ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has issued a draft Request for Proposals for its planned Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV), one of the vessels planned for its future surface fleet.

“The LUSV will be a
high-endurance, reconfigurable ship able to accommodate various payloads for
unmanned missions to augment the Navy’s manned surface force, the Aug. 9
announcement on the FedBizOps website said.

“With a large payload
capacity, the LUSV will be designed to conduct a variety of warfare operations
independently or in conjunction with manned surface combatants. The LUSV will
be capable of semi-autonomous or fully autonomous operation, with operators
in-the-loop (controlling remotely) or on-the-loop (enabled through autonomy).”

Naval Sea Systems
Command (NAVSEA) intends to award multiple contracts for conceptual designs
from the defense industry. A final RFP is to be issued in the fourth quarter
fiscal 2019. 

On July 16, the Navy issued an RFP for the Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MUSV), another vessel planned to be part of its future fleet concept. That RFP calls for “a pier-launched, self-deploying modular, open architecture, surface vessel capable of autonomous safe navigation and mission execution.”

The Navy is expected to field the LUSV and MUSV as adjuncts to its future surface fleet that will include the future surface combatant and the new FFG(X) guided-missile frigate as well as Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers and the Independence- and Freedom-class littoral combat ships.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The vice chief of naval operations has praised the progress made by the
naval aviation F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighter community in improving its
readiness and is optimistic that a readiness goal of 80% will be reached by Oct.
1.

In a blog
post Aug. 12 on the Navy Live blog, VCNO Adm. Robert Burke wrote of his recent
visit to the commander of Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic and Strike Fighter Squadron
106 (VFA-106) at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, “to get a firsthand look
at the changes to aviation maintenance practices and to gain insight on the
challenges and priorities of aviators and maintainers,” he said. VFA-106 is the
East Coast fleet replacement squadron for the F/A-18 community.

“It has been
less than a year since the Navy set out to restore strike fighter readiness
rates to 80%, and the one-year deadline of Oct. 1 is approaching,” Burke said. “For
the aviation community, the endeavor to increase the mission-capable rate of
F/A-18E/F Super Hornets posed a challenge that naval aviation leadership
attacked with fervor.”

Burke was
referring to the directive from then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to the U.S. Navy,
Marine Corps and Air Force to increase the readiness rates of its fighter
communities to 80% by Oct. 1. The services had been experiencing readiness
rates lower that 50% that had negatively affected numbers of mission-capable
aircraft, flight hours for pilots and pilot morale and retention.

Burke said
that VFA-106 was the most recent squadron “to initiate reforms under the Naval
Sustainment System (NSS), starting in April of this year. VFA-106 has the
largest inventory of Super Hornets on the flight line, as they are responsible
for training newly winged aviators for the fleet.

“In short,
this squadron is the largest contributor to the strike fighter readiness
recovery,” he said. “Since VFA-106 maintenance performance impacts overall
Super Hornet readiness status more than any other squadron, the recent
implementation of NSS procedures had a significant impact on the overall goal. …
VFA-106 learned from the FRS squadron [VFA-125] at NAS Lemoore who completed
early iterations of NSS changes. This rapid learning and improvement drove
VFA-106 to reduce maintenance turnover timeframes, raise the average mission
capable (MC) aircraft numbers, and return several long-term down aircraft to a
flying status.”

Burke said he
spoke with two junior Sailors who were plane crew chiefs to ask their opinion
of the NSS process.

“With pride,
they both spoke of ownership, of learning the whole aircraft, well outside of
their rating expertise, and of true teamwork,” he said. “This is a great
example of U.S. Navy Sailors being given tremendous responsibility — and
running with it!”

Burke said
that VFA-106 “is reaching the point where lack of MC aircraft is no longer a
limiting factor to pilot production, even when supporting operations in
multiple locations or underway on the aircraft carrier.

“These are powerful results that will ensure we have enough instructors and pilots in the future,” he said. “Success at VFA-106 is one example of how the Naval Aviation Enterprise is working together to achieve our 80% readiness goal,” Burke said.

“Because NSS addresses all elements of aviation maintenance — people, parts and processes — to make permanent changes that increase aviation readiness and lethality, we are seeing improvements that are sustainable for the future. Through collaboration and a whole-of-aviation approach, the Naval Aviation Enterprise is on its way to achieve and sustain its readiness goal.”

