ARLINGTON, Va. —The admiral who sponsors the resources for the U.S. Navy’s information warfare operations said the modern warfare environment is increasingly governed by the speed of information and its effects on decision-making. 

“It is all about speed for advantage,” said Vice Adm. Jeffrey E. Trussler, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare and director of naval intelligence, speaking Nov. 13 at a webinar on the website of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The event was sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and Huntington Ingalls Industries. 

“One hundred, 200 years ago it was pretty slow-moving,” Trussler said. “Over the last hundred years that [advantage] has slowly whittled away and become much shorter. Now that we’re in the information age, the information advantage you might hold could be a mere matter of minutes or even seconds. … It’s about understanding the domain as never before” from the seabed to space. 

“Depending on where you are, the time of day, the environmental conditions, you may be offered advantages if you know how to take advantage of them, or the enemy may be subject to some disadvantages if you know how to exploit them.” 

Information warfare has arisen to such importance in naval operations that there is now an Information Warfare Commander assigned to each carrier strike group on par with other composite warfare commanders such as the air warfare, undersea warfare, surface warfare, and strike warfare commanders in the strike group. 

“Those windows of opportunity might be very short,” said the admiral, a submariner. “The ability to take advantage … it’s all about speed, it’s about the precision of information you get. … And the volume that comes in. More importantly, those things also offer vulnerabilities. It also requires the speed of decision. So, it’s not about accumulating a lot of great information. If you don’t act on it in an appropriate amount of time, that decision advantage you may have with the information you have it may just go away.” 

Trussler said the speed of information “requires leaders who are going to take advantage of this. And I hope we’re evolving toward that as the information flows, the opportunity flows, those windows that can be offered into the physical environment or the RF spectrum of slight opportunities, that’s when decisions have to be made and taken advantage of before that advantage of information is lost.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has ordered a second lot of Leonardo TH-73A training helicopters from the company’s U.S. operation, AgustaWestland. 

The Naval Air Systems Command has awarded AgustaWestland a $171.0 million firm-fixed-price contract modification to exercise an option for 36 TH-73As as part of the Advanced Helicopter Training System Program, according to a Nov. 12 Defense Department contract announcement. Fiscal 2021 funds were allocated for the contract modification. 

The first production lot of 32 TH-73As was ordered in January 2020 with a contract award for $176.5 million, which included initial spare parts, dedicated equipment and specific pilot and maintenance training services. 

The TH-73A will replace the Bell TH-57B/C SeaRanger helicopter in Training Air Wing Five at Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Florida, in training rotary-wing pilots for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. 

The TH-73A is a variant of the commercial Leonardo TH-119 helicopter. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — As the Navy pushes the efforts to reduce the days of maintenance delays to ships in maintenance, the achievement of on-time delivery of ships from their maintenance availabilities in itself will help alleviate shortages in shipyard capacity, said the commander of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). 

Vice Adm. William Galinis, the NAVSEA commander, speaking to the Defense Writers Group during a Nov. 12 webinar, listed as his No. 1 priority the on-time delivery of ships, submarines and systems, including new construction vessels and those going through maintenance and modernization availabilities. 

Galinis said, “getting after the planning piece” right and ensuring that long-lead materials are ordered and received on time goes a long way to being ready to execute construction or maintenance when a ship comes in the yard for an availability. 

“We’ve got maintenance issues within some of our repair yards and in some phases of our new-construction yards that we have to get after,” Galinis said. “We’re working with industry on how we get after that. If you get ships through the shipyards on the plan that you initially envisioned, that in itself will free up capacity.” 

The admiral said, “there are shipyards out there that we have not fully tapped into. There’s an opportunity to bring other shipyards into the mix on the maintenance side.” 

He said his command is looking at the maintenance capacity “inside the public yards and how much of that work do we really need to push out to the private sector. Our private-sector submarine yards are interested in that type of work. Whet we need to do is show a good requirement and what the workload would look like.” 

The Navy improved its ship maintenance backlog in fiscal 2020 over 2019, reducing days of maintenance delay lost ship days from more than 7,000 to about 1,000, Galinis said, an 80% improvement, though because of some re-baselining the percentage “is closer to 40% with the original baseline,” he said. 

