ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy will christen its newest Independence-variant littoral combat ship (LCS), the future USS Mobile (LCS 26), during a 10 a.m. Central Time ceremony Saturday, Dec. 7, in Mobile, Alabama, the Defense Department said in a Dec. 4 release. 

U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, representing Alabama’s first district, will deliver the christening ceremony’s principal address. His wife, Rebecca Byrne, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of South Alabama, will serve as the ship’s sponsor. In a time-honored Navy tradition, Rebecca Byrne will christen the ship by breaking a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow. 

”USS Mobile is a marvel of engineering,” said Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly. ”She will extend our capabilities for any mission, from the middle of the ocean to the shallowest of waters, enhancing our ability to project power ashore and at sea. This Independence-class LCS will extend the maneuverability and lethality of our fleet to confront the many challenges of a complex world.” 

LCS is a highly maneuverable, lethal and adaptable ship designed to support focused mine countermeasures, antisubmarine warfare and surface warfare missions, according to the Navy. The ship integrates new technology and capability to affordably support current and future mission capability from deepwater to the littorals. Using an open architecture design, modular weapons, sensor systems, and a variety of manned and unmanned vehicles to gain, sustain and exploit littoral maritime supremacy, LCS provides U.S. joint force access to critical areas in multiple theaters. 

The LCS class consists of two variants, the Freedom variant and the Independence variant, designed and built by two industry teams. The Freedom variant team is led by Lockheed Martin in Marinette, Wisconsin (for the odd-numbered hulls). The Independence variant team is led by Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama (for LCS 6 and the subsequent even-numbered hulls). 

LCS 26 is the 13th Independence-variant LCS and the 26th in the class. It is the fifth ship named in honor of the port city on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. The first Mobile was a side wheel steamer that operated as a Confederate government operated blockade runner. It was captured by U.S. forces at New Orleans in April 1862, commissioned as Tennessee and later renamed Mobile. The second Mobile was a passenger liner operated by Hamburg Amerika Lines between Germany and the United States until the outbreak of World War I. It was taken over by the Allied Maritime Council and assigned to the United States after the Armistice and commissioned March 1919. The third Mobile (CL 63) was commissioned March 24, 1943. It participated in numerous campaigns in the Pacific during World War II and received 11 battle stars for her service by the time she was decommissioned May 1947. The fourth Mobile (LKA 115) was an amphibious cargo ship that served from September 1969 until decommissioning in February 1994.   

ARLINGTON, Va.  —The Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79), will be christened on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2019, during an 11 a.m. ceremony at Newport News, Virginia, the Defense Department said in a Dec. 4 release. 

John F. Kennedy is the second aircraft carrier of the Gerald R. Ford class, slated to replace USS Nimitz (CVN 68), when that ship is decommissioned. 

Former NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, also a retired major general of the U.S. Marine Corps, will deliver the ceremony’s keynote address. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, President Kennedy’s daughter, will serve as the ship’s sponsor and break a bottle of American sparkling wine against a plate welded to the hull. 

”USS John F. Kennedy will carry the legacy of its namesake and the power of our nation,” said Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly. ”The advanced technology and warfighting capabilities this aircraft carrier brings to our global challenges will strengthen our allies and partners, extend our reach against potential adversaries and further the global mission of our integrated naval force.” 

CVN 79 is the second aircraft carrier to honor President John F. Kennedy for a lifetime of service to the nation. The president wore the uniform of our nation as a Navy lieutenant during World War II and served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 to November 1963. 

John F. Kennedy, along with its embarked air wing and other strike group assets, will provide the core capabilities of forward presence, deterrence, sea control, power projection, maritime security and humanitarian assistance. 

Built by Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding division, the Gerald R. Ford class incorporates advances in technology, such as a new propulsion system, electric plant, Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG), machinery control, radars and integrated warfare systems. 

At 1,092 feet in length and 100,000 tons, CVN 79 incorporates more than 23 new technologies, comprising dramatic advances in propulsion, power generation, ordnance handling and aircraft launch systems.  These innovations will support a 33% higher sortie generation rate at a significant cost savings, when compared to Nimitz-class carriers. The Gerald R. Ford class also offers a significant reduction — approximately $4 billion per ship — in life-cycle operations and support costs compared to the earlier Nimitz class. 

The ceremony can be viewed on the Navy Live blog at http://navylive.dodlive.mil. 

