadron on both coasts. The OPNAV note requires the Navy to “maintain VFA 101 squadron lineage (name, UIC, insignia, call sign, etc.) for future reactivation.” But bringing the Grim Reapers back to life likely won't happen for at least a decade. That's because the Navy has yet to start the process of naming a home base for its East Coast F-35Cs. It requires extensive environmental impact studies before senior leaders make the final decision on where the squadrons will go. And that, Navy officials say, isn't expected to start until the mid-2020′s at the earliest. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/12/07/why-the-navy-will-deactivate-an-f-35-squadron-next-year/

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After a leadership shakeup at General Dynamics, a murky future for submarine building

On the same subject

Philippines signs deal for BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missile The Philippines has signed a contract with an Indian company for shore-based medium-range supersonic anti-ship missiles, enhancing the U.S. ally's ability to target adversarial ships from land.

Philippines signs deal for BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missile
The Philippines has signed a contract with an Indian company for shore-based medium-range supersonic anti-ship missiles, enhancing the U.S. ally's ability to target adversarial ships from land.