“We’re not going to get to zero in 2021,” he said, but noted the improvement in performance was positive and that “60% to 70% of availabilities were tracking to on-time delivery.” 

He said there was a handful of ships — including four Ticonderoga-class cruisers in the Cruiser Modernization Program and the fire-damaged Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Oscar Austin — that were delayed significantly and skewing the days of maintenance delays metric. He said the Navy is going to re-baseline the Cruiser Modernization program.     

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is sailing full speed ahead on its Columbia ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN) program with a $9.47 billion contract to General Dynamics Electric Boat for the full construction of the future USS Columbia (SSBN 826) — the lead ship of the class — and for advance procurement, advance procurement, and coordinated material buys for the second boat of the class, the future USS Wisconsin (SSBN 827).

The Naval Sea Systems Command contract, announced Nov. 5 in a virtual press conference with reporters by James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, was ready in waiting for the execution of the fiscal 2021 defense budget, but the Navy obtained authority from Congress to make the award as an exception to the limitations of the current continuing resolution.  

The Columbia program, a recapitalization of the Navy’s strategic deterrent nuclear submarine force, is the service’s No. 1 acquisition priority. The Navy plans to build “at least 12” Columbia SSBNs to replace its fleet of 14 Ohio-class SSBNs, according to Rear Adm. Scott Pappano, program executive officer for the Columbia program, also speaking at the conference. The Columbia will carry the same Trident D5LE ballistic missile type as the Ohio class. 

Geurts said the Columbia program was on track and stressed the importance of keeping it that way. He praised the efforts of Electric Boat and the Navy’s program team and their workers for the hard work in keeping the program on schedule. 

Pappano said the Columbia will be delivered in fiscal 2027 and will be on patrol early in fiscal 2031. The SSBN likely will serve into the 2080s.  

Capt. Scott Rucker, the Columbia program manager who also spoke at the conference, noted that the last start of a new SSBN occurred in the 1970s. He said the Columbia, over the last decade, has gone through numerous design reviews and production reviews and is in a high state of design completion.   

Rucker said the Columbia program had more than 5,000 suppliers in 48 states. 

Geurts, noting that the Columbia design was more mature “than any other sub we’ve ever done,” said that the next major program event would be the full construction contract for the Wisconsin in 2024. 

He said that early efforts had “burned off” much of the technological risk but that the Navy was hawking the program continuously to protect the margin in the schedule. 

Pappano said the program used large-scale land-based prototyping and construction prototyping to shake out the design and processes and reduce risk. Some advance construction he noted included the missile tube compartment, with 13 tubes delivered to date, 11 of which have been completed for the Columbia and the Royal Navy’s new class of SSBN. He and that he was confident of the boat’s new nuclear reactor and permanent magnet motor.   

Rucker said the cost for the lead boat would be $7.44 billion in calendar 2017 dollars. Congress has set a threshold of $8 billion in 2017 dollars for the average cost of subsequent boats, noting that the cost includes government-furnished equipment. He said congressional authorities in the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund were leveraged for the program.  

Rucker said the first quad pack of missile tubes for the Columbia would be competed in February 2021. Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding has started construction on the stern, which will “come out” in spring 2021 and “the bow will go in.” He said that large sections of the ship already are in construction. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) is now in full production mode for the propulsion sections of the U.S. Navy’s Mk48 submarine-launched torpedo, a company official said. The company also plans to bid on components for an upcoming Foreign Military Sales contract for the torpedo. 

In a Nov. 4 interview with Seapower, Steve Rigdon, vice president for Programs at SAIC, said the company currently is building and delivering 260 after-body tail cones for the torpedoes, which contain the propulsion system and the propeller. In August 2020 the Navy exercised the fourth and final option of the contract for $84.8 million for the torpedo’s production, which includes torpedoes for Australia and Taiwan. Deliveries under this option are scheduled to begin in October 2022 and be completed by October 2023. 

The Navy has restarted procurement of the Mk48 torpedo to shore up its inventory for its submarine force. Earlier production of the torpedo — originally built by Gould — had ceased in the mid-1990s. SAIC received a contract to build the after-body tail cones. Lockheed Martin builds the guidance-and control section. The Navy is providing the fuel tanks and warheads for this production run of weapons. 

Rigdon said the Naval Sea Systems Command has issued a Request for Proposals for a new seven-year contract for procurement for both after-body tail cones and fuel tanks for the Mk48. 

