ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy’s program executive offer in charge of most shipbuilding said that development of a new munition for the Advanced Gun System (AGS) on the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class ship continues to be on hold.

Speaking July 11 at a Navy League Special Topic Breakfast, Rear Adm. William J. Galinis, program executive officer, Ships, said a replacement for the Long-Range Land-Attack Projectile (LRLAP) developed for the AGS “is on hold at this point.”

The LRLAP was canceled in part for its high cost given economies of scale when the DDG 1000 program was reduced from 32 planned ships to only three, leaving the AGS without a round available in quantity.

“Last fall, the Navy made the decision that we were going to transition [the Zumwalt] from a primary land-attack mission to more of a surface strike mission set,” Galinis said. “As we brought this platform on line and learned about the capability of the platform, it fits that mission requirement very well. There are some changes we need to make to the ship, but they are not significant.”

Galinis said the Navy has had challenges with getting the desired ranges from rounds fired from the AGS.

“Last summer, we had essentially a fly-off of four or five different rounds,” he said. “We’ve taken the analysis of those test firings. It’s kind of on hold at this point as we transition to surface strike.”

Galinis said that USS Zumwalt is expected to return to sea at the end of next month following installation of its combat systems in San Diego. The second hull, Michael Monsoor, is in Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine for a post-delivery availability. One of its main turbine engines suffered a casualty and will be replaced.

The third hull, Lyndon B. Johnson, is expected to be launched by the end of the year and to begin sea trials by the end of 2019.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy admiral in charge of building most of the Navy’s ships advocates taking a bolder approach to ship design, but one that also leverages existing hulls and technology to incrementally develop new ship classes.

Speaking July 11 to an audience at a Navy League Special Topic Breakfast, Rear Adm. William J. Galinis, program executive officer (PEO), Ships, said the Navy spending “far too much time studying a problem in trying to minimize risk really gets us to an unresponsive [acquisition] system.”

Galinis said that the Navy’s top leadership is encouraging the acquisition community to “take a little bit of risk” given the current sense of urgency in the renewed climate of great power competition.

“Include that in your business practices,” he urged the defense industry representatives at the event.

Galinis said the Navy is taking a more “evolutionary approach to new ship classes [and] introducing new technology, leveraging parent designs.”

He cited the DDG 51 Flight III program, the new guided-missile frigate program and the Flight II of the San Antonio-class amphibious platform dock ship as examples of the evolutionary approach. Another example he mentioned is the evolution of the America-class amphibious assault ships, the most recent of which — Bougainville — will feature restoration of a well deck and be equipped with the new Enterprise Air Search Radar that uses technology in common with the Air and Missile Defense Radar being installed on the DDG 51 Flight III.

Galinis pointed out the success of incrementally modernizing ships in the example of the third Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 53), which emerged from a recent modernization availability with the same capability of USS John Finn (DDG 113), a new ship commissioned last year.

He said Navy’s Future Large Surface Combatant design will represent “more of an evolutionary approach as we migrate from the DDG 51 Flight III to the Large Surface Combatant” [and] will be “operationally driven.”

The first two ships of DDG Flight III are under construction by Huntington Ingalls and Bath Iron Works.

“The revolutionary piece certainly plays a part,” Galinis said, referring to new technologies that are being developed for shipboard use. The Navy has been developing laser weapons, electromagnetic rail guns and integrated power systems for newer ships.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has awarded to Boeing $1.5 billion for 28 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighters for the Kuwaiti Air Force.

According to a June 27 Defense Department contract announcement, Boeing will build 22 single-seat F/A-18E and six two-seat F/A-18F versions for Kuwait.

The sale of the Super Hornets was approved by the U.S. Department of State in February.

Deliveries of the strike fighters to Kuwait is expected by January 2021.

Kuwait’s air force previously ordered 32 older F/A-18C and eight F/A-18D Hornets during the 1980s. It will be the second foreign nation to order the Super Hornet, Australia being the first.

ARLINGTON, Va. — President Donald J Trump has nominated Vice Adm.
Andrew L. Lewis to command the new U.S. Second Fleet, to be
headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia.

