ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has deployed the W76-2 low-yield nuclear warhead in the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile, the Defense Department confirmed Feb. 4. 

The deployment was reported in an article posted Jan. 29 on the website of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) by William M. Arkin and Hans M. Kristensen and has been confirmed by John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy. 

“The Navy has fielded the W76-2 low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead,” Rood said in the statement. 

“In the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, the department identified the requirement to ‘modify a small number of submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads’ to address the conclusion that potential adversaries, like Russia, believe that employment of low-yield nuclear weapons will give them an advantage over the United States and its allies and partners. 

“This supplemental capability strengthens deterrence and provides the United States a prompt, more survivable low-yield strategic weapon; supports our commitment to extended deterrence; and demonstrates to potential adversaries that there is no advantage to limited nuclear employment because the United States can credibly and decisively respond to any threat scenario.” 

The FAS article claimed that the W76-2 is believed to have been deployed in late 2019 on the USS Tennessee, an Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine based at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. FAS said the W76-2 has a nuclear yield equivalent of five kilotons of explosives, compared with 90 kilotons for the W76-1 warhead and 455 kilotons of the W88 warhead.  

The low-yield warhead became a point of dispute between Democrats and Republicans in the Congress, with Democrats opposing the deployment, voiced by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash). In the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act passed into law in December, the warhead survived conference committee negotiations and was approved for deployment.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy may accelerate the training of the crew of the future USS John F. Kennedy on its predecessor, USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s top official said. 

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas J. Modly, speaking Jan. 29 at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank, said the Navy “might want to bring some crew from the Kennedy over to the Ford to help [the Ford] get up to speed more quickly.”  

Modly said he knew from personal experience during his Navy service that shipyard periods can be miserable for a ship’s crew and that some seagoing skills atrophy during long yard periods. 

By having some of the Kennedy’s crew train on the Ford, they could gain valuable training and experience while helping the Ford progress in its certifications and be more ready to take the Kennedy to sea when it is commissioned. In the past, some carriers in yard periods would send a few of their crew to another carrier operating in the area to gain experience. 

The John F. Kennedy was launched last month and is now being outfitted. The carrier is scheduled for delivery to the fleet in 2024. 

Modly took the opportunity to say that the Gerald R. Ford was “doing extremely well” of late. 

He said that probably seven of the ship’s Advanced Weapon Elevators — critical to the ship’s sortie generation rate — would be operational by the end of the year. Four already have been certified.  

The secretary said that one advantage of the far aft position of the island superstructure on the Ford is the decrease in airflow turbulence over the flight deck compared with the Nimitz-class carriers, as reported by the pilots who have been busy certifying the ship’s flight deck.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy’s top official was mum on details of the recently completed Integrated Force Structure Assessment (IFSA), but he said the Navy needs a more distributed fleet to counter peer competitors. 

“There are going to be a lot of new things in this that weren’t in the 2016 Force Structure Assessment,” said acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly, who answered questions from an audience at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank, speaking of the IFSA. “It is a spectacular step forward in thinking about what our force structure should look like.” 

“We’re going to have to build a fleet that is more distributed to support distributed maritime operations,” Modly added. “We’re going to have to build a fleet that has distributed sensor capability … that is less concentrated in its lethality … that per platform is less expansive than it is right now.”  

The acting secretary pointed out that the average cost of a new ship during the build-up to the 600-ship Navy in the 1980s was about $1 billion, whereas the average cost now is $2 billion in constant dollars.  

“It’s just not sustainable anymore,” he said. 

“We have to be in a lot of places at once, and we need to complicate the calculations of our adversaries in the [Pacific] region.” 

He said there are “some platforms that we need to invest in that we currently don’t have. We’ve got to get on with that, both from the research and development side of it, also, perhaps, expanding the size of the industrial base to produce those things.” 

He said the new guided-missile frigate — FFG(X) — “is a critical program for us” in that as a smaller platform it will enable to Navy to be more distributed. 