“We also recently won a fuel tank contract from NUWC [Naval Undersea Warfare Center] Keyport, [Washington], and that is for FMS purposes,” he said. “We’re currently building fuel tanks as well.” 

Navies other than the U.S. Navy that have procured the Mk48 include those of Australia, Canada, Brazil, Taiwan, and Turkey.   

Rigdon said that has been one of the biggest challenges has been reinvigorating the supply chain. 

“We were working off of a [technical] data package that was pretty old and there were some technical challenges as well as getting the supply chain back up and delivering the assemblies and components that we need,” he said. “It’s been an engineering challenge; it’s a challenge we’ve been up to.” 

He also said his facility has maintained full-rate production despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the program management and engineering staff have been working remotely.  

SAIC has received accelerated funding under the CARES Act for the torpedo program, receiving 90 percent of incurred cost rather than the pre-pandemic arrangement of 80 percent. 

SAIC is building the torpedo assemblies with about 25 production workers at its facility in Bedford, Indiana, located adjacent to the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, The final assembly and testing of the torpedoes is conducted by the NUWC Keyport. 

“Every single one [after-body tail cones] will go through multiple in-water runs before it’s deemed a war-shot [torpedo],” Rigdon said, noting that the Navy’s Intermediate Maintenance Activity in Keyport completely disassembles, cleans, and re-assembles the tail cones after every in-water run.  

“A lot of the success in this program is because of the partnership between the Navy and SAIC,” He said. “Our singular focus is delivering these after-bodies to the best submarines in the world so that they have the best weapons in the world.” 

ARLINTON, Va. — The U.S. naval force in 2045 — reflected in a forthcoming force structure study called Battle Force 2045 — will reflect a more closely integrated Fleet and Fleet Marine Force to meet the challenges of the future operating environment.  

In an Oct. 29 webinar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and Huntington Ingalls Industries, Marine Lt. Gen. Eric M. Smith, commander, Marine Corps Combat Development Center and deputy commandant for Development and Integration, and Vice Adm. James W. Kilby, deputy chief of naval operations for Warfighting Requirements and Capabilities, discussed the integration needed between the two services to support each other in support of combatant commanders in a joint environment. 

Asked by moderator retired Vice Adm. Peter Daly to offer any insights on the forthcoming Naval Force Structure Assessment and the subsequent fleet assessment by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Smith said, “The most importance from my perspective is the need for a balanced fleet. … You can’t choose pieces, parts, and look at the easiest way to get to X or Y number. You have to look at the totality of the fleet, and its capability, of which the Marine Corps is a proud part.” 

“In our force structure assessment process, we typically took a 10-year view, and this year we went farther to 2045,” Kilby said. “The farther you go out into the future, the less sure are in what is going to be. We had different expressions of what Red [enemy forces] could be and what Blue [friendly forces] could be, but I think it is consistent with what we’ve talked in many forms where we had a more distributed force.” 

During a recent wargame at Quantico, Virginia, “we able to establish our own ability to have effects if we don’t have the full national technical means available to us,” Kilby said. “We looked at some specific platforms and [noted that] they’re as impactful as we thought they were.” 

He said the wargame showed that the amphibious warfare force structure probably needed “some new elements to help us with Expeditionary Advance Base Operations, supporting littoral operations in a contested environment.  

“When you see the results that come out, there will be more work for us to do,” Kilby said, noting in particular the need for amphibious warfare force structure to align to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger’s Force Design 2030. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The secretary of the Navy is bullish on the future Constellation-class guided-missile frigate (FFG) and said it may be a possible candidate for sale to the nation’s allied and partner navies. 

In an Oct. 28 webinar discussion with retired Rear Adm. Frank Thorp IV, president and CEO of the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C., Navy Secretary Kenneth J. Braithwaite sees the potential for service in many nations’ navies for the FFG, liking the potential of sales to the large number of customers for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.  

“Why can’t we create a Joint Strike Frigate?” Braithwaite mused. “Why can’t we take that same platform and offer it to our allies and partners around the world? After all, it is an amalgamation of an Italian-U.S. joint effort to build that ship in a U.S. shipyard. It’s already got an international footprint.”  

