October 23, 2024 | International, Land
February 22, 2021 | International, Naval
The Navy today awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding $3 billion for the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH). Stennis is next in line for this mid-life availability, which includes tearing the flight deck off, gutting the ship of most of its computer and combat systems, overhauling tanks and other …
June 21, 2019 | International, Naval
By: Megan Eckstein The Navy released the final request for proposals for its next guided-missile frigate (FFG(X)) today, outlining the program that will get the U.S. Navy into the business of operating high-end small combatants. The service is counting on the new frigate to help the fleet operate in a distributed manner in a contested maritime environment. To that end, the final solicitation for bids for the FFG(X) program highlights a particular interest in what industry can offer in range; margins for weight, cooling, electrical and arrangeable deck area, to allow the ship to bring in new technologies as they develop; acoustic signature management; undersea surveillance; and over-the-horizon capabilities. After previous iterations of the frigate were ditched as the Navy's view of what capability it wanted evolved, the current FFG(X) effort sought to bring in industry early to ensure that requirements were in line with what technologies were currently feasible at the right price point. Those ongoing discussions led the Navy to settle on a ship that would have at least 32 vertical launching system (VLS) cells, an Aegis-based combat system, the Cooperative Engagement Capability datalink so the frigate could share targeting data with other ships and aircraft, and advanced anti-submarine warfare and electronic warfare systems. The service announced earlier this year the frigate would include as government-furnished equipment: A fixed-face Raytheon Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) that will serve as the primary air search radar. At least 32 Mark 41 Vertical Launch System cells that could field Standard Missile 2 Block IIICs or RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missiles (ESSM) and a planned vertically launched anti-submarine warfare weapon. COMBATSS-21 Combat Management System based on the Aegis Combat System. Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) datalink that would allow the frigate to share targeting information with other ships and aircraft. Space, weight and cooling for 8 to 16 Over-the-Horizon Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles An aviation detachment that includes an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter and an MQ-8C Firescout Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. AN/SQQ-89(V)15 Surface Ship Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Combat System AN/SQS-62 Variable Depth Sonar. SLQ-32(V)6 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 2 electronic warfare suite with allowances to include SEWIP Block 3 Lite in the future. Space, weight and cooling reservation for a 150-kilowatt laser. Further highlighting the focus on allowing the ships to be upgraded as technology evolves, the solicitation asks that bids include a “description of the flexibility in the design to accommodate efficient warfare systems upgrades by explaining equipment removal and upgrade paths with an emphasis on avoiding hull cuts or the need for dry docking,” as well as provisions for upgrading hull-mounted and towed undersea warfare sensors. Five industry teams have been involved in early design maturation efforts, which both helped industry refine their plans to be more in line with what the Navy wanted, and allowed the Navy to refine its idea of how much this new class might cost. Earlier this year, USNI News reported that costs were coming down as a result of the design maturation contracts. “$950 (million) was the threshold; $800 million is the objective,” frigate program manager with Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants Regan Campbell said in January at the Surface Navy Association symposium. “We started closer to the $950; we are trending to very close to the $800 now. We have taken some very significant costs out,” she said of the second through 10th ship of the class. The Navy intends to buy at least 20 frigates, though the first contract will only cover the first 10. After the first contract, the Navy could continue with the same builder or re-compete the program to potentially bring in a second builder, if it wanted to accelerate frigate production to keep in line with its drive to reach a 355-ship fleet and leadership acknowledgement that it will need more small combatants and fewer high-end destroyers going forward. After the release of today's final RFP, interested bidders will have until Aug. 22 to submit their technical proposals to the Navy and until Sept. 26 to submit their pricing proposal. A winner will be selected in Fiscal Year 2020 to build the frigate. Of the five companies that participated in the design maturation phase, four are expected to submit bids to the RFP. Austal USA, who builds the Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship; Fincantieri Marine, which builds the Italian FREMM multipurpose frigate; General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, who will partner with Spanish F100-builder Navantia; and Ingalls Shipbuilding, who has declined to discuss its design, all worked with the Navy to take their existing parent designs and mature them to become in line with the Navy's vision for its guided-missile frigate. Lockheed Martin, which builds the Freedom-variant LCS, was part of that effort as well but announced it would not continue on with the frigate competition. Despite the earlier design work that the Navy funded, the frigate competition is open to any bidder who has a parent design to base the frigate offering on. https://news.usni.org/2019/06/20/navy-issues-final-rfp-for-ffgx-next-generation-frigate
September 20, 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Mark Pomerleau In its first formal cyber strategy document in three years, the Department of Defense said it would focus its cyber efforts on China and Russia and use the Pentagon's cyber capabilities to collect intelligence as well as to prepare for future conflicts. According to an unclassified summary and fact sheet released Sept. 18, the documents lay out a vision for addressing cyber threats and addresses the priorities of the department's National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, which focused on a new era of strategic great power competition. “The United States cannot afford inaction,” the summary reads. It notes that China and Russia are conducting persistent campaigns in cyberspace that pose long term risk. The documents also say that China is eroding the U.S. military's ability to overmatch opponents and that Russia is using cyber-enabled information operations to influence the U.S. population and challenge democratic processes. The DoD's strategy comes on the heels of other major movements in cyberspace from the department. These include the elevation of U.S. Cyber Command to a full unified combatant command — which affords new and exquisite authorities — the full staffing of Cyber Command's cyber teams, an update to DoD's cyber doctrine and new authorities delegating certain responsibilities from the president to DoD to conduct cyber operations abroad. The summary's lists five objectives for DoD's cyberspace strategy: - Ensuring the joint force can achieve its missions in a contested cyberspace environment; - Strengthening the joint force by conducting cyberspace operations that enhance U.S. military advantages; - Defending U.S. critical infrastructure from malicious cyber activity that alone, or as part of a campaign, could cause a significant cyber incident; - Securing DoD information and systems against malicious cyber activity, including DoD information on non-DoD-owned networks; and - Expanding DoD cyber cooperation with interagency, industry, and international partners. The strategy also describes the need to remain consistently engaged with this persistent adversary and to “defend forward” as a means of disrupting or halting malicious cyber activity at its source, including activity that falls below the level of armed conflict. While academics have criticized the U.S. response to Russian election interference, the strategy notes that the United States tends to view conflicts through the binary lens of war or peace while competitors such as Russia see themselves constantly engaged in a state of war. U.S. Cyber Command's new leader is taking a different tact. “We've got to act forward outside of our boundaries, something that we do very, very well at Cyber Command in terms of getting into our adversary's networks. That's this idea of persistent engagement, the idea that the adversary never rests, so why would we ever rest,” Gen. Paul Nakasone said during an August dinner hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. Nakasone also has described the notion of defending forward as enabling forces to act outside the boundaries of the U.S. to understand what adversaries are doing in order to better defend against them. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2018/09/19/department-of-defense-unveils-new-cyber-strategy