The Navy is expected to continue to push for new seagoing medium and large unmanned surface vessels, though these are not likely to be included in the Navy’s official count of ships in its battle force — an accounting Modly said he found to be irrelevant, in that counts of ships and unmanned vessels would total the same whether counted together or separately. 

The Navy is going as fast as it can with the funding that is being provided for unmanned ships, he said.  

Modly said the big question for the future fleet is the next aircraft carrier design. The Gerald R. Ford class of carriers currently under construction cost $13 billion per ship, and they are large targets for an adversary — a characteristic he cited as demonstrating the need for more distribution of the fleet, including smaller ships. 

He also pointed out that, by current planning, the Navy will not be able to reach a force level of 12 aircraft carriers until 2065, “[at which point] we will all be dead.” 

The build-up to a 355-ship Navy, as currently codified into federal law, as delineated in a 30-year shipbuilding plan, “needs not to be a 30-year plan, [but] something within the next decade,” he said. “It’s going to require some trades.” 

Modly stressed that the Navy, with its shipbuilding needs, does not want to short-change current readiness, saying, “We don’t want a hollow force.” 

Modly said the Navy’s intention is to continually update the IFSA, pulling in academic thinking and wargaming to validate the assessment.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy MH-60S Seahawk helicopter lost in the Philippine Sea on Jan. 25 is the first loss of a Navy aircraft in calendar 2020 and possibly fiscal 2020 as well. 

The MH-60S, assigned to the command ship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) with a detachment from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 12, crashed into the Philippine Sea on while operating from the Blue Ridge. 

The five personnel on board were rescued by a UH-60 of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and another MH-60S from the Blue Ridge. The rescued personnel were evaluated as in stable condition, the U.S. 7th Fleet said.  

The loss is the first confirmed loss since July 31, according to an unofficial list, when an F/A-18E Super Hornet strike fighter collided with a canyon wall during a low-level flight over Nevada. 

An RQ-4A Global Hawk was damaged on Nov. 26 by a foreign object during a takeoff from an airfield in the Middle East, according the U.S. 5th Fleet. It is not yet known if the mishap resulted or will result in a write-off of the aircraft.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations, with this initial deployment marking the achievement of early operational capability (EOC), the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a release. 

Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP) 19, the Navy’s first Triton UAS squadron, deployed two MQ-4Cs to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, by Jan. 26 “as part of an [EOC] to further develop the concept of operations and fleet learning associated with operating a high-altitude, long-endurance system in the maritime domain,” the Pacific Fleet release said. 

VUP-19 is headquartered at Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville, Florida, but its Tritons are based at NAS Point Mugu, California. While deployed to Guam the Tritons will be under operational control of commander, Task Force 72, which also controls the operations of the Navy’s P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and EP-3E Orion electronic reconnaissance aircraft in the western Pacific.  

The Triton eventually will achieve initial operational capability when a total of four MQ-4Cs are deployed to a single site to establish a 24/7 orbit over the western Pacific area of operations. 

“The introduction of MQ-4C Triton to the 7th Fleet area of operations expands the reach of the U.S. Navy’s maritime patrol and reconnaissance force in the Western Pacific,” Capt. Matt Rutherford, commander of CTF-72, said in the release. “Coupling the capabilities of the MQ-4C with the proven performance of P-8, P-3 and EP-3 will enable improved maritime domain awareness in support of regional and national security objectives.” 

“The Navy’s Persistent Maritime UAS program office at Patuxent River, managed by Capt. Dan Mackin, and industry partner Northrop Grumman, worked closely with VUP-19 in preparation for EOC,” the release said. 

“Prior to flying the aircraft to Guam, the team completed extensive operational test and unit level training. This significant milestone marks the culmination of years of hard work by the joint team to prepare Triton for overseas operations. The fielding of the Navy’s premier unmanned aircraft system and its additive, persistent, multi-sensor data collection and real-time dissemination capability will revolutionize the way maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance is performed.” 

Rear Adm. Peter Garvin, commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, said in the release: “The inaugural deployment of Triton UAS brings enhanced capabilities and a broad increase in maritime domain awareness to our forward fleet commanders. VUP-19, the Navy’s first dedicated UAS squadron supported by an outstanding NAVAIR and industry team, is superbly trained and ready to provide the persistent ISR coverage the Navy needs.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The next U.S. Marine aircraft squadron scheduled for transition to the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter made its last flight in an F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter Jan. 23. 