WASHINGTON — The Navy’s officials in charge of shipbuilding noted a silver lining in the cloud of the service’s upcoming trough in the force level of submarines in the fleet: a chance to keep pace on the maintenance backlog while the dry dock infrastructure is built up to handle the following increase in submarines. 

Because of decisions made decades ago in the post-Cold War drawdown, the Navy is facing a decline in its submarine force in the mid-2020s as the Los Angeles-class attack submarines (SSNs) are retired. Until recently, the building of the Virginia-class SSNs, at one per year, has been too slow to replace the retiring Los Angeles class. The result is a deficit in the force level in the mid-2020s that risks being as low as 41 boats. 

However, the Navy is looking at extending the life of several Los Angeles-class SSNs to help alleviate the shortage. Also, production of the Virginia class has increased from one boat per year to two, which by the mid-2020s will starting to help raise the force level. 

On Dec. 4, the Navy awarded a five-year multiyear contract to submarine builders General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding to build nine Block V Virginia-class SSNs, two per year, with an option for a 10th. The two-per-year rate will enable the Navy gradually to increase its submarine force structure. 

The Navy is instituting its Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan to improve the capacity and capabilities of its shipyards, including the upgrade of its dry docks.      

“We’re going to take advantage as there’s going to be a little downturn as the submarine numbers go down,” said James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, testifying Dec. 4 on Capitol Hill before a joint hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittees on seapower and readiness and management. “That will give us the spot to recapitalize so that as the numbers grow back up we will have all the capacity we need.” 

“We’re going to build the dry docks along with the maintenance plan along with the growth in the fleet to make sure that we get the maintenance done on time, to get the dry docks done on time to support the maintenance we’re going to need down the road,” Vice Adm. Thomas J. Moore, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, said in testimony before the subcommittees.   

The Navy in recent years has departed from its usual practice of having nuclear submarine maintenance performed only in the Navy-owned shipyards to keep up with the maintenance backlog. 

“We have sent some submarines to our nuclear submarine shipbuilders to do maintenance availabilities,” Geurts said. “Quite frankly, the performance there hasn’t been exactly stellar, either. A lot of that is the same issues we have in the public [Navy-owned] yards. You get a trained workforce doing maintenance that’s different from doing construction. It’s taken us awhile to get the training and proficiency up there.  

“I foresee on the submarine side always wanting the capacity to do some of that work in the private construction yards because that give us some surge capacity …  and opportunities where we need to balance out workload.” 

A senior defense official reaffirmed the importance of the
nuclear deterrent triad and the need for new sea-based, low-yield nuclear
weapons to counter increased nuclear arsenals by Russia and China and Russia’s
professed doctrine of early use of low-yield weapons to prevent a U.S. nuclear
response.

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood noted the
findings by last year’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that “the United States
was reducing our reliance on nuclear weapons, reducing the size of our nuclear
stockpile, while at the same time Russia and China are moving in the opposition
direction, increasing their reliance on nuclear weapons … and increasing the
numbers and types of nuclear weapons.”

While the NPR endorsed the need to recapitalize the existing
nuclear triad of land-based Minuteman III and submarine-launched Trident D-5
ballistic missiles and nuclear-capable U.S. Air Force bombers, it also “recommended
pursue of some complementary capabilities,” Rood told a Defense Writers’
breakfast Dec. 4. President Trump then supported development of “a sea-launched
cruise missile and a submarine-launched ballistic missile” with low-yield
nuclear capability, he added.

“The ballistic missile is more advanced, utilizing the
existing submarine-launched ballistic missile, the D-5, with a modified warhead
for low yield. That program, we think, is going well. But for the [ship-launched]
cruise missile, we are not as advanced,” and were still going through an
analysis of alternatives, Rood said.

Rood said the need for the new low-yield weapons came from
intelligence reports of Russian emphasis on use of nuclear weapons earlier in a
conflict, “and the mistaken belief that they have the ability to use a
low-yield nuclear weapon earlier in the conflict in a way to deter response.”
He cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s public statements advocating the
early use of low-yield nuclear weapons “as a way of deterring an adversary.”

“We saw the need of aggressive action to restore deterrence,
which had gotten weaker than we would like … with these supplemental
capabilities” that would show “we had a variety of capabilities that were more
survivable than the existing low-yield weapons” that are aircraft delivered.
“We see this as very stabilizing” and in no way supporting the concept of early
use of low-yield nuclear weapons, Rood said, countering the warnings from
arms-control advocates.

