SEATTLE, Wash. — Vigor has been awarded a $255 million contract for modernization of two Ticonderoga cruisers, USS Chosin and USS Cape St. George, according to a company release. 

The contract includes options, which if exercised would bring the cumulative value of the deal to $303.6 million. 

Work will include a combination of maintenance, modernization and repair. The modernizations will keep these ships combat effective to support fleet operations for years to come. 

Work will be performed at Vigor’s Harbor Island facility in Seattle, growing the ship repair workforce at the facility to approximately 650 employees. 

“Ship repair and service life extension in the defense sector has been a growth area for Vigor’s Pacific Northwest shipyards,” said Adam Beck, Vigor’s executive vice president of ship repair. 

“This contract award allows us to maintain and build upon the quality, skilled workforce so necessary to maintain the mission readiness of the U.S. Naval Fleet. We are honored to have that opportunity and we are thrilled for the job growth it represents.”  

Other recent work for Vigor’s Navy program includes the USS Sampson, the USS Coronado and the USS Manchester. Work on the cruisers is expected to begin in December and be completed by November 2021. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has ordered nine E-2D Advanced Hawkeye from Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. for the government of Japan.  

According to a Sept. 26 Defense Department contract announcement, Naval Air Systems Command awarded to Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. a $1.36 billion firm fixed-price contract modification for the production and delivery of the nine E-2Ds. The contract was awarded under Foreign Military Sales. 

Earlier, in May 2019, Northrop Grumman delivered the first of four E-2Ds ordered under a 2014 contract.  

The E-2Ds will equip the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force, which currently operates the older E-2C version.  

The E-2D features the Lockheed Martin APY-9 radar with a two-generation leap in capability and upgraded aircraft systems that improve supportability and increase readiness. Another notable upgrade is the glass cockpit. The three 17-inch liquid crystal display panels enable either the pilot or co-pilot to become a fourth tactical operator — when not actively engaged in flying the aircraft — to give the crew more flexibility in performing its diverse missions.

BOSTON — The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca returned home to Boston on Sept. 27 after a 93-day patrol in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the Coast Guard 1st District said in a release. 

Seneca intercepted three drug smuggling vessels transporting cocaine from South America that were bound for the United States. The interdictions during this patrol resulted in the apprehension of nine suspected narcotics traffickers and more than 12,000 pounds of cocaine with a street value of nearly $174 million dollars. 

“Counter-drug operations are a vital component to the Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security’s mission and our national security,” said Cmdr. John Christensen, commanding officer of the Seneca. “I am exceptionally proud of this crew who, over the course of the last three months, rose above the challenges of conducting operations at sea, persevered through many personal sacrifices and showed an unwavering dedication to serving our nation.” 

Throughout the patrol, Seneca rescued 22 Haitian Migrants, conducted joint exercises with the Honduran navy, transited the Panama Canal and spent several months combating illicit narcotics smuggling across the eastern Pacific with a deployed armed Coast Guard helicopter team from Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron Jacksonville. 

These interdictions were in support of Operation Martillo, a regional initiative targeting illicit trafficking that threatens security and prosperity at the national, regional and international levels. 

HONOLULU — The U.S. Coast Guard commissioned the newest Hawaii-based 154-foot fast response cutter (FRC) in Honolulu on Sept. 26, according to a Coast Guard 14th District release. 

“There is no greater reflection of the commandant’s strategic vision and commitment than the fact that as we commission the William Hart today, it will be the fifth Coast Guard cutter commissioned in the last two years here at Base Honolulu that will operate in the heart of Oceania,” said Rear Adm. Kevin Lunday, commander of the 14th District. 

“There is no question that by our actions and not our words alone, the Coast Guard is here and committed along with the rest of the United States in the Pacific.”  

