October 14, 2020 | International, Naval
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy is looking to build a new generation of destroyers from a clean-sheet design, following the model of one of its most successful ship classes, the Arleigh Burke-class DDG, the service's top officer said Tuesday.
The idea, colloquially referred to in-house as DDG Next, is to build a new hull smaller than the nearly 16,000-ton Zumwalt-class destroyer but still big enough to accommodate a larger missile magazine, Adm. Michael Gilday told a virtual audience at Defense One's State of the Navy event.
“I don't want to build a monstrosity. But I need deeper magazines on ships than I have right now,” the chief of naval operations said. “I'm limited with respect to DDG Flight IIIs in terms of what additional stuff we could put on those ships. ... So the idea is to come up with the next destroyer, and that would be a new hull. The idea would be to put existing technologies on that hull and update and modernize those capabilities over time.”
The Navy is supposed to start buying the new ship in 2025, according to the service's 2020 30-year shipbuilding plan, though it's unclear how its forthcoming force structure assessment will affect those plans. In his recent speech on the Defense Department's plan for a 500-plus ship Navy, Defense Secretary Mark Esper made no mention of the future large surface combatant.
To avoid another costly failure, such as the canceled next-generation cruiser or severely truncated DDG-1000 program, the service is harkening back to its successful Arleigh Burke program, the mainstay of the Navy's surface combatant program for the past 30 years, Gilday said. Much like on the forthcoming Constellation-class frigates, the service plans to install fielded systems on the new ship and upgrade them over time.
“So think DDG-51 (that's exactly what we did): We had a new hull but we put Aegis on it,” Gilday said. “We put known systems that were reliable and were already fielded out in the fleet. That's kind of the idea. I call it DDG Next to kind of right-size it. Smaller than a Zumwalt but packing some heat nonetheless.”
The Navy estimates it would need $22 billion annually in constant year 2019 dollars to execute its old shipbuilding plan, though the Congressional Budget Office put the estimate more than 30 percent higher. A major driver in the difference between the CBO and Navy estimate was the cost of a future large surface combatant, according the Congressional Research Service.
The emergence of hypersonic missiles has been a driving factor in the Navy's desire to field a new large surface combatant since such weapons wont fit in the current vertical launch system cells on Burke-class destroyers and existing cruisers. They will, however, fit in the Virginia Payload Module being built into the Block V Virginia submarines awarded last year.
April 3, 2023 | International, Other Defence
"For the first time in the recent past US and allied policymakers and industry appear truly aligned on the need to look beyond established domestic supply chains to cross-border sourcing and collaboration," writes Aleksandar Jovovic of Oliver Wyman.
July 4, 2019 | International, Naval
MacGregor has received a contract from Gulf Island Shipyards to supply deck machinery equipment for two new US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) towing, salvage and rescue ships (T-ATS). Gulf Island Shipyards received a contract in May this year to build two additional T-ATS-class vessels for the US Navy. The navy exercised the first two options for the new ships under a previous contract awarded to Gulf Island Shipyards. The original contract includes a total of seven options for additional vessels. The company is building the two new T-ATS-class vessels at its facility in Houma, Louisiana, US. MacGregor will deliver the packages of deck machinery under the latest orders next year. The package includes a main towing and traction winch, in addition to an offshore crane, Triplex shark jaws, pop-up pins, and a stern roller. The company is also required to provide crew training, as well as integrated logistics support. With a combined value of around €8m, the orders come after MacGregor won the first contract in the fourth quarter of last year. MacGregor Advanced Offshore Solutions vice-president Høye Høyesen said: “We are very pleased that MacGregor has again been selected to supply deck machinery equipment for the two T-ATS class vessels, which further demonstrates Gulf Island Shipyards and US Navy confidence in MacGregor's solutions and services.” The company has the potential to win further orders if the navy chooses to exercise the option for a further five vessels. The new class of vessels are expected to replace the existing T-ATF 166 and T-ARS 50 class of ships. The lead vessel of the T-ATS-class will be named USNS Navajo and designated T-ATS 6, while each additional ship will be named after Native Americans or Native American tribes. Last month, the US Navy announced that the second vessel in this class will be named to honour the Cherokee Nation. The service will deploy these vessels for open-ocean towing, supporting salvage operations and submarine rescue missions worldwide. https://www.naval-technology.com/news/macgregor-to-supply-deck-machinery-for-two-t-ats-vessels/