Rood also supported the administration’s withdrawal from the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Missile Treaty because Russia fielded land-based
missiles with a range beyond the INF limits, and the subsequent U.S. work to
develop similar weapons. He said there has been some testing of a possible
medium-range cruise missile but none for a ballistic missile. He avoided
answering a question about whether any European ally has indicated willingness
to host such a weapon by saying there had been no decision yet on developing
any specific system.       

And he restated the administration’s adamant position that
Turkey’s possession of the Russian-built S-400 air- and missile-defense system
“could never be compatible” with NATO, but added that Turkey remains an ally
and member of the alliance. He did not answer a question of what Turkey could
do to regain access to the F-35 program, for which it had been a component
producer and intended buyer.

PHILADELPHIA — Members of Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay, Coast Guard Maritime Safety and Security Team New York, Customs and Border Protection, and multiple state and local police agencies increased maritime operations to deter illegal activity within the ports of Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware, over the past three weeks, the Coast Guard 5^th District said in a Dec. 3 release. 

These combined joint agency efforts were focused on a period of heavy import and export before the holidays, accounting for more than $1.2 billion of commerce throughout the Delaware Bay watershed. 

During this time period, the Coast Guard and partner agencies conducted more than 470 hours of extensive joint operations that included the inspection of 235 vehicles before export, screening 150 ferry passengers and the pier side examination of 62 shipping containers. 

“The Delaware River contributes more than $77 billion dollars in economic value each year,” said Capt. Scott Anderson, Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay Commander and Captain of the Port. “These types of joint operations help unify law enforcement efforts in the port to disrupt, detect and deter illegal activities by sharing unique capabilities and resources between agencies.” 

In March 2019, an interagency task force seized 537 kilograms of contraband from a commercial vessel at the port of Philadelphia and in June 2019, nearly 20 tons of cocaine was seized, with an estimated street value of $1.3 billion. 

The Delaware River port facilities can receive more than 3,000 deep draft vessels each year. There are more than 70 private and public facilities capable of servicing bulk, break bulk and containerized cargos. 

Philadelphia is the largest North American port for the importing of paper, meat, cocoa beans and fruit. The Delaware River is also the largest energy port on the East Coast. 

BURLINGTON, Mass. — BAE Systems has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop software that will enable semi-autonomous multi-domain mission planning, the company said in a Dec. 3 release. The technology will be designed for military operators to leverage battlespace resources from across various domains, such as space, air, land and sea, for more effective, efficient missions, according to the company.  

Military operators currently use manual processes to assess availability and coordinate use of sensors, communications, weapons and other assets across domains. DARPA’s Adapting Cross-Domain Kill-Webs (ACK) program will seek to help operators adapt to dynamic situations with software technology that automatically identifies the best options. In response, BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research and development organization, along with teammate Carnegie Mellon University, will create software called Multi-domain Adaptive Request Service (MARS).  

MARS aims to help operators make informed decisions by automatically identifying available capabilities across domains, and then rapidly assessing the costs and benefits to use those capabilities when adjusting mission tasks. The software also includes a visual interface that will allow the exploration of available asset options, helping operators arrive at the best course of action to deliver the desired effect on targets.  

“Multi-domain mission planning is complex because it involves a tremendous amount of distributed variables such as domains, systems, resources, and manned and unmanned platforms,” said Chris Eisenbies, product line director of the Autonomy, Controls and Estimation group at BAE Systems. “Our hope is that MARS will provide warfighters with the ability to automatically leverage the resources they need and quickly determine the most effective way to accomplish their mission no matter what type of battlespace they are operating in.” 

MARS builds on BAE Systems’ robust autonomy portfolio and 20-year history pioneering autonomy technology. Work on the ACK program, valued at $3.1 million, is being performed at the company’s facilities in Burlington, Massachusetts, and Arlington, Virginia. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy awarded it largest shipbuilding contract ever with an order for nine Block V Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), with an option for a 10th SSN, Navy officials said in a Dec. 2 media roundtable in the Pentagon. The $22.2 billion contract to General Dynamics Electric Boat (EB), teamed with Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) as a major subcontractor to EB, will mean that the shipbuilders will soon be building three submarines per year — including one Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine — and will add thousands of new jobs to meet the demand.  