The Coast Guard Cutter William Hart (WPC 1134) is the third Sentinel-Class FRC to be homeported at Coast Guard Base Honolulu. While these ships’ crews call Honolulu home, they will operate throughout the 14th Coast Guard District, which covers more than 14 million square miles of land and sea, with units in Hawaii, American Samoa, Saipan, Guam, Singapore and Japan. 

The FRCs are some of the newest Coast Guard vessels to come online, replacing the aging Island-Class patrol boat fleet. The FRCs represent the Coast Guard’s commitment to modernizing service assets to address the increasingly complex global maritime transportation system. 

William Hart “is a remarkable ship with increased seakeeping, endurance, range, combat capability, telecommunications, everything about this is a game-changer for the Coast Guard,” Lunday said. 

FRCs feature advanced systems as well as over-the-horizon response boat deployment capability and improved habitability for the crew. The ships can accommodate a team of 24, reach speeds of 28 knots with a range of 2,500 nautical miles and patrol up to five days. 

Recently, FRCs already stationed in Honolulu participated in longer over-the-horizon voyages to the Republic of the Marshall Islands and Samoa, displaying the potential of these cutters and their importance to the Coast Guard’s overall Pacific strategy and regional partnerships. 

The crew took delivery of the William Hart, which was built by Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport, Louisiana, in Key West, Florida, and arrived in Honolulu on Aug. 17. Three more FRCs are scheduled to be homeported in Guam, increasing the 14th Coast Guard District’s total number of the cutters to six. Servicewide, the Coast Guard is acquiring 56 FRCs to replace the 110-foot Island-class patrol boats. 

William C. Hart, the cutter’s namesake, was a Gold Lifesaving Medal recipient who rescued a crewmember of the tug Thomas Tracy. 

In November 1926, Hart dove into the water in a 70-mph gale off Absecon, New Jersey, to save the mariner, who went overboard in the storm. Throughout the 1930s, Hart served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before returning to the Coast Guard in 1939, advancing to the rank of chief petty officer and serving as a boatswain’s mate.

When the United States entered World War II, he was commissioned as a lieutenant junior grade and saw action in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. He served as commanding officer and executive officer for several ships before retiring from the Coast Guard as a lieutenant commander in 1950.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Raytheon has demonstrated the ability to detect and identify a mine-like object and position an unmanned underwater vehicle to be in position to neutralize it, a company official said on Sept. 26. 

The Aug. 29 “detect to engage” demonstration was one event in the Navy’s ANTX (Advanced Naval Technology Exercise) 2019 held at Newport, Rhode Island. 

“We view it as a tremendous success,” Andy Wilde, director of strategy and business development for Raytheon Undersea, said in an interview with Seapower. He said it was a “great example of the great work the Navy and industry can do when we co-invest in critically important projects like this to solve very, very difficult problems.”  

Wilde cited the success as an example of a “high-velocity outcome” of a “best-of-breed” technology being rapidly prototyped and tested and able to be fielded very quickly, a process championed by former Chief of Naval Operations John M. Richardson. 

Raytheon’s AQS-20C towed sonar was pulled through the water by a surplus riverine craft acting as a surrogate for the Textron-built MCM unmanned surface vehicle (MCMUSV) that will be a component of the MCM mission package for the littoral combat ship (LCS). 

Under the concept, an MCMUSV is launched from an LCS and deploys the AQS-20C. Once a possible sea mine is detected by the AQS-20C’s synthetic aperture sonar, a Barracuda expendable semi-autonomous mine neutralization unmanned undersea vehicle is — on the same pass — launched into the water from a A-size sonobuoylauncher on the MCMUSV. 

The Barracuda deploys a float that serves as an RF datalink to the CUSV and an acoustic data link to the Barracuda. The tactical mission plan is downloaded from the LCS to the Barracuda via the CUSV. The Barracuda starts a search track and, once it acquires a mine, it maintains position at the mine. The operator on the LCS confirms the object is a mine and commands the Barracuda to detonate the mine with a charge. The MCMUSV would then continue its mission on its planned track. 

