ARLINGTON, Va. — Combined Maritime Forces, or CMF, the U.S.-led multi-national coalition of forces enforcing maritime security in the U.S. Central Command are of responsibility, is establishing a fourth task force to enhance the security of the region. 

CMF is establishing Commander Task Force 153 (CTF-153) on April 17, with ceremonies to be held at U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain, said Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of the CMF, whose duties also include commander, U.S. 5th Fleet, and commander, Naval Forces, U.S. Central Command. Cooper briefed reporters on the new task force in an April 13 press teleconference. 

CTF-153 will patrol the waters of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden in an effort to expand capacity to cover those regions to counter activities such as human trafficking and smuggling of weapons and illegal drugs. 

The region also has seen combat action from Iran-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen firing missiles at shipping in the areas and using explosives-loaded attack boats.  

Cooper said the new task force will “definitely increase our deterrence posture” in the region.  

As the CMF’s fourth task force, CTF-153 joins CTF 150, responsible for maritime security outside the Persian Gulf in the Gulf of Oman and North Arabian Sea; CTF-151, the counter-piracy task force; and CTF-152, responsible for maritime security inside the Persian Gulf.  

With 34 member nations, the CMF is the largest standing naval partnership in the world. The member nations rotate command of the task forces. Cooper said he had “sufficient forces” to meet the CMF’s commitments.  

Cooper said the maritime security efforts have “always been our best when we’re teamed with international partners,” and that the United States is “teaming with a lot of navies who are very capable.” 

He singled out mention of the Egyptian navy, which joined the CMF a year ago and will strengthen the efforts to patrol the Red Sea and protect the Suez Canal.  

CTF-153 will first be commanded by U.S. Navy Capt. Robert Francis, who with his staff soon will embark on the command ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20), which normally serves as the flagship of the U.S. 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. An officer from a partner nation will assume command of CTF-153 later this year, Cooper said. 

Cooper said that CTF-153 will typically include two to eight ships, plus maritime patrol aircraft as needed. The staff itself will be comprised of approximately 15 personnel. 

He said that with the additional task force the CMF will “be able to connect in ways we simply haven’t been able to do in the past.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — A defense company in Hawaii has been tapped by the Office of Naval Research to develop an autonomous vehicle to deploy a fuel delivery system to support amphibious systems.  

Martin Defense Group LLC of Honolulu has been awarded a $15 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the development of an Amphibious Vehicle for Unmanned Surface Mobility, the Defense Department said April 6.  

“The AVUSM system provides the capability of autonomously delivering a lay-flat fuel line hose from a floating embarkment platform, through the surf-zone, to above a high-water mark line for fuel delivery in support of expeditionary advanced base operations,” the announcement said. “This is also known as a reach-to-the-beach capability. This contract provides for technology development and maturation with the objective of transitioning the technology/capability to Navy and/or Marine Corps acquisition programs.” 

Martin Defense also is the developer of the Manta Ray autonomous underwater vehicle for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Work expected to be completed by April 5, 2025. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — L3Harris Technologies has established a new entity, the Agile Development Group, or ADG, to foster rapid technology development to counter near-peer security threats through innovation and cooperation.  

Speaking to Seapower at Sea-Air-Space 2022, Sean Stackley, president of Integrated Mission Systems at L3Harris, introduced Dave Duggan, president of the new L3Harris Agile Development Group. The group is dedicated to overcoming inertia and rapidly developing the technology to address future threats with new ideas and acquisition of or partnering with enterprises and allies with high-potential technology. 

“Our mission is to deliver innovative, vital solutions within a fraction of the time and cost of industry norms,” Duggan said in a release announcing the group. “We’re listening to our customers and taking calculated risks to rapidly develop new capabilities that will urgently address emerging threats.” 

Duggan told Seapower that the group is comprised of “highly empowered development teams working with the latest digital tools with an agile development process that backs it up to enable us to respond to our customers need for doing business differently and developing new capabilities in a much faster timeline than historical norms.” 

Duggan said the building of the ADG began four to five years ago and has grown to about 2,500 employees, which the company described as “dedicated engineers, program managers, technicians and operations professionals focused on advanced, front-end and rapid capability development.” 

The ADG entity expects to add additional personnel as it grows. 

Initial projects of the ADG included broadband RF, advanced optics, and advanced unmanned systems and weapons, Duggan said.  

The ADG has facilities in Florida, Texas, Ohio, California and Virginia. 

“The ADG will have a designated internal investment fund to mature and burn down risk of critical enabling technologies. The ADG’s lean, empowered development teams and digital engineering development approach will deliver solutions at the expeditious pace the [Department of Defense], allies and other domestic and international customers demand,” the release said. 