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The commander of Naval Air Forces confirmed that the pilot of the F/A-18E
Super Hornet strike fighter that crashed July 31 in Southern California died in
the crash.

“At
approximately 10 a.m. PST on July 31, a F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to the
‘Vigilantes’ of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 151 based at Naval Air Station
Lemoore, California, crashed approximately 40 miles north of Naval Air Weapons
Station China Lake, California,” CNAF said in a release. The aircraft was on a
routine training mission in the area at the time. The cause of the crash is
currently under investigation.”

The F/A-18E
was on a low-level flight through a feature called Star Wars Canyon in Death
Valley National Park when it crashed near a popular overlook that aviation
photographers and other tourists visit to watch jets streak through the canyon.
The crash caused minor injuries to seven civilian tourists at the overlook with
fire and flying debris.

The Super
Hornet that crashed is only the fourth Navy aircraft to be lost in a crash so
far in fiscal 2019, according to records.

This fiscal year, prior to the F/A-18E loss, aerial mishaps claimed an F/A-18F Super Hornet, an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter and a T-45C Goshawk training jet.

Until the July 31 mishap, no Navy aviators had been killed in a mishap this year.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The U.S. Navy jet that crashed July 31 in Southern California is only the
fourth Navy aircraft to be lost in a crash so far in fiscal 2019, according to
records.

The F/A-18E
Super Hornet strike fighter, assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 151, according
to a source, and based at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California, was on a
low-level flight through a feature called Star Wars Canyon in Death Valley
National Park when it crashed near a popular overlook that aviation
photographers and other tourists visit to watch jets streak through the canyon.
The crash caused minor injuries to seven civilian tourists at the overlook with
fire and flying debris.

As of mid-day
Aug. 1, the pilot of the single-seat Super Hornet was still missing. The Navy
had launched helicopters to participate in the search for the pilot.

So far this fiscal year,
aerial mishaps claimed an F/A-18F Super Hornet, an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter
and a T-45C Goshawk training jet. Until the July 31 mishap, no Navy aviators
had been killed in a mishap this year.

WASHINGTON —
The nominee for the next chief of naval operations said the U.S. Navy is
ultimately to blame for the ongoing problems with the weapons elevators on the
aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford.

“Ultimately,
sir, that’s a Navy responsibility,” Vice Adm. Michael M. Gilday said,
testifying July 31 at his confirmation before the Senate Armed Services Committee
in response to a question from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), about which entity made
the decision not to test the weapons elevator ashore.

“We own the
risk and the risk-mitigation strategy to keep that ship on time. So ultimately
I would consider that a failure of the Navy.”

“Of the 23
new technologies that we introduced to Ford, [the staff of the secretary of the
Navy] did not consider the [weapons] elevator system to be high-risk, and so it
wasn’t prototyped ashore,” Gilday said.

“I think
money was a factor … but I don’t think it was the overriding factor,” he added.
“I think that as the engineers took a look at the existing design, that they
saw the risk as lower, they saw the risk as acceptable.”

Gilday said
that three of the major new systems introduced on the new carrier — the
Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), the Advanced Arresting Gear and
the Dual-Band Radar — are demonstrating “significant improvements in the reliability
of the systems” and that the remining major issue with the ship’s systems is
the continuing problem with the weapons elevators.

He said the
reliability of the Dual-Band Radar is now close to 99 percent.

Regarding the
EMALS, “We’ve had almost 800 launches, and for [each of] three successive days,
it’s right at the level we see in the existing Nimitz class,” Gilday said. “We
think we are on a good path with respect to the reliability in sortie-generation
rate.”

However, Senate Armed Services Chairman Sen. James Inhofe (R-Neb.) cited a report from the Operational Test and Evaluation Force saying that about every 75 launch cycles there was a critical failure, noting that the Navy’s own requirement on the EMALS is for a failure of once for every 4,000 launches and for the AAG of once every 10,000 recoveries.

“I want to make sure that we [do not] continue to operate where we have the failures, the premature deployment [of immature systems],” Inhofe said. “I want to make sure that the record is going to reflect beyond just the elevator, and those problems having to do with the arresting gear, having to do with the catapult, and the radar.”

WASHINGTON —
The newest nominee for chief of naval operations listed his top three
technology priorities to the Senate Armed Services Committee during his July 31
confirmation hearing, with artificial intelligence coming in as No. 1.

“On the top
of the list I would put artificial intelligence,” Vice Adm. Michael M. Gilday said
in response to a question from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).