During the demonstration, the towed AQS-20C detected a mine-like object moored in Narragansett Bay. The surface craft launched a Nemo, the prototype of the Barracuda developed with the Office of Naval Research. The Nemo located the mine-like object and hovered with it, keeping station. Having transmitted imagery of the mine-like object to the control station, the Barracuda was commanded to touch the mine-like object to simulate firing a shaped charge, Wilde said. 

Wilde said the Barracuda has station-keeping technology that enables it to remain position to fire the shaped charge at the mine even in currents that cause a moored mine to sift position on its tether. 

In an Aug. 15 interview, Wilde said that unmanned systems will revolutionize mine countermeasures (MCM) that currently take weeks or months to clear minefields and put minesweepers at risk. The Navy is developing an MCM mission package for the littoral combat ship that will rely largely on unmanned systems. 

He also said the MCM mission concept could be expanded to other missions, including by use of a B-size sonobuoy launcher with other payloads. The AQS-20C sonar is now in production. Raytheon is developing the engineering developmentmodels of the Barracuda and recently completed the Navy’s preliminary designreview.  

Wilde said Raytheon is in discussions with the Navy about other missions to which the Barracuda could be applied. 

FAIRFAX, Va. — General Dynamics Mission Systems has equipped the USS Gabrielle Giffords with new over-the-horizon missile capability in support of the Chief of Naval Operations’ mandate to increase littoral combat ships’ lethality and survivability, according to a Sept. 26 company release. 

The integration of the Mk87 Mod 0 over-the-horizon Naval Strike Missile (NSM) aboard the USS Gabrielle Giffords, an Independence-variant LCS, strengthens the ship’s mission readiness and defensive capabilities. 

General Dynamics was able to integrate the NSM system by determining equipment placement, adapting the ship’s navigation system to provide unique signals to the missile system, designing the operational station in the Integrated Command Center, designing the system for providing specialized power to the Mk87 and conducting all of the analyses necessary for a safe and effective system. The General Dynamics team, including Austal USA, designed structures and foundations and accomplished the installation in San Diego. 

“The open-architecture design of the ship’s computing environment and electronic systems made the design and integration of the new NSM system feasible in an accelerated timeline,” said Carlo Zaffanella, vice president and general manager of maritime and strategic systems at General Dynamics Mission Systems.   

The NSM, produced by Kongsberg and managed in the United States by Raytheon, is a long-range, precision-strike weapon that can find and destroy enemy ships at distances up to 100 nautical miles.  

In addition to the USS Gabrielle Giffords, General Dynamics will serve as the prime contractor for the integration and installation of the NSM capability on all Independence-variant LCSs already in service. 

At well north of $100 billion for 12 vessels, the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine will be the most expensive new undertaking for the U.S Navy since the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier program. And everyone is hoping development and production goes a lot smoother for the new sub than the Ford class of carriers.

The Navy is trying to replace its aging fleet of 14 Ohio-class ballistic-missile subs, which carry nuclear-tipped Trident missiles and serve as the nation’s sea-based strategic deterrent. The sheer per-vessel cost of the Columbia class prompts one to draw comparisons to the $13-billion-per-ship Ford program — and that’s reason for concern considering the struggles throughout the carrier’s development.

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

Cost increases and schedule delays were a hallmark of the program during design, development and production, and the class still has its share of challenges. USNI reported earlier this year that the Ford had to spend months in dry dock to deal with problems with the ship’s nuclear power plant, and another report indicated that most of the carrier’s Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWEs) were not operational.

However, Columbia and Ford are certainly two very different programs, and the Navy believes it has a handle on the new sub.

Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Bill Couch told Seapower in an e-mail that the Columbia-class program is working hard to tackle challenges early and make sure the sub stays on schedule.