L3Harris, headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, said the fiscal 2023 budget proposes a 10% increase in research and development funds which, if enacted, will provide opportunities for the ADG to demonstrate its value. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Textron Aviation is offering a version of its King Air 260 business twin turboprop aircraft to the U.S Navy as a replacement for the service’s Beech T-44C training aircraft, a company official said. 

Brett Pierson, Textron Aviation Defense’s vice president for sales and strategy, told Seapower April 6 that the King Air 260 could be modified to meet the requirement for the Multi-Engine Training System (METS), including an aircraft with a high angle-of-attack capability. 

Pilots being trained for the E-2 aircraft require such a requirement for training for carrier landings. 

The Navy’s 2023 budget proposes the procurement of 10 METS, with a total of 58 in a three-year run.   

According to a draft request for information posted May 26, 2020, the Navy is looking at existing twin-engine aircraft to replace the service’s fleet of 54 T-44Cs used to train Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard pilots to fly aircraft such as the V-22 Osprey, E-2C/D Hawkeye, P-8 Poseidon, P-3 and EP-3 Orion, C-130/KC-130/HC-130 Hercules, E-6 Mercury, C-40 Clipper, HC-27 Spartan and HC-144 Ocean Sentry.  

The T-44A, a variant of the Beech King Air 90 business aircraft, first entered service in 1980. The existing T-44As all have been modified to the T-44C configuration.   

The Navy said the METS should have an FAA type certification for single- and dual-pilot operations under day and night visual flight rules and under instrument flight rules. It shall cruise at speeds greater or equal to 195 knots and shall be able to operate at a minimum of 20,000 feet above sea level. The aircraft also should have an endurance of 3.5 or more flight hours.  

The pressurized aircraft cockpit will have side-by-side seating, as well as a jump seat for an instructor. The cockpit will be equipped with multifunction displays with digital moving map; redundant VHF and UHF radios; an integrated GPS/inertial navigation system; Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast; flight management system; weather radar, radar altimeter, and a cockpit data recorder.   

The METS aircraft also shall have tricycle landing gear and a reconfigurable cargo bay in the cabin. 

Pierson said the basic King Air is very close to what the requirements are. 

Textron also builds the UC-12W operational support aircraft, a variant of the King Air 350, for the Marine Corps. The company also built the Navy’s T-6A/B Texan II single-engine training aircraft. Beech and Cessna are now brand names for some of Textron Aviation’s products. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Laser Weapon System Demonstrator deployed on the U.S. Navy’s amphibious platform dock ship USS Portland (LPD 27) has competed its first deployment as the Portland returned to its homeport of San Diego in March. 

Donna Howland, Northrop Grumman’s acting business development director for Directed Energy and program manager Laser Weapon System – Demonstrator, told Seapower April 6 the Navy said it was “able to exercise the high-energy laser in the 5th Fleet in December 2021.” 

The single LWSD was installed on Portland in October 2019 and was first lit-off in December 2019. The Portland deployed for the Indo-Pacific and Central Command areas of responsibility in August 2021. 

The 150-kilowatt LWSD is mounted on the superstructure of the Portland and is integrated with the ship’s combat information center, where a control console is installed. Northrop Grumman made the Tactical Laser Core Module of the system, while the U.S. government made the system’s energy and thermal storage modules.  

Northrop Grumman continues to provide test and sustainment support for the LWSD, for which it is under contract through fiscal 2022, Howland said, who noted that the company is working on a follow-on sustainment contract.  

During the deployment on the Portland, the LWSD was operated and maintained completely by Sailors. No company employees were on board to support the system. The company provided training on the system before the deployment and developed a three-volume operation and maintenance manual for Sailors to use on the ship, she said. 

Howland said the company is looking forward to working with the Office of Naval Research to provide next-generation directed energy systems.  

“We are excited about the MOSA [Modular Open System Architecture] that the Navy is looking at,” she said. “We really are a proponent of this as we believe it will improve the health of the supply chain and base to support directed energy as we move these systems from science fiction to science fact.”  

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A senior HII official said he is optimistic for the company’s future, despite the increasing price inflation of materials and the difficulties of attracting skilled labor. 

HII will “make the ships we deliver more effective and more protected” said the official, speaking on background to reporters at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo at National Harbor, Maryland, as he addressed the challenges and concerns that also affect much of the shipbuilding industry.  

The official said price inflation is affecting long-lead materials, not so much for ships nearing completion but for newer-construction ships recently started or those for which long-lead materials have been ordered. He said locking in a price is essential to avoid delays. In some cases, the sequence of building a ship has to be changed to avoid slowdowns in the build cycle. 