MORE FROM THE CNO NOMINEE: Gilday says weapons elevator problems aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford are a “Navy failure.”

“I think that
that there are capabilities resident in industry that we can harness to our
advantage. What I am particularly interested in is how we use data in a more
innovative way to give us a quicker flash to bang, from decision-making to
action. There is a lot of information at our fingertips every single day; it’s
getting the right information to the right people at the right time so you can
make the right decisions faster than your opponent.”

“I think
there is great promise there,” Gilday added. “We are doing some experimenting
now that I’m very excited about.”

Gilday said
that hypersonics — his second technology priority — “is a must that we have to
get after quickly. Industry is our best partner as we work through this.”

His third
technology priority is unmanned systems.

“That is the future,” he said. “We have to look more deeply at how we would operate with unmanned vessels, whether they are on the sea, or under the sea, or in the air.”

Gilday said he “would take a look at wargaming, concept development and with experimentation. We’ve almost doubled the number of exercises we’re doing in the next year from 97 to 171. We’re going to look at these new technologies. If they’re going to fail, they can fail fast. If it’s something we want to invest in, then we put heat on it and field it quickly.”

The
focus of the U.S. Navy’s efforts in mine warfare over the last two decades has
been mine countermeasures (MCM) — locating and neutralizing hostile mines. New
airborne systems such as the Airborne Laser Mine-Detection System and the
Airborne Mine Neutralization System were developed, and the MCM Mission Package
for the littoral combat ships includes new systems, some unmanned, to “take the
man out of the minefield,” as proponents call the overall focus of the effort.
The efforts are well-needed: Since World War II, mines have sunk more U.S. Navy
ships than any other weapon.

Check out the full digital edition of Seapower magazine here.

With
MCM modernization efforts well underway, the changing world geopolitical
situation is bringing new emphasis of the other aspect of mine warfare —
offensive mining — that has not seen such attention since the end of the Cold
War. The rise of Russia and China and the modernization of their navies has
marked the return of an era of “Great Power Competition” has brought offensive
mining from a dormancy to renewed emphasis and development of new sea mines.

Sea
mines — sometimes called “weapons that wait” — have a strong deterrent effect
on shipping. With sensitive magnetic, acoustic or contact fuses and hiding in
waters where they are difficult to detect, their covertness and lethality have
a strong effect on the morale and effectiveness of ship crews and can shut down
harbors and transit lanes from shipping more effectively than other methods,
effecting a blockade.

Sea
mines are an ancient technology, but came into widespread use in World War I,
when 235,000 sea mines were laid by the belligerents’ ships and submarines. During
World War II, between 600,000 and a million sea mines were laid by the
belligerents. During World War II, aircraft, finally powerful enough to carry a
payload of mines, became the dominant mine-laying platform.

The
United States’ use of aircraft to conduct offensive mining achieved some
extraordinary successes during World War II. U.S., British and Australian
aircraft mined the Yangon River in Burma, inflicting severe losses on Japanese
merchant shipping in February 1943. Navy TBF torpedo bombers mined the harbor
of Palau in March 1944, closing the harbor for 20 days and bottling up 32 ships,
which were sunk or damaged by airstrikes.

The
most successful aerial mining offensive was Operation Starvation, the campaign
to cut off the Japanese homeland from food and other supplies brought by
shipping. Beginning in March 1945, 160 U.S. Army Air Force B-29 bombers were
used to lay 12,000 mines in and near Japanese waters. At a cost of 15 B-29s
lost in the operation, 293 Japanese merchant ships were sunk by the mines.
According to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, one in 21 air-laid mines struck
a ship, compared with one in 12 submarine-laid mines. Even though the
submarine-laid mines were more effective, the aerial mining proved to be 10
times less expensive per tonnage sunk.

The
U.S. Navy used offensive mining to good effect during the latter stages of the
Vietnam War. During Operation Pocket Money in May 1972, President Richard Nixon
ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor to cut off the seaborne flow of supplies
to North Vietnam. Four Navy A-7E and three Marine Corps A-6A aircraft laid
mines that bottled up 32 ships in the harbor for more than 10 months. The
mining operations continued through the rest of 1972, resulting in the laying
of more than 8,000 mines in the coastal waters of North Vietnam and 3,000 in
rivers and inland waterways.

