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  August 14, 2018 | International, Naval

  US Navy’s focus on rapid acquisition is opening up opportunities for Europe

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy intends to get much bigger, and that has meant new openings for European companies in the U.S. defense market. The Navy's new over-the-horizon missile destined for the littoral combat ship and the future frigate was recently awarded to the Norwegian firm Kongsberg, in partnership with U.S. company Raytheon, for its Naval Strike Missile. The future frigate program itself has awarded contracts to Spain's Navantia and Italy's Fincantieri for design work before the Navy selects a design later this year, meaning the service's next surface combatant may be a European design. And for the Navy's future training helicopter, both Franco-Dutch company Airbus and Italian firm Leonardo are top competitors for that program. Analysts say the Navy's recent surge in interest has been spurred by a confluence of circumstances that could mean even more opportunities for foreign companies looking to break into the U.S. market. Increased defense budgets are one reason the European companies have been seeing more business from the Navy and other American military branches. But a shift in the way the Defense Department tries to fill capabilities gaps has made the space more competitive for overseas firms, said Dan Gouré, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank. As the Navy and other services have shifted toward great power competition, it has found a number of capabilities that were not hugely important in a unipolar world have again become requirements with the reemergence of Russia and the rise of China as security threats. One such area is the small surface combatant, or FFG(X) program, which would be needed to escort supply convoys and work as a survivable sensor node in a larger surface combatant network. “With the frigate, for example, we hadn't built one of those in 40 years, but the Europeans have been building them for decades,” Gouré noted. “And if we needed a diesel-electric sub, they'd of course be the first in line.” This emphasis on speed of acquisition has also helped because the Navy and the rest of the Department of Defense are reluctant to get tied down by a yearslong, inevitably over-budget development process unless necessary, Gouré said. “The trend has been toward [other transaction authority] contracts, and that has made the European companies credible competitors,” he said. Another factor is that the Navy has been more willing to make trades on capabilities, said Bryan Clark, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “I think what's new is that the Navy is openly seeking foreign proposals for some of these major new programs,” Clark said. “Foreign companies have always been able to submit proposals in response to RFPs, but usually they don't offer the high-end capability the U.S. is usually seeking. “The big change is that the Navy is willing to get a less-sophisticated capability in to get a design that is more mature.” In the case of the Navy's trainer helicopter competition, past success with European companies inside the DoD could be a driving factor in Airbus' and Leonardo's competitive bids. Airbus' North American division has been successful with the U.S. Army's Lakota program, built by Airbus Helicopters in Columbus, Mississippi, which is where the company would build its H135 helicopter if selected for the program. The Army has been happy with Lakota, so much so that it has been pushing to buy more of the airframes despite legal battles over the contracts. But the success of Airbus Helicopters with the Army is possible for much the same reason that, for example, Australian-owned Austal USA has been successful building both the trimaran version of the littoral combat ship and the expeditionary fast transport: a major manufacturing infrastructure investment in the United States. And that kind of cash outlay for a program can scare away European competitors. Getting around “Buy American” provisions would literally take an act of Congress. Despite having already developed, tested and fielded the capability the Navy wants, Kongsberg had to team with American defense giant Raytheon to sell its missile to the DoD. The “Buy American” provisions laid down and regularly upheld by Congress for defense procurement does have protectionist overtones, but there is a national security argument as well. In the event of a major, protracted conflict with Russia or China, it wouldn't be advantageous to have major suppliers located an ocean away or in occupied territory. And maintaining the industrial base has long been a concern of the U.S. Navy because of the limited the number of trained workers with experience who are building ships and nuclear reactors. Navy officials have testified that the shrinking industrial base, including the shipbuilders and the litany of subcontractors and vendors, is a significant concern. In 2015, then-head of the Navy's research, development and acquisition office Sean Stackley testified before Congress that some of the shipyards were just a contract away from going under. “We have eight shipyards currently building U.S. Navy ships. And of those eight shipyards, about half of them are a single contract away from being what I would call ‘not viable,' ” Stackley told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “In other words, the workload drops below the point at which the shipyard can sustain the investment that it needs to be competitive and the loss of skilled labor that comes with the breakage of a contract.” https://www.defensenews.com/top-100/2018/08/09/us-navys-focus-on-rapid-acquisition-is-opening-up-opportunities-for-europe/

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  May 7, 2020 | International, Naval