The nine Block V boats will be funded over five years through the 2019–2023 budgets, beginning with SSN 802, the only boat in the block that will be built without a Virginia Payload Module (VPM), a hull extension that adds four payload tubes for up to 28 more Tomahawk cruise missiles (for a total of 40, including the bow tubes) or other future payloads, including special operations forces equipment. The VPM-equipped Block V boats will enable the Navy eventually to retire the four Ohio-class guided-missile submarines. 

The contract allows approximately $455 million for the long-lead purchase of material and equipment for the option of a 10th Block V boat, enabling the Navy to order the material at economic order quantities and preserve the supplier industrial base. If the option is exercised, the 10^th boat would cost an additional $1.9 billion, raising the contract value to a total of $241 billion. 

Government-furnished equipment, such as nuclear reactors and propulsion machinery, will add $13 billion to the program, said James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, speaking to reporters at the roundtable. 

Geurts said the multi-year aspect of the contract will garner savings of a minimum of 7% ($1.8 billion) and potentially 17% ($4.4 billion) is the planned delivery schedule is sustained. 

“Block V Virginias and Virginia Payload Module are a generational leap in submarine capability for the Navy. These design changes will enable the fleet to maintain our nation’s undersea dominance.”

Rear Adm. David Goggins, the Navy’s program executive officer for Submarines

The first Block V boats, SSN 802, are scheduled for a 70-month construction period. The second and third boats — SSNs 803 and 804, the first subs with the VPM — are under a 74-month construction schedule. Subsequent boats are planned for 72-month construction timelines. Delivery of SSN 802 is scheduled for 2025, with the subsequent boats following through 2029. 

Rear Adm. David Goggins, the Navy’s program executive officer for Submarines, also speaking at the roundtable, said the Navy has delivered 18 Virginia-class SSNs, with all 10 Block IV boats under construction, and that the program has shortened the total span of the construction program by 3.5 years. He said the last Block IV boat, SSN 801, will be completed in 60 months. 

“Over the life of the Virginia program, shipbuilders have driven delivery timelines from 88 months in Block I to a current average rate of 68 months, while doubling the build rate of submarines to two ships per year and consistently increasing ship capability,” EB said in a Dec. 2 release.   

Goggins praised the increasing quality of production of the Virginia SSNs, noting that the newest, the future USS Delaware, scored a 0.96 on its review by the Bureau of Inspection and Survey. 

EB and NNS have a teaming arrangement whereby each builder produces certain sections of the submarines and alternate as final assembly and delivery yards for the Virginia class. Because EB will be the delivery builder for the upcoming Columbia class, NNS will be the delivery yard for six of the nine or 10 Block V SSNs, and EB will deliver three, plus one more, the 10th, if the option is exercised.  

Kevin Graney, president of Electric Boat, also speaking at the roundtable, said that EB has invested $1.7 billion in new facilities in Connecticut and Rhode Island, including a 750,000-square-foot construction hall for the Virginia Payload Modules. He said EB has hired 15,000 new workers and expects to hire 13,000 more by 2027 for the two submarine programs. 

Jennifer Boykin, president of Newport News Shipbuilding, said that the parent company, Huntington Ingalls, has hired 10,000 workers and expects to hire 1,500 more. Huntington Ingalls has invested more than $1 billion in new facilities, more than half to the NNS yards.    

Geurts praised the multi-year contract as one that will ensure stability for the shipyard and their work force, noting that the contract “was built for stability,” a factor that will enable shipyard workers “to know their future” and for shipyards to “retain high-caliber talent.” 

He also noted that “the greatest risk to Columbia was an unstable Virginia program.” 

“Block V Virginias and Virginia Payload Module are a generational leap in submarine capability for the Navy,” Goggins said in a Dec. 2 release. “These design changes will enable the fleet to maintain our nation’s undersea dominance.” 

“The Block V contract balances the right mix of undersea quantity and capability with a profile that continues to stabilize the industrial base. This balance and stability will enable the success of submarine acquisitions across the enterprise,” said Virginia-class Program Manager Capt. Christopher Hanson. “Our warfighters, the Navy and the nation will benefit greatly from the new capabilities that the Block V submarines will bring to the fleet.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Coast Guard is seeking volunteers to help the U.K. Royal Navy train its engineering Sailors on board the Royal Navy’s ships. 