“The Columbia Class Submarine Program is executing schedule risk and cost-reduction activities (e.g., advance construction, continuous production of missile tubes) and closely manages technology development and engineering/integration efforts,” he said. “Additionally, the shipbuilder [General Dynamics Electric Boat] is executing a plan to meet the highest design maturity target for any shipbuilding program [83%] at construction start.”

The program has run into some issues early. Officials discovered a problem last year with the submarine missile tube welds that reportedly cost $27 million and a year of work to fix.

However, the Navy says that issue isn’t affecting the schedule.

“General Dynamics Electric Boat [GDEB] and the Navy continue to work together to manage schedule impacts caused by the missile tube welding defects, with currently no impact to lead ship delivery schedule,” Couch said. “Margin remaining to the missile compartment due to the missile tube deliveries is under review.”

He added that Columbia-class deliveries are still aligned with the retirements of Ohio-class submarines to ensure the nation’s strategic deterrence requirements are met.

Additionally, he said a potential fiscal 2020 continuing resolution is unlikely to affect the program.

The program hit a big milestone earlier this year, with Huntington Ingalls Industries hosting a ceremony at its Newport News Shipbuilding division — which is working with GDEB on the program — on May 23 to celebrate cutting the first steel for the program.

“The first cut of steel is a major construction milestone that signifies our shipyard and submarine industrial base are ready to move forward with production,” Jason Ward, Newport News’ vice president for Columbia-class construction, said in a statement.

“We have worked to engage the submarine industrial base and leveraged lessons learned from the successful Virginia-class program to building the Columbia-class submarines in the most efficient and affordable manner to provide the best value to the Navy.”

On March 6, the Navy announced that it had established Program Executive Office Columbia (PEO CLB) to focus entirely on the “Navy’s No. 1 acquisition priority,” according to a Navy statement.

“This is the Navy’s most important program and establishing a new PEO today will meet tomorrow’s challenges head-on,” James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for acquisition, research and development, said in the statement. “The evolution from initial funding to construction, development and testing to serial production of 12 SSBNs will be crucial to meeting the National Defense Strategy and building the Navy the nation needs. PEO Columbia will work directly with resource sponsors, stakeholders, foreign partners, shipbuilders and suppliers to meet national priorities and deliver and sustain lethal capacity our warfighters need.”

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said that there are reasons to be optimistic about the Columbia-class program despite the challenges of the Ford class.

For one thing, the Ford-class program had a lot more new technologies creating compounding risk, as opposed to the Columbia program, he said. He noted that there were some new technologies to watch, such as an all-electric propulsion plant and a new kind of propulsor assembly.

However, the Navy has done some advance work on that technology to reduce risk, Clark said.

“On the propulsion plant, the Navy built a land-based prototype to get the technical risk burned down,” he said. “The Navy spent quite a bit of time trying to tackle [the technical risk] by prototyping and demonstrating. But you can never completely eliminate the risk. They lost some time and margin because of technical challenges not fully tackled.”

And while the program has margin built in, the recent problems — particularly with the missile tubes — risk eliminating that margin early and creating no room for error with still many years left until the first sub is scheduled for delivery in 2028.

The good news is that the Navy may be through the hard part, Clark said.

“On the manufacturing side, I think there’s just having to do some rework and some more effort to test and inspect things before they get pushed out to the construction yard, which will introduce a little bit of schedule delay — but it is somewhat bounded,” he said. “I think compared to the Ford, the risks with Columbia are smaller in number, more bounded, and relatively understood.”

A delegation from U.S.
Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) embarked on a three-nation, 10-day tour in South
America at the end of August, traveling along Brazil’s coast for multi-nation
military exercises, then cutting across the continent to observe military
training in Paraguay followed by a diplomatic mission to Lima, Peru.

On its second multination trip this year to South America, the Miami-based SOUTHCOM staff, headed by its commander of 11 months, Adm. Craig Faller, has under Faller’s concerted guidance virtually landed running since his swearing-in in last November, overseeing a tireless travel itinerary to visit every nation and dependency in the central and southern reaches of the Western hemisphere while seeing to the implementation of programs, attending events and monitoring the well-being of the command’s extended embassy and military staffs.