Lewis, a naval aviator, has served as deputy chief of naval
operations for Operations, Plans and Strategy since August. He began
his career as an A-7 attack pilot and later made the transition to the
F/A-18. He has flown 100 combat missions during numerous operations in
Southwest Asia since 1991. He was the recipient of the Naval Air Forces
Pacific Pilot of the Year award in 1996.

His command tours include Carrier Strike Group 12, deploying with
USS Theodore Roosevelt; Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center; Carrier
Air Wing 3, deploying with USS Harry S. Truman; Strike Fighter Squadron
(VFA) 106; and VFA-15, deploying on USS Enterprise and USS Theodore
Roosevelt.

The chief of naval operations, Adm. John Richardson, announced the
establishment of the fleet during a change of command ceremony for U.S.
Fleet Forces Command (USFF) in Norfolk, May 4, the Navy said in a
release. The new fleet will report to USFF.

“Second Fleet will exercise operational and administrative
authorities over assigned ships, aircraft and landing forces on the
East Coast and northern Atlantic Ocean,” the release said.
“Additionally, it will plan and conduct maritime, joint and combined
operations and will train, certify and provide maritime forces to
respond to global contingencies.

In its former iteration, Second Fleet generated forces to support
operations in the North Atlantic, as well as U.S. Sixth Fleet in the
Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East Force (later U.S. Fifth Fleet) in
the Persian Gulf and, occasionally, U.S. Seventh Fleet during the
Vietnam War. The fleet figured prominently in the Navy’s Maritime
Strategy of the Cold War Era, when the Second Fleet staff would embark
in a flagship for exercises in the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea as a
bulwark against the Soviet Union. The former Second Fleet was
disestablished in 2011.

As noted by U.S. European Command, the Russian Navy has become more
active in recent years in the Northern Atlantic and the Mediterranean
Sea. U.S. Sixth Fleet in recent years has operated more frequently in
the Baltic and Black Seas.

ARLINGTON, Va. — A Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response (MAGTF-CR) has used a Navy expeditionary mobile base ship (ESB) for a quick-reaction movement in the Persian Gulf, the task force commander said.

Speaking June 8 to the Potomac Institute, Col. Christopher Gideons, commander of SPMAGTF-CR-Central Command from August 2017 to April, said that elements of the task force were called upon to stage to the United Arab Emirates in preparation for a maritime intercept operation (MIO) in the region.

After arrival, the task elements staged to the USS Lewis B. Puller, a newly commissioned ESB assigned to the U.S. Fifth Fleet that supports a variety of forces including mine countermeasures forces, special operations forces, patrol boats and other units.

Gideons said MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor transport aircraft were staged to the flight deck of Puller along with an infantry contingent of about 200 Marines. The MIO of an unspecified nature was planned and rehearsed, he said, but ultimately the force was told to stand down when the MIO was canceled by higher authority.

“The team did a great job,” Gideons said.

He praised the capabilities of the ESB, with its large flight deck, spacious hangar deck and rotorcraft refueling capability.

One challenge of the operation was getting needed gear on the ship and sustaining the force, he noted.

The use of an alternate platform — the ESB — in this case was necessitated by the lack of an amphibious ready group (ARG) with an embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), as pointed out during the presentation by retired Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Alfred M. Gray Jr., who also highlighted the shortage of amphibious warfare ships that necessitates the existence of SPMAGTFs.

There was a 100-day gap in the presence of an ARG/MEU when Gideons’ SPMAGTF was in theater, Gideons said.

The SPMAGTF also operated from the French Navy helicopter carrier FS Tonnere during the deployment.

The SPMAGTFs were created in 2014 in response to the 2012 attack on the U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed in a siege with no ARG/MEU available in the Mediterranean Sea to rescue them.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has eliminated the position of its “drone czar” in its secretariat after only two and a half years, citing goals achieved and integration progress.

In an April 30 directive, James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, directed the disestablishment of the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Unmanned Systems) (DASN(UxS)) effective May 7.