In a Nov. 27 message from Coast Guard headquarters, the service has solicited 11 personnel to fill engineering billets on Royal Navy ships and one other person — a yeoman, to provide shore-based administrative support for the 11 engineers. The 11 engineering personnel requested include three chief or first-class electrician’s mates, two chief or first-class machinery technicians, five first-class machinery technicians, and one damage controlman. 

The message said the Coast Guardsmen would be assigned “for a three-year tour with the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy (UKRN), on Royal Navy vessels. The UKRN has requested USCG support to help raise the level of engineering proficiency and specialty knowledge in the fleet.” 

Upon arrival in the United Kingdom, the Coast Guardsmen “would complete three months of orientation and training followed by sea assignments. There will only be one USCG member attached to each UKRN ship,” the message said. 

The Coast Guard has provided such personnel for Royal Navy ships in previous years.  

WILMINGTON, N.C. — The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Diligence returned to Wilmington, North Carolina, Nov. 28 following a 60-day patrol in the Caribbean, the Coast Guard 5th District said in a release of the same date.  

The Diligence performed counter-drug, search-and-rescue and alien migrant interdiction operations in support of Coast Guard District Seven and Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) South. 

While working with Coast Guard Sector San Juan, Puerto Rico, Diligence seized more than 300 kilograms of cocaine, worth more than $9 million, and was responsible for the disruption of more than 800 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $25 million. The operation also led to the apprehension of two drug smugglers, who were turned over to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration authorities in St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands for prosecution. Cutter Diligence also helped facilitate the transfer of 5,000 kilograms of cocaine and 11 drug smugglers interdicted by other Coast Guard cutters to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for prosecution. 

Diligence also interdicted three illegal and unsafe migrant smuggling vessels in the Mona Pass between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and repatriated 76 of the migrants to the Dominican Republic Navy and turned over four migrants suspected to be in violation of U.S. immigration laws to U.S. Customs authorities in Puerto Rico.  

In early November, Diligence found a Haitian vessel disabled and adrift off the north coast of Haiti. Diligence’s Rescue and Assistance team was deployed and determined the vessel to be inoperable. Diligence took the vessel in tow and delivered the vessel and 13 passengers to a safe harbor on the north coast of Haiti.  

Later that month, Diligence assisted the Royal Bahamian Police and Defense Forces in rescuing 86 Haitian migrants stranded on a desolate beach on Great Inagua island with no food or water after their vessel had run aground. Diligence brought all 86 persons aboard the cutter, and safely delivered them to Bahamian Customs authorities in Matthew Town, Great Inagua. 

“Diligence had a remarkably busy and productive patrol,” said Cmdr. Luke M. Slivinski, Diligence’s commanding officer. “Our success in carrying out numerous challenging operations in an unforgiving maritime environment across a range of Coast Guard missions was a testament to the professionalism, hard work, and determination of the crew.” 

During the patrol, Diligence embarked an aviation detachment from Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen, Puerto Rico, which assisted in the detection and deterrence of illegal maritime activity and increasing the visibility of the U.S. Coast Guard in the Caribbean. Diligence constantly trained and worked with the aviation detachment to ensure seamless integration and operational proficiency. 

Fifty-four-year-old Coast Guard Cutter Diligence is a 210-foot medium-endurance cutter homeported in Wilmington, with a crew of approximately 80. Diligence’s primary missions consist of counter drug, migrant interdiction, enforcing federal fishery laws, and search and rescue in support of Coast Guard operations throughout the Western Hemisphere. 

The
growing military capabilities and escalating belligerence of China, Russia and
Iran are increasing the possibility that the U.S. Navy’s unarmed and
thin-skinned support and supply ships — and even U.S. commercial cargo vessels
— could face hostile action for the first time since World War II.

The potential that these ships and their crews of civilian mariners could be exposed to deadly weapons was strengthened when the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps said he might need these and other unconventional vessels to augment or replace traditional amphibious warships to transport and sustain his Marines during expeditionary operations in heavily contested littoral waters.

Check out the digital edition of December’s Seapower magazine here.