The flight by Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (All-Weather) 225 (VMFA(AW)-225), based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, completed the phase-out of its last F/A-18D Hornets, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing said on its website. 

The squadron is slated to begin transition to the F-35B, the short-takeoff/vertical landing version of the Lightning II. According to the fiscal 2019 Marine Corps Aviation Plan, VMFA(AW)-225 is scheduled to begin its transition to the F-35B in fiscal 2021. 

Presumably the squadron designation will drop the (AW) suffix for transition. The squadron will follow VMFAs 121, 211 and 122 as the Corps’ fourth operational F-35B squadron. VMFA-225 will move to MCAS Yuma, Arizona, to join 211 and 122. 

The Corps plans to stand up a second F-35B replacement training squadron, VMFAT-502, at Miramar this year to support the increasing F-35B training load. The temporary stand-down of VMFA-225 will enable the Corps “to recapitalize structure and manpower to help VMFAT-502’s stand up and then transition to F-35B at MCAS Yuma,” according to the aviation plan. 

The last Hornet flight of VMFA(AW)-225 occurred two days after VMFA-314 flew the Corps’ first carrier-capable F-35C versions to Miramar from Naval Air Station Lemoore, California, where VMFA-314 has been going through transition from the F/A-18C Hornet to the F-35C. VMFA-314 is scheduled to be ready for a deployment on an aircraft carrier in early fiscal 2022.  

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The U.S. Coast Guard is so bullish on the Insitu-built ScanEagle unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) that it is moving up the schedule of installing it on its Legend-class
national security cutters (NSCs).

The Coast
Guard awarded Insitu an ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance)
services contract to Insitu in 2016 to deploy the ScanEagle onboard one NSC,
the Stratton. Two years ago, the Coast Guard awarded Insitu a contract to
operate the ScanEagle on board all NSCs.

“Over the
past year and a half, we have begun integration on board all national security
cutters,” said Ron Tremain, vice president of Insitu Defense, a Boeing company,
who spoke to Seapower on Jan. 15 at the Surface Navy Association’s gathering
here.

“We had a notional
timeline to integrate over a five-year period and [Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl
Schultz] stated in his speech last year that he wanted to integrate it on board
all national security cutters by the end of 2020.”

“So that
expedited the program,” Tremain added. “We’ve installed it on five national
security cutters to date, and it will be installed on all national security
cutters currently built by the end of 2020.”

Insitu
installs the UAVs and their launch-and-recovery equipment and ground-control
stations on board the ships, he said. Insitu sends four-person teams to deploy
with each ship. They operate the entire system once on board. The teams are
fully embedded with their ship’s crew.

“The
ground-control station is fully integrated into the command-and-control
structure of the ship,” Tremain said. “The launch-and-recovery equipment is
roll-on/roll-off.”

A standard
pack-out for a deployment is three ScanEagle UAVs, he said. The sensor systems
include and electro-optical/infrared camera, a laser pointer, a communication
relay, an Automatic Identification System interrogator and Vidar (visual
detection and ranging, a surface search capability).

Retired Coast
Vice Adm. John P. Currier, head of JP Currier Consulting LLC and former head on
Coast Guard acquisition, told Seapower that the sensor data product from
the ScanEagle is provided to the cutter for analysis and action.

Currier said
that before deployment of the ScanEagle the NSC had a scan of 35 miles either
side of the ship with its organic sensors.

“With
ScanEagle on board, for good parts of the day, you’re up to 75 miles either
side of the ship as you’re moving through the sea space,” he said. “ScanEagle
is a game-changer.”

“We’ve
effectively doubled the search area of a national security cutter,” Tremain
said. “We’re he only company flying with Vidar, and we’re surveilling up to 1,000
square miles of open ocean per flight hour, and we’re identifying greater than
90% of the targets.”