Thorp pointed out a comment Oct. 26 from National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien at the Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin, where the Constellation, will be built, that building two frigates would not be enough. 

“We’re going to need two, three, four frigates built a year to get to the numbers of where we want to be,” O’Brien told employees during a visit to the shipyard, reported Paul McCleary in the Breaking Defense website. “This yard has the capability to build two or three of them itself.” 

“It’s great to have that kind of support in the White House and I’d love to see us build [more],” Braithwaite said. “I’m a huge fan of that ship. It is an incredibly capable vessel. … I spent a lot of time picking the name for that ship to make it fit into the culture piece of who we are and what we are as the United States Navy. 

Braithwaite noted that the Navy’s FFG program of record calls for 20 to be built but predicted that “we’ll build more than 20 of those.” 

He also noted that many navies operate ex-U.S. Navy Knox- and Perry-class frigates, which could be replaced by new frigates.  

ARLINGTON, Va. — The second Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN) will be named for the state of Wisconsin, the secretary of the Navy said during an Oct. 28 webinar. 

In a discussion with retired Rear Adm. Frank Thorp IV, president and CEO of the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C., Navy Secretary Kenneth J. Braithwaite took the opportunity to announce that the second new SSBN would be named USS Wisconsin (SSBN 827). 

The SSBN will be the third U.S. Navy ship to bear the name Wisconsin, the 30th state.  

The first USS Wisconsin (BB 9) was an Illinois-class pre-dreadnought battleship, commissioned in 1901. The ship served as flagship of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and later joined the U.S. Asiatic Fleet. It participated in the second leg of the Great White Fleet’s circumnavigation of the globe. It was put in reserve status in 1910 and became a training ship in 1912. BB 9 was decommissioned in May 1920 and scrapped.  

The second USS Wisconsin (BB 64), an Iowa-class battleship, was commissioned in April 1944. The battleship served in the Pacific Fleet in the last year of World War II, using its 16-inch guns for shelling enemy installations and its smaller guns to protect carrier task forces. The ship was decommissioned in 1948 but recommissioned in 1951 to serve in the Korean War, used to shell enemy positions in Korea. The ship was decommissioned for the second time in 1958. 

Thirty years later, as part of the Reagan Administration naval build-up, the Wisconsin was modernized with Tomahawk missiles and recommissioned in 1988. The ship served in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, striking Iraqi targets. The Wisconsin was decommissioned for the last time in September 1991. The ship was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 2006 and in 2010 was donated to Norfolk, Virginia, as part of the Nauticus Museum.  

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has placed an order with Lockheed Martin for four MH-60R Seahawk multi-mission helicopters for the government of Greece. 

The Naval Air Systems Command, through the Foreign Military Sales Program, awarded a $194 million contract modification to Lockheed Martin for the helicopters and three airborne low-frequency sonar systems to be used by the helicopters, according to an Oct. 26 Defense Department contract announcement. 

The MH-60R is the U.S. Navy’s maritime strike and anti-submarine helicopter. The helicopter type also has been exported to the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Danish Air Force, and the Royal Saudi Navy. Greece would be the fifth operator and has stated an intent to procure seven. Other nations intent on procuring MH-60Rs are the Republic of Korea and India, which have announced plans for 12 and 24 helicopters, respectively.  

Work on the contract modification is expected to be completed in February 2025.   

ARLINGTON, Va. — Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a Lockheed Martin company, has received an order from the U.S. Navy for six CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopters for the U.S. Marine Corps. 

The Naval Air Systems Command awarded a $550.4 million contract modification to Sikorsky for Lot IV Low-Rate Initial Production of six CH-53Ks, according to an Oct. 26 Defense Department contract announcement. 

The contract modification also includes “associated aircraft, programmatic and logistics support, rate tooling and physical configuration audits.” 

The CH-53K is the Marine Corps’ heavy-lift replacement for the CH-53E Super Stallion. Designed to lift nearly 14 tons at a mission radius of 110 nautical miles, in Navy high/hot environments, the CH-53K is designed to lift triple the baseline CH-53E lift capability. The CH-53K will have an equivalent logistics shipboard footprint, lower operating costs per aircraft, and less direct maintenance man hours per flight hour.  

The Marine Corps has a requirement for 200 CH-53Ks. The work for the order is expected to be completed in July 2024.