The two-carrier procurement by the Navy for CVN 80 and CVN 81 allowed HII to lock in prices for materials for CVN 80; for CVN 81, the carrier is “not as exposed as it might have been” to price inflation. HII expects to lay the keel of CVN 80 this year and begin construction on CVN 81 as well. 

The official said the Navy’s fiscal 2023 budget made good steps in funding to support the supplier base and developing skilled workers. 

“Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever,” he said of suppliers who go out of business. 

The workforce may even be a tougher issue because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. HII never shut down during the pandemic, but some employees left the workforce and the number of applicants dropped significantly. 

The official said that HII needs to get “labor back in the yard.” 

The company is investing in developing talent and runs what it says is the premier apprentice school in the nation and perhaps the world. HII also is building shop facilities for high schools to attract students to skilled artisan programs.  

HII has found that many potential workers who “walk in” for jobs don’t last because they did not realize how hard shipbuilding is. The company found that for workers who have been in the yard for 18-20 months, if they stay another two years, their earnings go up significantly and they settle into a long career. 

Language also is less of a barrier for a prospective worker than might be presumed. HII instructs in both English and Spanish. The official said the company would love to hire more Mexicans with green cards and would welcome Ukrainian refugees to apply. 

CEO Appearance

“HII is well set up for the future,” said Christopher D. Kastner, who became president and CEO of Newport News-based HII March 1. He met briefly with reporters April 5 at Sea-Air-Space 2022.  

HII, the nation’s builder of aircraft carriers and co-builder of submarines, has a very deliberate strategy for the next five to eight years, with $40 billion worth of orders on the books and recent acquisition of Hydroid and Alion, with which the company has expended into unmanned systems, autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning and sensors and anticipates growth of 7% to 9%. 

With the recent acquisition, HII is now the lead developer of the Minotaur mission system that will be fielded on more systems, and will expand more into intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance “on the edge” and counter-ISR as well. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — With all 36 planned MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopters delivered to the Navy, the manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, is looking at expanding the range of missions the Fire Scout could provide. 

Scott Weinpel, Northrop Grumman’s business development official for the Fire Scout program, said the company will continue to support MQ-8C deployments on littoral combat ships. He also is looking forward to the MQ-8C’s deployment on the Constellation-class guided-missile frigates; operation of the MQ-8C is included in the Capability Development Document for the frigate. 

Weinpel also said the Fire Scout may have a role in operating from shore sites under the Expeditionary Advance Base Operations concept, including in a logistics cargo role. 

Potential future roles for the MQ-8C include mine countermeasures and anti-submarine warfare. The Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis Block II, is the next-generation MCM sensor for the MQ-8C (the Block I is flown on the older MQ-8B version. 

A Bell 407 helicopter, acting as a surrogate for the MQ-8C, has demonstrated the capability to drop ASW G-size sonobuoys. Weinpel said the MQ-8C could be modified to carry an ASW torpedo, although carriage would result in some loss of endurance of the MQ-8C. The UAV also could monitor a sonobuoy field as an RF signal relay. 

The MQ-8C currently flies with the Brite Stat II electro-optical/infrared sensor turret, the ZPY-8 radar, and the Automatic Information System. 

Weinpel said the Navy so far has not indicated any plans to arm the MQ-8C, which has been tested to fire Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rockets.   

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Marine Corps expects the CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopter to reach initial operational capability “in several months,” the Navy program manager said. 

Marine Col. Jack Perrin, the program manager, said that the first fleet CH-53K squadron, HMH-461, will have four CH-53Ks by the end of April, the minimum number needed to reach IOC and the number needed for a detachment to deploy with a Marine Expeditionary Unit. 

The first deployment of the CH-53K is set for 2024. The Corps plans to field 5.25 fleet HMH squadrons with CH-53Ks. Perrin said the “.25” is an extra four aircraft for one of the squadrons, with each of the other four squadrons to be equipped with 16 helicopters. Other CH-53Ks will be assigned to a fleet replacement squadron and test squadrons, while others will be in process through the maintenance pipeline. 

The Marine Corps’ eight HMH squadrons equipped with the older CH-53E in recent years have operated with only 12 helicopters instead of 16 because of attrition over the years. Three of these squadrons will be de-activated in the course of the commandant’s Force Design 2030 plan. 

The Marine Corps has a requirement for 200 CH-53Ks. Full-rate production is planned for 2023. Full operational capability is scheduled for 2029. 