The
only U.S. use of mine-laying since was during Operation Desert Storm in January
1991. According an email from Sean P. Henseler, a professor and deputy dean of
the College of Maritime Operational Warfare at the Naval War College and former
intelligence officer of one of the two participating squadrons, four A-6E
aircraft conducted mine-laying, each armed with 12 500-pound Destructor mines
(general-purpose bombs fitted with Snakeye retarding fins and mine fuzes), of
the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. One A-6E was shot down and its two-man crew was
killed.

Renewed
Interest

The
capability for offensive mining has remained intact — though low-key — in
subsequent years. But over the last two years, the Navy has shown more interest
in offensive mining and has accelerated improvements in its mining weaponry.

“Mines provide an
effective means of achieving sea control and sea denial,” a Navy official said
in an email provided by Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Chambers. “Mining
creates an additional factor that must be taken into account by our
adversaries’ decision-making.”

According to the Navy
official, “munitions requirements are determined based upon COCOM [combatant
commander] requirements and input, coupled with fiscal considerations. War-gaming
is a useful tool to determine numbers.”

Today, naval mines can
be deployed from a variety of aerial and subsurface platforms, including attack
submarines, Navy F/A-18 strike fighters and P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, and
Air Force B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers.

Until
recently, the Navy’s mine inventory was limited to the Mk62, 63 and 65
Quickstrike air-delivered mines and the Submarine-Launched Mobile Mine. The
Mk62 and Mk63 Quickstrike mines are blast/fragmentation 500-pound Mk82 and
1,000-pound Mk83 bombs, respectively, equipped with influence target-detection
devices for use in shallow water. The Mk65 is a thin-walled casing with a
2,000-pound warhead equipped with a target-detection device for magnetic,
seismic and pressure detonation.

For
these air-delivered mines, the Navy ordered new target-detection devices and
adapters from Sechan Electronics Inc. during the last quarter of fiscal 2018.
The Navy also has adapted the Joint Direct-Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit
for the Quickstrike weapons, allowing for more precise seeding of the mines.
This capability was demonstrated in Exercise Valiant Shield in 2018. In
addition, an extended-range version of the JDAM Quickstrike — through installation
of a wing kit — will be tested during the third quarter of fiscal 2019.

One
indication of the growing importance of naval mines is that one of the items on
the Navy’s 2020 unfunded priorities list was $71 million for the Quickstrike JDAM-ER,
which a Navy spokesman said “provides a means to deliver increased capability
to the COCOMs.”

The Submarine-Launched Mobile Mine is a modified Mk37 torpedo armed with
a target detection device. This shallow-water mine can be covertly launched into
a harbor, anchorage, shipping lane or other area to interdict ship and
submarine traffic.

The
Navy now is developing the Clandestine Delivered Mine (CDM), Capt. Danielle
George, the Navy’s mine warfare program manager, said Jan. 17 at the Surface
Navy Association convention in Arlington, Virginia. The Navy is conducting
testing of the new cylindrical-shaped mine, including end-to-end testing during
the second quarter of fiscal 2019. Initial deliveries are scheduled for 2020.
George said she was not at liberty to reveal the delivery platform(s) for the
CDM.

Another
new mine program, started in 2018, is the Hammerhead, an encapsulated torpedo
designed to lie in wait for submarines. The capsule for the torpedo would be
anchored to the ocean floor, much like the Mk60 CAPTOR mine of Cold War vintage
that housed a Mk46 antisubmarine torpedo. (The CAPTOR was withdrawn from the
Navy’s inventory in 2001.) The Hammerhead will be designed to have modular
architecture to allow for technology insertion. The Navy expects to issue a classified
request for information for the Hammerhead this year, George said.

“The
initial payload for Hammerhead is planned to be the Mk54 torpedo,” a Navy
official said. “The vision for the program is to use existing technologies,
where possible, while seeking opportunities to upgrade and expand the
capability as new technology becomes available.”

One
thing that has changed offensive mining in recent years is the GPS.

“GPS technology has
opened up additional possibilities for increased precision and longer-range
delivery,” a Navy official said.

GPS
also will aid in the post-war mine clearance, in that “the location of minefields must
be carefully recorded to ensure accurate notification and facilitate subsequent
removal and/or deactivation,” the official said.

The Navy’s chief of naval
operations has a mine warfare plan under development.

WASHINGTON —
The previous commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said the United States should
conduct more freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPs) and not limit them to
Chinese claims but include sailings through the disputed claims of other
nations as well.