This
emerging danger and the need for a broader concept of expeditionary vessels was
bluntly stated by Gen. David H. Berger in his “Commandant’s Planning Guidance,”
released July 17, in which he said:

“Our
nation’s ability to project power and influence beyond its shores is
increasingly challenged by long-range precision fires; expanding air, surface
and subsurface threats; and the continued degradation of our amphibious and
auxiliary ship readiness. The ability to project and maneuver from strategic
distances will likely be detected and contested from the point of embarkation
during a major contingency. Our naval expeditionary forces must possess a
variety of deployment options, including L-class and E-class ships, but also
increasingly look to other available options such as unmanned platforms, stern
landing vessels, other ocean-going connectors, and smaller more lethal and more
risk-worthy platforms. We must continue to seek the affordable and plentiful at
the expense of the exquisite and few when conceiving of the future amphibious
portion of our fleet.”

L-class
ships are the traditional amphibious platforms, such as amphibious assault
ships (LHA) and amphibious transport docks (LPD), which are built to military
standards and crewed by uniformed Sailors. E-class ships are newer types of
auxiliary or support vessels, such as the expeditionary transport dock (ESD) ships
and expeditionary fast transports (EPF), which are operated by the Military
Sealift Command (MSC), are built to commercial classification and crewed mainly
by civilian mariners.

Berger Suggests More ‘Black-Bottom’ Ships

In his guidance, Berger also suggests using
“commercially available ships and craft that are smaller and less expensive”
and “a wider array of smaller ‘black-bottom’ ships” that “might supplement the
maritime preposition and amphibious fleets.” Black-bottom ships usually refer
to commercial vessels.

In
March, Dakota Wood, a retired Marine officer and
defense analyst at The Heritage Foundation, released the Marine Corps edition
of the foundation’s “Rebuilding America’s Military” series. In that report,
Wood said, “The supporting amphibious fleet is limited to a small number of
ships and only a portion of those would be available for an operation in one
part of the world.” He recommended the naval services “redefine amphibious
shipping and support capability requirements to account for combat operations
in a contested littoral environment in support of a naval campaign.” The
Marines, Wood said, “must work with the Navy to develop smaller, lower cost
ships that are better suited to the type of dispersed operational posture
implied by LOCE [Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment],” which is a
new Marine concept for expeditionary operations.

Earlier this year, the Center of
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments released a detailed report focused on the
maritime logistic forces, calling them “inadequate to support” the national
defense strategy and “major military operations against China or Russia.” Echoing
Berger’s views, CSBA said the logistic fleet was too small and had the wrong
types of ships to transport and sustain U.S. forces in waters defended by enemy
missiles, submarines and aircraft. Failing to remedy those shortcomings, the
report said, “could cause the United States to lose a war and fail its allies
and partners in their hour of need.”

Fortunately,
MSC and other defense organizations have recognized this growing danger and are
taking steps to better prepare those ships and crews for possibly going into
harm’s way. And the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have joined in developing an
Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment for next year that could address
Berger’s need for a larger and more diverse expeditionary support fleet and the
associated risk to the logistical and sealift ships if they have to operate in
contested waters.

The
threat to those support forces was recognized in 2017 by the MSC commander at
the time, Rear Adm. Dee Mewbourne, who told Seapower, “The debate over
whether we’re in contested waters is over. We are sailing in contested waters,”
and the threat could get worse. With the “adversaries’ rapid improvements” in
military capabilities while his command has remained relatively static, “the
capability of an adversary will exceed our capability. We need to bend the
curve” and to change directions to be able “to operate in all the changing
environments from peace to full combat.”

Mewbourne
said what worried him was the Navy’s slow response to the German submarine
threat during the World War II cost America at least 600 merchant ships and
more than 1,000 mariners. And in the Pacific, the Navy had to fight for sea
control to be able to support the campaign against Japan. Now he sees growing
threats from China’s rapidly improving military capabilities, a resurgent Russia
and even from violent extremists in the Middle East, indicated by missile
attacks on unarmed ships.

In
response, Mewbourne said, MSC established a training division “to prepare our
mariners to sail in contested water,” to ensure they are aware that the decades
of uncontested seas are gone, and they know how to avoid enemy detection and to
survive if attacked. He is now deputy commander of the U.S. Transportation
Command (TRANSCOM), which oversees MSC and the other logistical ships operated
by the Maritime Administration (MARAD), led by retired Rear Adm. Mark Buzby,
who strongly endorsed CSBA’s findings.