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

Even as Faller and his team
are focused on commitments set forth in its May 2019 strategic plan, “Enduring
Promise for the Americas,” SOUTHCOM’s achievements to date include a remarkable
checklist of already-cemented programs, including medical and rescue
operations, military training and civic and community development.

With an area of
responsibility that includes 31 countries and 16 dependencies in Central
America, South America and the Caribbean, the command’s impact is playing out in
Panama, Guatemala, Honduras and Columbia. In addition, SOUTHCOM governs the
ongoing medical assistance mission of the USNS Comfort and operates in Brazil’s
Amazon rainforest, where a joint U.S. and Brazilian military medical team recently
completed a 26-day riverine humanitarian mission to provide medical care to isolated
communities along the Amazon.

Meanwhile, Faller kicked off
the SOUTHCOM tour on Aug. 19 at Base Naval do Rio de Janeiro, where he and Adm.
Leonardo Puntel, commander of the Brazilian Operational Navy, presided over
opening ceremonies of UNITAS LX (60), an annual multinational maritime exercise
of more than 3,100 naval forces from 13 countries.

“I think you all should just savor the moment. Look around the room,
look at the group of like-minded professionals that you are with,” said Faller,
underscoring a key theme of the SOUTHCOM’s Enduring Promise, while sending a
clear message to the South American military teams whom he addressed throughout
his tour.

“We all have so much to learn from each other. Take every advantage of the
opportunity to teach, to make new friends, to build trust. This is how we are
going to fight. We are going to fight together. As like-minded democracies, as friends,”
he added. 

In addition to the U.S. and
Brazil, UNITAS LX participants included naval forces, representatives and
observers from Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru, Portugal, Great Britain and Japan. Unique to UNITAS LX this year, the
Brazilian navy, as host of the event, demonstrated regional maritime
cooperation in a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) scenario.

“This is the 60th [year] of UNITAS, and today we have more of an emphasis on disaster relief and humanitarian relief,” said Puntel, who reflected on Brazil’s longstanding maritime ties to the U.S. and Royal Navy dating back to World War I when, during the events of 1917, British Admiralty requested naval assistance from distant allies, including Japan. “The relationship between the Brazilian navy and the U.S. Navy is very important and started back in the first World War when the Brazilian navy sent a task force to Gibraltar to fight against the German navy, and we fought side-by-side with the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy and the Japanese navy in the mouth of the Mediterranean.”

In Rio later that day, Faller
addressed students and faculty at the Brazilian Armed Forces’ Escola Superior
de Guerra (War College), where he discussed the significance of the U.S.-Brazil
military alliance and the urgency to elevate the importance of Central and
South American regional partners, which has led to Brazil’s designation as a
non-NATO major ally, as outlined in the Defense Department’s National Defense
Strategy. To that end, Faller explained how he views the region as a “shared
neighborhood” — a notion that also illustrates the close partnership between
the U.S. and its South American allies.

“I say this neighborhood of
the Western Hemisphere because we are neighbors, and we are close neighbors.
And, we’re partners. And, we’re friends,” Faller told students and instructors
at Brazil’s war college. “We share all the domains that we study — and we’re
fighting air, land, sea, space, cyber — but most importantly, we share values.
We share a belief in freedom. We share a belief in sovereignty, respect for
human rights and for democracies. The hemisphere is blessed with democracies.”

In his remarks, Faller explained
how the United States and SOUTHCOM view regional security in terms of the
pervasive and ever-present threats that touch every South American nation,
among them anti-government political factions, counter-drug trafficking, illicit
mining, money laundering, the influence of violent extremist organizations, Russia’s
anti-U.S. crusade and criminal ties, China’s economic offensive, and to discuss
the reality of corruption across governments, militaries and communities in the
region.