Under then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, the Navy established DASN(UxS) to put appropriate bureaucratic horsepower and centralized leadership behind the development of unmanned systems. Mabus made the announcement on Oct. 27, 2015, that retired Marine Brig. Gen. Frank Kelley would be the first head of the office.

Geurts cited the completion of the Navy Department’s comprehensive Unmanned Systems Roadmap and its submission to Congress as “a logical point to move forward as expressed in our Goals and Roadmap. Both documents state that the integration of manned and unmanned systems into a seamless fighting force is an objective of our unmanned systems strategy and critical to our future naval force.”

Geurts said the DASN(UxS) had satisfied Mabus’ Nov. 13, 2015, directive to “Treat unmanned as unmanned.

“That work continues, but that work, to integrate unmanned systems into all that we do, now belongs to all of us,” Geurts said.

Earlier this year, the Unmanned Warfare Systems Division (N99) in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations was eliminated and its mission merged into the directorate of Warfare Integration. N99 had been established on Sept. 15, 2015, with now-retired Rear Adm. Robert Girrier as director.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy will establish a new type wing as commander over the service’s growing F-35C Lightning II strike fighter community.

According to an internal directive, commander, Joint Strike Fighter Wing, will be established on Aug. 1 at Naval Air Station (NAS) Lemoore, California. The new wing will man, train and equip the three current F-35C strike fighter squadrons (VFAs): the two fleet replacement squadrons, VFA-101 at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, and VFA-125 at Lemoore, plus VFA-147, an operational squadron currently in transition from the F/A-18E to the F-35C.

As more fleet squadrons make the transition to the F-35C, they will be reassigned from their current wing, Strike Fighter Wing, U.S. Pacific Fleet — also at Lemoore — or Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic at NAS Oceana, Virginia. Those wings will continue to man, train and equip the Navy’s F/A-18 strike fighter squadrons.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy faces serious challenges in reaching its goal of 355 ships and the capabilities they need, a Washington think tank said, recommending a series of steps that will help the service to increase its warfighting strength.

In a new study from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) — Rough Seas: An AEI Study in Crisis Response for Tomorrow’s Navy and an Improved Navy for the Future — scholars John W. Miller, Thomas Donnelly and Gary J. Schmitt considered four table-top scenarios to model the future fleet to come up with recommendations.

The authors identified four key challenges. The Navy:

■ “Lacks sufficient funding to meet the stated requirement of a 355-ship fleet;

■ Is not large enough to carry out its primary missions of peacetime engagement, crisis response, and combat operations;

■ Has a maintenance system that cannot respond effectively to unexpected contingencies;

■ Lacks the global presence and capabilities to deal decisively with the new great-power competitors, Russia and China.”

The authors made several specific recommendations for the Navy to:

■ Expand forward presence in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific.

■ Fully fund Navy operations and maintenance accounts.

■ Adopt “best maintenance” plans and practices from the private sector.

■ Install vertical launch systems (VLSs). The Navy should install 16-cell VLS systems on at least six amphibious ships and six cargo ships by 2022.

■ Install integrated fire control and counter-air systems.

■ Install Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The Navy should equip all expeditionary fast transport ships with Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

■ Install heavyweight torpedoes. The Navy should equip all Ticonderoga-class cruisers with heavyweight torpedoes.

■ Keep all 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers.

■ Accelerate production and fielding of the amphibious assault ship Bougainville.

■ Buy more F-35 joint strike fighters.

The study said “the proposed short-term investments can ameliorate future strategic vulnerabilities and increase future strategic opportunities. But these proposed investments are not a substitute for the larger, overdue and essential rebuilding that the Navy needs.

“In short, the 355-ship Navy will take decades and billions of dollars not only to build but also to maintain,” the study said. “Neither the Obama administration nor the Trump administration has proposed defense budgets commensurate with reaching or sustaining this significantly expanded fleet.”

The authors recommended that the Navy buy in bulk — as is done through block buys and multiyear procurements — because it has shown that it “improved shipyard performance and saved money. To expand significantly in size, it is imperative the Navy do so as smoothly as possible.”