TACAD
Trains Mariners to Operate in Contested Waters

In
2017, MSC also created the Tactical Advisor (TACAD) program, which uses Navy
Reserve officers, who are licensed mariners in their civilian jobs, to provide
training and guidance to the officers of MSC vessels on how to operate in a
hostile environment. That new capability was tested during a short-notice “turbo
activation” of 33 MSC and MARAD ships in September, in which five sealift
vessels conducted convoy operations against simulated enemy threats, with the
support of TACAD officers.

“When
our ships are sailing in a contested environment, the threats they could face
are evolving all the time,” said Navy Capt. Hans Lynch, MSC’s Atlantic
Commodore and who directed the East Coast activation. “The biggest threats we
face include hostile submarines and mines, and these are the threats we were
training for during the turbo activation.” They trained the crews to “sail
their ships as quietly as possible” to prevent detection of their
electromagnetic signatures “because our ships also could face anti-ship
ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, fighter aircraft and enemy bombers,” Lynch
said in a TRANSCOM release.

Each
of those MSC ships sailed with a TACAD, who in addition to providing training
served as liaison between the Navy and the civilian crews. “The TACAD program
is a relatively new concept but is based on years of experience and past
lessons learned,” said Cmdr. Vincent D’Eusanio, the TACAD on one of the convoy
ships and MSC’s TACAD program manager. “During World War II, we lost lots of
merchant ships and mariners. Some of this was a result of not knowing how to
sail a merchant ship in a hostile environment. When the Navy began to train
mariners to counter threats, like the German U-boats, our losses dwindled.”

“We
really need to continue to apply energy to the TACAD program,” Lynch said. “I
think we need to expand what they are being exposed to” beyond the MSC sealift
fleet “to other platforms and the combatant ships and aircraft to better
understand what they bring to the table and broaden their experience.”

The
Navy announced Oct. 31 that Marines and Sailors from the Fleet Anti-Terrorist
Security Team Central Command embarked on the MSC chartered commercial vessel
Arc Liberty from Oct. 21 to Oct. 24 during a transit of the Strait of Hormuz,
where Iran has seized two commercial ships and shot down a Navy RQ-4 Triton
unmanned aircraft.

Rear
Adm. Michael A. Wettlaufer, the current MSC commander, said he did not think
the threat to his ships was anything new. “It was always a possibility that our
ships could go into harm’s way.” What may be new “is the expanded
acknowledgement of ‘Great Power Competition’ — sort of noncombat at this time
but potentially some level of conflict,” Wettlaufer said in an interview with Seapower.

“What
are we doing? We’re training like crazy, because that’s what we do. We’re the
military,” he said.

Because
most of the military’s maritime logistics and support ships are leased or on
contract with commercial firms or are in MARAD’s reserve fleet, and MSC does
not get access to them until they are activated, Wettlaufer said, “We rely on
some of that training to occur at the [mariners] union level.” MSC provides an
unclassified basic operation course and has started an advanced course for
senior mariners.

“At
the MSC level, our own sealift folks have the same process. And, with the MSC
force that is operating all the time … in a continuing contested environment — physical, kinetic, information and cyber — our folks are
training all the time,” he said.

Turbo
Activation ‘Great for the Mariners’

Wettlaufer
said the convoy operation during the turbo activation was “great for the
mariners because they don’t often get a change to steam in formation. … Those
are skill sets that need to be mastered.” The TACADs assigned to those ships
brought Navy communications equipment on board, which is necessary because “you
can’t do anything if you can’t communicate as the Navy and the joint force
needs us to do.”

For
the activation, the admiral said he deployed the MSC commodores for the
Atlantic and Pacific, who are active Navy captains on his staff. And his flag
aide at Norfolk headquarters is a strategic sealift officer (SSO), a licensed
mariner who helps him understand how the commercial fleets work. MSC has more
than 2,000 TACADs and SSOs it can deploy to advise and assist civilian mariners
during missions. They are mainly Navy Reserve officers and in some cases are graduates
of one of the federally supported maritime academies who have a reserve
commitment, which they fulfill when activated as TACADs.

Wettlaufer noted that after the Cold War ended “the maritime academies stopped teaching some of the military things that we used to teach … and that created a hole in knowledge. That’s one of the reasons the TACAD program is there, to try to bridge that gap on what the Navy might need and how we operate between a master and the captain of a Navy ship.

“We are looking at a holistic approach to the problem. But the real point here is warfighting effectiveness. That is our job. We support the warfighter. We support the joint force, and if we can’t do that, then we’re not contributing to warfighting and effectiveness.”