“You look at what we share, and the opportunity that is presented — it
is also being challenged by the threats we share. The threats we share … are
chacterized by a vicious circle that includes corruption,” Faller explained.
“Yes, I do include that as a military threat. Because with corruption thrives criminal
networks, transnational criminal networks … that respect no laws, no boundaries
and that are aiming at our way of life. And there are violent extremists — a
fancy name that we made up in the United States for terrorists. They are
operating here in this neighborhood and they thrive on those same conditions.”

At the South American
Defense Conference (SOUTHDEC) in Natal, Brazil, SOUTHCOM met with members of
the Brazilian Armed Forces for a forum that included defense leaders from
Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay as
well as representatives from Canada, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.
With its theme of “regional defense cooperation in response to hemispheric
challenges,” militaries attending the conference took part in two days of
dialog, briefings, roundtables and meetings that focused on humanitarian
assistance missions, disaster relief operations and international cooperation
targeting transnational threats.

At the conference, Fernando
Azevedo e Silva, Brazil’s minister of defense, noted the climate of present-day
security challenges compared to a decade ago, and, like Faller, emphasized the
need for South American countries and their allies to join forces.

“The world is undergoing
transitions with a diversity of threats, demanding joint efforts to neutralize
them for regional stability and lasting peace,” Azevedo said.

SOUTHCOM staff and
delegations from other countries included senior enlisted leaders who met
concurrently for the third consecutive year to discuss the meeting’s top line
themes, while also dedicating time to the important role of the region’s
professional enlisted corps, and examining more closely fitness, talent
management, professional development, and the growing contributions of women to
peace and security missions.

In a first visit to the
region, Faller and the SOUTHCOM delegation traveled to Asuncion, Paraguay,
where they met with Lee McClenny, U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, as well as U.S. Embassy
and host nation officials. Together, they observed a Joint Combined Exchange
Training (JCET) at Vista Alegre Infantry Training School in which a team of trainees
from a Paraguayan Joint Special Forces Battalion demonstrated an ambush. The
exercise was as part of a 30-day bilateral training engagement between instructors
from the 20th Special Forces Group of the Massachusetts Army National Guard and
about 40 soldiers in Paraguay’s special forces battalion.

Faller said Paraguay’s
challenges mirror the threats seen in other South and Central American
countries. A landlocked country in the center of the continent, Paraguay, with
its tri-border area where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet, is lodged right
in the middle of a critical area in South America that has served as a hub for narcotics trafficking, illegal mining, money laundering and that serves
globally and transnationally in the flow illicit materials overseas, Faller
said.

“When you look at
transnational criminal organizations and the threats, there is a nexus in
Paraguay,” Faller explained. “A lot of the challenges that Paraguay faces are
principally, for them, law enforcement-type challenges — police challenges,
border challenges. As in all our countries, their military is very capable and
there is a role for the military in support of those police efforts. So, we are
focused on education and training and on these J-CETs. [Paraguay] is a small
country with a small force. I think we saw how eager they were, how motivated
they were, and how important this was to them.”

SOUTHCOM’s final stop
included meetings in Lima, Peru, at Peruvian army headquarters in Lima, where Faller
met with Peru’s minister of defense, Peruvian navy Adm. Jorge Moscoso, and Krishna
R. Urs, U.S. ambassador to Peru.

At Peru’s Centro Naval,
Faller and his staff met with Gen. Cesar Astudillo Salcedo, head of the
Peruvian Armed Forces Joint Command. Following the meeting, Faller received, on
behalf of the country of Peru, the Medalla Gran Cruz (“Great Cross”), the
highest award given to leaders as a show of gratitude and thanks and to honor
the SOUTHCOM’s support in natural disasters, humanitarian aid and in
multinational operations and training between both countries, while also
honoring the commander’s military service.