  5 things you should know about the US Navy’s new frigate

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy selected Fincantieri's FREMM design for its next-generation frigate, but as with most new platforms it will be a long time before the first ship hits the fleet. The contract, awarded May 30, is for up to 10 hulls constructed at Fincantieri's Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin. The Navy intends to buy at least 20 frigates. Here's what we know about what the years ahead will hold: 1) The price tag. According to Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts, the first hull will cost $1.281 billion, which includes the design money for both the ship and for the work needed at the shipyard to set up a production line. It also includes all the government-furnished equipment, including things such as Raytheon's AN/SPY-6-derivative radar and Lockheed Martin's Aegis Combat System. Of that $1.281 billion, $795 million will go to the shipyard. The next hulls in the buy should cost significantly less. The Navy is aiming for a price tag of $800 million in 2018 dollars, with the threshold at $950 million. But Geurts thinks he can beat both numbers. An independent cost estimate found the follow-on hulls should cost about $781 million if all 20 are built. “The study shows this ship as selected and the program as designed delivering underneath our objective cost per platform,” Geurts said on a May 30 phone call with reporters. 2) The timeline. Detailed design of the future frigate, known as FFG(X), starts right away, Geurts said, and construction will begin no later than April 2022. The first ship should be delivered in 2026 and should be operational by 2030, with final operational capability declared by 2032, Geurts said. The contract should be wrapped up — all 10 hulls — by 2035. The intention is to buy 20 hulls, though it's unclear whether Marinette will build all 20 or if the Navy will identify a second source. 3) What could go wrong? The Navy feels like it did a lot to get this ship deal right, which could be argued was important given a not-so-hot track record with programs lately. Improving the Navy's performance on lead ships, in the wake of the Ford-class debacle, has been a focus of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. Among the steps the Navy took to retire risk with FFG(X) was to adapt many of the mature systems being designed for the Flight III destroyer program, including the latest version of the Aegis Combat System and a scaled-down version of the AN/SPY-6 radar destined for Flight III. “Some of those efforts are still maturing, such as SPY-6, but from my standpoint I'm very comfortable with how that's proceeding,” said Rear Adm. Casey Moton, program executive officer of unmanned and small combatants. Bringing industry in on the process earlier will also help reduce risk in the lead ship, Moton said. “In general, even before the solicitation went out, the fact that we had industry involved in the conceptual design phase, they were there with us in the requirements; they understood the specifications; we worked with them on cost reduction. Many of the things that tend to trip up lead ships, we took proactive steps to reduce the risk there.” 4) Room to grow. The Navy considered the ability to add new, energy intensive systems on to the ship later in its calculus in selecting FREMM as the FFG(X), according to service officials. During the competition, Fincantieri highlighted that it could fairly easily grow the electrical capacity of the ship, and that all the major computer and engine gear could be swapped out without cutting a hole in the ship, as is often necessary with current classes in the U.S. Navy's inventory. Rick Hunt, a retired Navy three-star admiral who is now a senior Fincantieri executive, told reporters that the company's bid was designed to meet the cost specifications while giving the Navy room to upgrade. “Be flexible in what you do right now, surge to more capacity as soon as we get that [requirement] and be able to grow the ship in lot changes should you need something even greater in the future,” Hunt said. Vice Adm. Jim Kilby, the Navy's top requirements officer, said growth will be important in Navy designs as the service seeks to move away from combating missiles with other missiles. “Understanding how fast the threat is advancing made the service-life allowance so important for us,” Kilby said May 30. “We didn't want [to] define discretely where we are going in the future, so having some margin to include things like directed energy and other systems, that's why it was so important. “We have an extensive laser [science and technology] program in the Navy, we have lasers on some of our ships now. We definitely view it as a requirement for the future as we move into a realm where our launchers are reserved for offensive weapons and our point defense systems are these rechargeable magazines that we can sustain for long periods of time.” 5) Lessons learned. The Navy acquisitions boss feels good about the process that produced the FFG(X) award and thinks it can be a model for other programs. “FFG(X) represents an evolution in the Navy's requirements and acquisition approach, which allowed the acquisition planning, requirements and technical communities along with the shipbuilders to develop requirements for the platform ahead of the release of the detailed design and construction request for proposal," Geurts said. “By integrating the requirements, acquisition planning and design phases, we were able to reduce the span time by nearly six years as compared to traditional platforms. All this was done with an intense focus on cost, acquisition and technical rigor so we got the best value for the war fighter and the taxpayer. It's the best I've seen in the Navy thus far in integrating all the teams together, and it's a model we're building on for future programs.” But it's unclear if a similar approach would work on a clean-sheet, new design the same way it worked for FFG(X), which uses already-developed technologies and a parent design. “Having all the folks in the room early in the process helped move the process along and move it along faster,” said Bryan McGrath, a retired destroyer captain who is now a consultant with The Ferrybridge Group. “The question comes when you consider how applicable duplicating such an effort would be if you were trying to do a clean-sheet design that was incorporating revolutionary technologies, untested technologies, perhaps even undeveloped technologies. That's a different story.” The FFG(X) will be a considerable step forward for the Navy in terms of capability, but isn't exactly a revolutionary platform that may require a different process to arrive at a solution, McGrath said. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/05/05/5-things-you-should-know-about-the-us-navys-new-frigate/