May 4, 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Adam Stone The arm of the U.S. Marine Corps charged with tackling emerging threats has inked a deal that it says will allow it to do more realistic testing. “You want a sparring partner who reflects your adversary's capabilities,” said Lt. Col. Dan Schmidt, head of the field testing branch at the USMC Warfighting Lab. Enter MD5, the National Security Technology Accelerator. The Marine lab will identify challenges, develop warfighting concepts and design wargames and experiments. MD5 also will provide a platform upon which to accelerate these evolving concepts. Together the partners will support an Adaptive Threat Force Cadre, specially trained individuals who can share with their cohorts new and evolving response methodologies in the face of a wide range of threats. While the Marine lab will bring a military sensibility to the table, MD5 offers a private-sector approach. It is represented in this collaboration by Quantico, Va. based training-solutions contractor Guard Unit. “MD5 is designed to bring a commercial mindset to help solve problems in DoD,” said Zenovy Wowczuk, chairman of Guard Unit. “We bring technologists and other folks who haven't been standardized with DoD doctrine. They are private sector free thinkers, so they reflect the future adversary who also hasn't been indoctrinated into that mindset.” Schmidt laid out a number of specific warfighting challenges the partners seek to address. The partnership aims to tackle pervasive challenges in the information environment, issues around electronic warfare, cyber security, and command and control. The Marines want to look at technological fixes as well as organizational changes that could make the force more responsive to these threats. “How do we dominate and operate effectively with decentralized execution in a contested information environment?” Schmidt said. “Maybe if we just change a little bit of how we train and organize, we can dramatically impact the way we execute. We have a whole year of experiments lined up to flesh that out.” They also plan to look at hybrid logistics in support of future fighters. “We may have to spread out to greater distances with smaller units. Then you have to move blood plasma to the point of injury in a contested environment with contested networks. Now you are facing a whole new set of problems,” he said. Hybrid logistics could resolve some of these issues by combining the planning skills of human experts with artificial intelligence, robotics and rich data tracking. Another area of interest involves dense urban operations, an emerging combat scenario that brings my it myriad new concerns and challenges. “We know that the Marine Corps will fight expeditionary wars in mega-cities and we are in the process of discovering the implications of that,” Schmidt said. This exploration will likely dig deep into issues of networking, spectra and cyber strategy. “You have tunnels and skyscrapers and all this electromagnetic density,” Schmidt said. “We are in the early stages of developing an urban campaign plan, which has to include a range of emerging technologies. Our ground combat element, our logistics, our electronic environment ― all will play into how we fight in this environment.” MD5's close ties to industry could prove beneficial here. “We could pull in subject matter experts who have done city planning, who understand where the weak points are, and we could mount that data against the Marine Corps force to see how they react,” Wowczuk said. “We could pull from [off-the-shelf] technology to make it very difficult for the Marine Corps to do their job.” Early collaborations between the Marine and MD5 already have proven out the powerful potential of a bringing commercial-side view to the fight. In one experiment, a mock adversary was able to cull social media to gather critical intelligence on Marine activities. “We weren't used to that paradigm, where there is this rich environment of people on Snapchat taking pictures of us. They showed us just how easy it is to gather information, and from there we can devise new ways to protect some of our intelligence interests,” Schmidt said. “We would not have seen that without MD5. This is all about having an alternative perspective.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2018/05/03/the-sparring-partner-who-roughs-up-marines-with-snapchat/