“Specific to
the South China Sea, I think the United Sates should conduct FONOPS no less
than every four weeks and not sooner than four weeks of the last FONOPS and not
longer than six seeks of the previous one,” said retired Navy Adm. Scott Swift,
former commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, the keynote speaker July 24 at the 9th
Annual South China Sea Conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, a Washington think tank.

“Consistency
is important,” Swift said. “Right now, [the Defense Department] keeps track of
all the FONOPs. They’re passed over to the State Department, and the State
Department publishes once a year what we do globally. We need to publish those
FONOPs every three months.”

“I don’t
think that we should ever do a FONOP that is unique to the South China Sea,
that’s unique to China,” he said. “We should always include other countries to
point out that — I think it’s very important to maintain the position — that we
don’t take positions with respect to claims.”

Swift said
the United States “should be conducting more than 200 FONOPS a year globally.
We should stop saying that these challenges are unique to China. This is a
common issue: adherence to the rule-based order. If people disagree with the
positions being highlighted by the U.S. conducting freedom-of-navigation
operations, they are really done in the service of the State Department. It’s
up to the State Department through the ambassador to take the reasoning why we
did a FONOP to the country that’s being considered.”

He
highlighted the importance of each country making its own decision about how it
wants to highlight deviation from the international rules-based order.

“There are good friends of
the United States that are very concerned about the term ‘freedom of navigation
operations,’ he said. “They have another conceptual way to think about it and
we encourage it. There’s pressure that we bring on other countries that they
should be following our template. That’s not useful. We should be talking about
the rules-based order and asking amongst ourselves the view of common nations
and common concerns about how we can work together to highlight where actions
are deviating from those norms.”

Arlington,
Va. — The U.S. Navy’s increasing focus on anti-submarine warfare is reflected
in a recent mega-contract award for its primary air-dropped sensor, the sonobuoy.

Naval Air
Systems Command has awarded to ERAPSCO, a joint venture of Sparton and USSI
based in Columbia City, Indiana, a $1 billion contract to manufacture and deliver
a maximum of 37,500 SSQ-36B sonobuoys as well as 685,000 SSQ-53Gs, 120,000
SSQ-62Fs and 90,000 SSQ-101Bs for fiscal years 2019 through 2023.

“Sonobuoys
are air-launched expendable, electro-mechanical anti-submarine warfare acoustic
sensors designed to relay underwater sounds associated with ships and
submarines,” according to a July 18 Defense Department release.

On a typical
ASW mission, a P-3 Orion or P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft can launch a
few dozen sonobuoys while tracking submarines. Sonobuoys also are dropped by MH-60R
helicopters.

In a new era of “Great Power
Competition,” anti-submarine warfare has taken on increasing importance as the Navy
and those of allied nations ramp up efforts to track and, should it become
necessary, counter the submarine forces of Russia, China, Iran or North Korea.

ARLINGTON, Va. — An Iranian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle downed by U.S. naval forces July 18 was brought down not by missiles or guns but by a vehicle-mounted electronic attack system.

The Iranian
UAV had flown within 1,000 yards of the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer and
its unknown controller had ignored radioed warning calls. The ship was in
transit toward the Persian Gulf through the Straits of Hormuz, the scene of
several attacks on shipping and UAVs in recent weeks.

“At approximately 10 a.m. local time,
the amphibious ship USS Boxer was in international waters conducting a planned
inbound transit of the Strait of Hormuz,” Chief Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan
Hoffman said in a July 18 release. “A fixed-wing unmanned aerial system approached
Boxer and closed within a threatening range. The ship took defensive
action against the UAS to ensure the safety of the ship and its crew.”

The Iranian UAV was targeted by a
Marine Corps Polaris MRZR vehicle parked on the forward flight deck of the Boxer.
The MRZR hosted a Mk2 counter-UAS version of the Light Marine
Air Defense Integrated System (LMADIS) that features four circular antenna radar antennas
arrays mounted at 90-degree intervals and an electro-optical/infrared sensor turret,
and a direct-fire weapon, according to the Marine Corps website.

President Trump
initially announced the incident in a June 18 White House briefing.

Iranian forces shot down a
U.S Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk UAV on June 21 and fired on an MQ-9 Reaper on June
13. Iranian forces also are believed to have planted the mines that damaged six
commercial tankers in May and June. Iran also claims to have seized a
British-owned tanker on July 19.