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  August 18, 2020 | International, Naval

  In developing robot warships, US Navy wants to avoid another littoral combat ship

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Navy pushes forward with developing its large unmanned surface vessel, envisioned as a kind of external missile magazine that will tag along with larger manned surface combatants, a growing consensus is forming that the service needs to get its requirements and systems right before making a big investment. Congress has, for the second year in a row, slowed the development of the large unmanned surface vessel, or LUSV, in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The language in this year's bill would essentially force the Navy to have a working prototype with all systems tested and fully integrated before using procurement dollars for the boats. In an exclusive July 16 interview with Defense News, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said that while the marks were frustrating, he agreed with Congress that requirements must be concrete right up front. “The approach has to be deliberate,” Gilday said. “We have to make sure that the systems that are on those unmanned systems with respect to the [hull, mechanical and electrical system], that they are designed to requirement, and perform to requirement. And most importantly, are those requirements sound? “I go back to: Do I really need a littoral combat ship to go 40 knots? That's going to drive the entire design of the ship, not just the engineering plant but how it's built. That becomes a critical factor. If you take your eye off the ball with respect to requirements, you can find yourself drifting. That has to be deliberate.” Gilday has called for the Navy to pursue a comprehensive “Unmanned Campaign Plan” that creates a path forward for developing and fielding unmanned systems in the air, on the sea and under the water. Right now, the effort exists in a number of different programs that may not all be pulling in the same direction, he said. “What I've found is that we didn't necessarily have the rigor that's required across a number of programs that would bring those together in a way that's driven toward objectives with milestones,” Gilday told Defense News. “If you took a look at [all the programs], where are there similarities and where are there differences? Where am I making progress in meeting conditions and meeting milestones that we can leverage in other experiments? “At what point do I reach a decision point where I drop a program and double down on a program that I can accelerate?” ‘A lot of risk' According to the Congressional Research Service, the Navy's approach is to adapt a commercial design and put a bare-bones crew onboard while the service figures out how to move toward a fully unmanned system. “The Navy wants LUSVs to be low-cost, high-endurance, reconfigurable ships based on commercial ship designs, with ample capacity for carrying various modular payloads — particularly anti-surface warfare (ASuW) and strike payloads, meaning principally anti-ship and land-attack missiles,” the report read. But some very basic questions still need to be answered about how a large unmanned, or lightly manned, surface vessel might work, said Matthew Collette, an associate professor of naval architecture and marine engineering at the University of Michigan. “One of the biggest challenges people are realizing now is the machinery systems and keeping the systems operational for six months [over a deployment],” Collette said. “If you think about a ship today, there are daily machinery rounds and constant preventative maintenance. The Navy has its casualty reporting system, and the commercial world has something very similar. And over six months, that's a lot of work that's not getting done on the autonomous ship. “And there are two approaches to this that I've seen: One is you design it essentially like a space craft where you really limit what you do with the ship to make it as robust as possible and really accept that today that means less capability. We're just not going to be able to throw all the bells and whistles on that kind of a ship today. And for the smaller size ships, that's a good approach. “But the other approach is to try and monitor it and put in a lot of redundancy and figure out how we get this system reimagined so it can do a six-month deployment. And I can't really assess where we are with that at this point, I just don't have enough insight to know if that's six months away. Is it six years? Is it never reachable?” It's unclear that adapting an existing design will get the Navy where it needs to be, in large part because the Navy is going somewhere radically different from what the commercial offshore oil and gas or ferry industry is going, Collette said. “It's important to note that where the commercial industry is going is different from where the Navy wants to go,” Collette said. “In the commercial marine industry, you have a licensed captain ashore who is able to teleport to the ship whenever it needs human intervention. And we're really talking about short runs, like inter-European runs of six hours, 12 hours, and working their way out from there. “The Navy has really asked for a much harder, much more difficult problem. And you could see how something like the [extra-large unmanned underwater vehicle] as a technology trail that works toward this direction, but jumping toward something like large unmanned surface vessel, is a big, big step with a lot of risk.” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/08/17/in-developing-robot-warships-us-navy-wants-to-avoid-another-littoral-combat-ship/