In addition to the two low-rate initial production CH-53Ks delivered in October and February, there are seven in the Lockheed Martin Sikorsky production line in Stratford, Connecticut. Currently 46 aircraft ae under contract, including four for Israel. Long-lead materials are on order for another 14 CH-53Ks. Deliveries in 2022 will total four, followed by eight in 2023 and 16 in 2024. The production rate will reach two per month for the Marine Corps, plus one per month for foreign customers as needed. 

Israel is the only foreign customer for the King Stallion so far. Potential customers include Germany, the Republic of Korea, and Switzerland, plus others who have expressed interest. Germany plans to run a competition that is expected to occur in 2022. 

Perrin, who has flown more than 30 different types of aircraft, said the CH-53K, with its digital flight controls, is the easiest aircraft to fly in his experience. The stability afforded by the flight controls enables the CH-53K to easily land in a degraded visual environment such as dust cloud. It also makes aerial refueling more stable and reduces swaying of an external load. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy’s MQ-4C Triton high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle is on track for initial operational capability with the new Integrated Functional Capability 4 (IFC-4) with a full orbit of four aircraft in fiscal 2023, a senior official said.  

Speaking April 4 to reporters in a roundtable at the Navy League’s Sea-Air Space expo, Rear Adm. Brian Corey, program executive officer for Unmanned and Strike Weapons, said IFC-4, which began flight testing in February, will give the Triton — built by Northrop Grumman (Booth 1300, Dock Space 2) — the capabilities needed to reach IOC and begin to replace the EP-3E Orion maritime reconnaissance aircraft. 

The Navy has had the MQ-4C with the baseline IFC-3 capability deployed in 2020 to the Western Pacific in an early operational capability. One aircraft assigned to Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP-19) remains deployed while a second has returned to the United States to give maintenance personnel more hands-on experience. 

Corey said with IFC-3 “the Navy was not ready to get the network right. We weren’t allowed to connect to the network. We’ve come a long way to an operationally relevant environment.” 

The number of planned regional orbits for the Triton originally was planned to be five, with four aircraft each. Beyond the first orbit, the future location and structure of the orbits is less defined and will be determined with regional combatant commander input.  

The Navy paused planned procurement of the MQ-4C for two years in 2021 and 2022, but the production line was sustained with an order of three Tritons for Australia and one for the U.S. Navy added in 2021 by Congress, followed by another congressional addition in 2022. The Navy has requested procurement of three Tritons for fiscal 2023. 

VUP-19, headquartered at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, moved its maintenance detachment to nearby Naval Station Mayport, Florida, last year from NAS Point Mugu, California. The future of Point Mugu as a future Triton base is yet to be determined. The second squadron, VUP-11, will be based at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington, but the location of its Tritons there or at Point Mugu or elsewhere will be decided later. 

The EP-3E aircraft has a large crew of signals intelligence analysts, and the Triton IFC-4 represents a significant change in the analysis, with onboard processing largely replaced by a wide distribution of the intelligence information across many sites of the intelligence community, Corey said. 

Corey said the RQ-4A Global Hawk Broad-Area Maritime Surveillance — Demonstration aircraft which have supported the U.S. 5th Fleet since 2009, remain in service, with Congress having funded the BAMS-D for 2022 despite the Navy’s plan to divest it. The Navy again in the 2023 budget request targets the BAMS-D for retirement, with budget pressures overcoming the utility of the aircraft. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.— The Navy’s Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER) is tracking toward an initial operational capability of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, the Navy program manager said. 

The Northrop Grumman-built AGM-84G AARGM-ER is a growth of the baseline AARGM, the AGM-84E. The improved missile, built to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses, includes a new, larger airframe housing a new solid rocket motor, a new warhead, tail control surfaces and a new control actuation system for more maneuverability, increased range and improved survivability.  

The AARGM-ER is being developed to arm the F/A-8E/F Super Hornet strike fighter, the EA-18G electronic attack aircraft and the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter. 

Speaking April 4 to reporters at the Navy League’s Sea-Air Space expo at National Harbor, Maryland, Capt. Alex Dutko, the program manager, also said operational testing is continuing this year and is expected to be completed in fiscal 2023, with IOC slated for the fourth quarter. Full-rate production is planned for fiscal 2025.  

The AARGM-ER entered low-rate initial production during the fourth quarter of 2021, the first of two LRIP lots. The first developmental test flight was conducted in late fiscal 2021 followed by a second test flight in February 2022. A third developmental test flight will be scheduled before operational test begins. 

Doug Larratt, Northrop Grumman’s AARGM-ER program director, also briefing reporters, said the production of the baseline AARGM is winding down, with deliveries continuing through fiscal 2024 to support transition to the ER version. 

He said Northrop Grumman has delivered more than 11,400 AARGMs (including training missiles and spares) so far out of a program of record of 1,803 baseline AARGMs.