Deployments
under the current contract have been made by cutters Monroe, James and Stratton.
Four were made on Stratton on the 2016 contract.

Tremain said
the ScanEagle teams have been credited with assisting in the interception on
nearly $3 billion worth of narcotics to date.

The current
$118 million ISR services contract is a one-year contract with seven options
for one-year extensions. Tremain said that with the expedition of the
installations the value of the contract will go up exponentially.

He said that
Insitu is integrating ScanEagle on a number of ships of other navies around the
world.

The Coast Guard also plans
to integrate the ScanEagle on the forthcoming Heritage-class offshore patrol
cutters.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The fielding of the RQ-21A Blackjack unmanned aerial system achieved full
operational capability in 2019, Navy’s program manager said.

Col. John
Neville, the Blackjack’s program manager for the Program Executive Office-Unmanned
and Strike Weapons, told Seapower at the Surface Navy Association gathering
here that all 21 systems for the Marine Corps and 10 for the Navy have been delivered
to fleet and training units.

The
Blackjack, built by Boeing’s Insitu, is a twin-boom, single-engine, small
tactical unmanned aerial vehicle that carries modular payloads mostly for
surveillance. It is pneumatically launched and is recovered using a skyhook
arrestment system. A single Blackjack system includes five UAVs, two ground
control stations, various payloads and a set of launch and recovery systems.

The Blackjack
now equips four Marine UAV squadrons plus a fleet replacement detachment. The
Marine Corps deploys the Blackjack with its Marine expeditionary units onboard
amphibious warfare ships. The 10 systems for the Navy have been delivered to
Navy Special Warfare Command and made two deployments in 2019.

Neville said
the Blackjack has demonstrated “great reliability.”

He said that
with fielding complete, his office is concentrating on sustainment of the
Blackjack and also on Foreign Military Sales. Two nations, Canada and Poland,
have procured the Blackjack and Neville said there are more possible sales “on
the horizon.”

Foreign sales will help to
bring down the cost of the Blackjack, he said.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is installing control centers for unmanned aerial vehicles on its aircraft carriers as the ships go through overhauls and maintenance periods, a Navy official said.

Capt. Chuck
Ehnes, the Navy’s program manager for in-service aircraft carriers, speaking
Jan.16 at the Surface Navy Association gathering here, said the Unmanned
Aviation Warfare Centers (UAWCs) are being installed to operate the MQ-25A
Stingray unmanned aerial tanker and any follow-on UAVs the Navy plans to
operate from its aircraft carriers.

Ehnes said
the UAWC is one of several phased modernizations being conducted on the
carriers in service to upgrade their warfighting capabilities.

Over time,
carriers are receiving numerous modifications to prepare to operate the F-35C
Lightning II strike fighter, the CMV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor carrier onboard
delivery aircraft and the MQ-25. The carriers also are receiving additive
manufacturing labs and upgraded cybersecurity.

Ehnes said the carriers also are receiving the Distance Communication and Maintenance System (DCoMs), a remote conferencing system that will enable Sailors to discuss maintenance issues with technical experts ashore. He compared the new DCoMs to a telemedicine system will be a “potential game-changer” in reducing the need for tech assist visits and the dispatching of repair teams.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier will go through a rigorous period
of tests and trials over the rest of fiscal 2020, a Navy official said.

Speaking Jan.
16 at the Surface Navy Association gathering here, Capt. Ron Rutan, the Navy’s
program manager for the USS Gerald R. Ford, lead ship of its class, said the
ship gets underway “11 times over 220 days” starting Jan. 16, continuing 18
months of post-delivery testing and trials, which will run into through the
second quarter of fiscal 2021.

Rutan said the ship will have contractor personnel on board continuing work while the ship is at sea. The Navy plans to complete work on the seven Advanced Weapon Elevators that have not yet been certified. He said that four others already have been certified and they have been put through more than 5,000 cycles, including runs while the carrier has been put through high-speed turns that simulated Sea State 5.

One of the 11
events this quarter of the fiscal year will be used to certify the ship’s
flight deck.

The carrier
is scheduled for full-ship shock trials during the third or fourth quarters of
fiscal 2021.