At several meetings with
South American leaders and military personnel, Faller discussed the importance
of professionalism as a key concept for achieving unified, effective and
enlightened partnerships among allies in Latin America and the Caribbean. A
common theme in SOUTHCOM’s Enduring Promise, Faller returned time and again to
the topic of professionalism as a means for remaining strong across the
hemisphere.

“Building our team, it is about
professionalism. No one here is going to argue about the concept of professionalism.
But what goes into it for a military force, for a security force?” Faller said.
“Whether you are a police force, whether you are foreign service, with professionalism, it is doing the
right thing. It is integrity, it is legitimacy, it is human rights, it is
forces that respect talent, and gender integration. We can’t fight the future
without accepting the talent into our teams that makes us better and stronger.
We’ve all got to figure that out as we move forward.”

To report this story, Daisy R. Khalifa traveled with the U.S. Southern Command delegation on its three-nation, 10-day tour of South America and the visits with their militaries. This is the first in a series of stories on her trip.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Defense Secretary Mark Esper visited Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding division and the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the company said in a Sept. 25 release. This was Esper’s first visit to the shipyard since he was sworn in to lead the Pentagon in July. 

Esper toured Ford to see the progress being made during the ship’s post-shakedown availability and to learn more about its weapons-handling innovations and increased warfighting capabilities. 

“Our shipbuilders play a vital role in building our Navy’s future fleet,” said Jennifer Boykin, president of Newport News Shipbuilding. “We appreciate that Secretary Esper took the time to visit our operations and Ford to see firsthand how we are working with our Navy partners to redeliver the newest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that will be the centerpiece of our nation’s security strategy for decades to come.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The planned upgrade of the nuclear warhead on some U.S. Navy submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) has been delayed for 18 months by unacceptable reliability of some components.  

Testifying Sept. 25 on Capitol Hill before the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on strategic forces, Charles P. Verdon, deputy administrator for defense programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), said that during stress tests to certify some electrical components of the weapons, some capacitors for the Navy’s W88 Alteration 370 warhead for the Trident D5LE SLBM and the Air Force’s B61 Mod 12 nuclear bomb did not meet the stringent reliability requirements. The capacitors were commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components.  

Verdon said a blue-ribbon panel established by NNSA formed to study the matter “advised in June 2019 that the prudent approach was to accept the delay of these programs and replace these components rather than risk component failure in future years.”    

The recommendations were accepted by NNSA at that time, Verdon said, noting that NNSA is developing a specific production schedule and initial operational capability dates are being explored. 

Verdon said the capacitor of insufficient reliability was a $5 part, whereas the replacement capacitor — being built to a new standard that did not exist at the time the original capacitors were procured — cost $75. Although the figures for program delays are not yet final, he said the delay would cost NNSA an additional $120 million to $150 million for the W88 Alt 370 and $600 million to $700 million for the B61 bomb. 

Verdon also said the additional costs could be mitigated by balancing the workload within NNSA’s modernization portfolio. He said that any increase in funding would not be needed until fiscal 2021. 

Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the Navy’s director of strategic systems programs, also testifying before the committee, said the upgrades for the W88 Alt 370 begun in 2008 focused on procuring the arming, fuzing and firing units and replacing the warhead’s high explosives. He said the installation of the Alt 370 was delayed to a start of December 2019, “removing any schedule margin for the refurbishment effort.” 

He said the Navy and NNSA are planning for about an 18-month delay to the Alt 370 program and that the Navy is working with the ballistic-missile submarine fleet’s operational commander, U.S Strategic Command, to mitigate the effect of the delays and ensure that the nation’s strategic requirements are met on schedule. 

“We will meet the requirements as we move forward,” Wolfe said. 

Verdon said that “[a]s a root cause, we identified that our methodology for the insertion of COTS components into high-reliability, long-life nuclear warheads needs to be improved” to avoid such future delays. 

He said the NNSA “underestimated the variability between lots” in COTS-procured capacitors.  

A closed classified session was held by the subcommittee following the open hearing.