The authors concluded that “while these improvements can help close a window of maritime vulnerability and assist in stabilizing critical regions, deterring increasingly aggressive adversaries and reassuring increasingly skittish allies, they are not a substitute for the larger, overdue and essential rebuilding that the Navy needs. Today’s Navy is too small, insufficiently lethal, not well enough maintained and, at its bases on the East and West Coasts of the United States, positioned too far away from crises and conflicts that might threaten American interests.”

WASHINGTON — The commandant of the Coast Guard said that the recent congressional focus on the Jones Act in the wake of the 2017 hurricane relief efforts for Puerto Rico threatens to invite repeal of the act, one that would have unintended negative consequences for national defense, maritime commerce and shipbuilding.

“There’s this fixation that we need to get after the Jones Act,” Adm. Paul F. Zukunft said in response to a question from the audience May 8 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “The consequences of the Jones Act [repeal] could have severe repercussions as well.”

The Jones Act — formally titled the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — generally prohibits foreign-built, foreign-owned or foreign-flag vessels from conducting coastwise trade within the United States and between the United States and its overseas territories. It also generally applies restrictions that effectively prohibit ships under the Jones Act from being overhauled at foreign shipyards. Ship crews must be composed of U.S. citizens or legal residents of the United States.

Zukunft listed three consequences he said would ensue if the Jones Act is repealed.

“All of our coastwise trade will probably be done by a third nation, namely China, [and] not just coastwise trade, but plying our inland river systems as well,” he said. “If we’re looking at, ‘hey, if we can lower the cost of doing business, we can have a third nation do it on our behalf.’

“The next thing that goes away is the [U.S. and state] maritime academies,” he said. “You don’t need them because we have foreign mariners. We don’t know who they are, but they’re foreign mariners plying our waters and our internal waters as well to conduct maritime commerce, which is a $4.6 trillion enterprise in the United States.
“Then the next thing that goes is our shipyards and the technology that goes with the shipyards,” he said, speaking of the smaller labor costs of foreign shipyards.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy’s 13th San Antonio-class amphibious dock ship (LPD) will be named for a naval officer who was awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry during a kamikaze attack during the 1945 Okinawa campaign.

Speaking May 2 to reporters at the Pentagon, Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer said the next LPD would be named for Capt. Richard M. McCool Jr., the former commanding officer of a landing craft support ship, large, Mark 3, that went to the aid of the crew of a sinking destroyer, USS William D. Porter, and then came under attack itself, but saved his ship despite being wounded and knocked temporarily unconscious.

Below is the text of the official citation for the Medal of Honor presented to then-Lt. McCool by President Harry S. Truman on Dec. 18, 1945:

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. LCS 122, during operations against enemy Japanese forces in the Ryukyu Chain, 10 and 11 June 1945. Sharply vigilant during hostile air raids against Allied ships on radar picket duty off Okinawa on 10 June, Lieutenant McCool aided materially in evacuating all survivors from a sinking destroyer which had sustained mortal damage under the devastating attacks. When his own craft was attacked simultaneously by two of the enemy’s suicide squadron early in the evening of 11 June, he instantly hurled the full power of his gun batteries against the plunging aircraft, shooting down the first and damaging the second before it crashed his station in the conning tower and engulfed the immediate area in a mass of flames. Although suffering from shrapnel wounds and painful burns, he rallied his concussion-shocked crew and initiated vigorous fire-fighting measures and then proceeded to the rescue of several trapped in a blazing compartment, subsequently carrying one man to safety despite the excruciating pain of additional severe burns. Unmindful of all personal danger, he continued his efforts without respite until aid arrived from other ships and he was evacuated. By his staunch leadership, capable direction and indomitable determination throughout the crisis, Lieutenant McCool saved the lives of many who otherwise might have perished and contributed materially to the saving of his ship for further combat service. His valiant spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of extreme peril sustains and enhances the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

McCool, an Oklahoma native, served in the Korean and Vietnam wars as well, retiring with the rank of captain. He died in 2008.

Spencer broke the tradition of naming LPDs for cities and counties in the United States by naming the ship after a naval hero.

LPD 29 will be built by Huntington Ingalls’ shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, under a $1.4 billion contract awarded in February.