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.

On Oct. 10,
2019, the last of nine P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft assigned to Patrol
Squadron 40 (VP-40) returned to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington,
after more than six months deployed to the other side of the world. The
deployment represented the last in the Lockheed P-3 Orion for an active-duty VP
squadron, ending 57 years of regular VP deployments with the Orion.

VP-40 had
the honor of marking a similar milestone in 1967, when it returned from the
last deployment of the Martin SP-5B Marlin flying boat, which also marked the
end of the flying boat seaplane as U.S. Navy maritime patrol aircraft.

Check out the digital edition of December’s Seapower magazine here.

VP-40 is now in transition to the Boeing P-8A Poseidon and in a few months will join the other 11 active-duty VP squadrons flying the Poseidon, which began replacing the P-3C in overseas deployments in 2013.

Seapower received responses to
questions from personnel of VP-40 shortly before the end of the deployment.

Cmdr. Matt
McKerring, a naval aviator who commands VP-40, said his squadron deployed with
nine P-3Cs and 12 combat aircrews to three sites. Split-site deployments became
an occurrence more common since the end of the Cold War, when the Navy cut its
active-duty operational VP squadrons from 24 to 12 and its reserve VP squadrons
from 13 to two.

Split
Squadron Creates Resource, Communication, Mission Challenges

When VP-40
deployed in late March, its nine P-3Cs were divided between three sites in the
areas of operations in the U.S. 5th, 6th and 7th Fleets, a laydown which poses
challenges for a squadron.

“The challenges of a tri-site
deployment come down to three different categories: resources, communication and
mission,” McKerring said. “We are manned to operate as one major hub [24-hour
operations] with two detachment locations [single maintenance shift]. This
current deployment requires us to operate two hubs and one detachment location.
This has created a strain on our Sailors and forced us to multi-qualify across
our maintenance department in order to meet mission. 

“The other major resource challenge is
with the aircraft,” he said. “We are currently working with two models of
aircraft, and they are different between sites. This creates a challenge with
maintenance qualifications and aircrew experience. The major limitation from
the maintenance perspective is the parts supply. Our parts come from three
different locations and only one of [the locations] is within an hour of our
bases. This creates the logistical challenge of determining which location has
the parts and then scheduling parts supply flights in order to fix our aircraft
and get them back in the fight.” 

“Communication is an even an issue for
squadrons deployed in one location, but we have three locations in three
different countries, in two different time zones,” he said. “VP-40 has a truly
global presence for this deployment. The squadron overcomes communication
issues by scheduling face-to-face engagements with written recaps, sending out
a squadron newsletter and conducting frequent video teleconferences between
sites to ensure every remains on the same page.”

McKerring said the variety of missions
posed challenges.

“Just like the aircraft types, the
mission types being flown are different based on location,” he said. “Maintaining
proficiency among our aircrewmen in each of these mission types is difficult,
and we’ve had to get creative to ensure our performance remains at the peak
levels.” 

During the deployment, VP-40 primarily
was “tasked with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions,
specifically providing maritime domain awareness,” McKerring said.
“Additionally, with increased tensions in the Middle East, the Fighting Marlins
have provided a number of armed escorts for various U.S. and coalition assets
through high-threat areas. These escort missions are in support of the
International Maritime Security Construct, providing armed escort through the
Strait of Hormuz and Bab-al-Mandeb. VP-40 also remains prepared at all times to
perform our primary mission, which is antisubmarine warfare [ASW], should the
need arise.”

ASW a Perishable
Skill Among Operators

Maintaining the proficiency of
acoustic sensor operators amid numerous other missions is a challenge.
McKerring said that “a predominance of ISR missions does mean that sensor
operators focus mostly on electro-optical sensors, radar and ELINT [electronic
intelligence]. However, our aircrews maintain ASW proficiency using simulators
and Expendable Mobile ASW Training Target [EMATT] systems.”

During the Cold War, VP squadrons were
supported by fixed-site tactical support centers, also known as ASW operations centers.
The squadrons today are supported by mobile command centers that provide
command and control, intelligence and analysis support.

“This is certainly the busiest, most dynamic and successful deployment of which I have been a part.”

Cmdr. Matthew McKerring, naval aviator, commander of VP-40

“Our community operates with Mobile
Tactical Operations Center [MTOC] support now, and we could not be happier with
the support provided by MTOC-10,’ McKerring said. “Their OIC [officer in
charge], Lt. Cmdr. Brad Merritt, integrated his team with our squadron early in
our home cycle, and it has been very beneficial. By training together and then
deploying together, we build relationships in addition to the technical skills
required to succeed on a deployment like this.”

U.S. Navy maritime patrol crews often
have opportunities to operate with U.S. allies and partners. During this
deployment, VP-40 worked with Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and German Navy
maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft crews, and with ships from the United
Kingdom, France and Spain.

“This is certainly the busiest, most
dynamic and successful deployment of which I have been a part,” McKerring
said.  “This is my fifth P-3 deployment
and my seventh overall. Being in command also provides a completely different
perspective than from my junior officer days. My scope of awareness is
certainly a lot higher.”

He said “the P-3 is one of the last
unadulterated flying experiences left in military or civil aviation. Yes, there
is an autopilot, but there is no fly-by-wire system. Your control inputs
directly move the control surfaces. You feel one with machine as opposed to
simply operating a computer system. Also, flying low is one of the greatest
joys of aviation, and few fixed-wing aircraft fly lower than the P-3 at a
200-foot on-station altitude.

“Most importantly, however, is the
people,” he said. “I have been a part of many squadrons during my career, but
the Fighting Marlins I currently have the privilege to lead are the smartest,
most professional and hardest working Sailors I have ever seen. It is truly a
humbling experience. One major part of the P-3 team we will miss on the P-8 is
our flight engineers and in-flight technicians. These are enlisted Sailors that
fulfill major maintenance roles on our aircraft, and they have saved me and my
crew many times. I’m going to miss flying with them.”

Maintainers Laud P-3 But Cite Parts, Personnel Shortages

One of VP-40’s maintenance wizards is
Senior Chief Aviation Machinist Mate (Air Warfare) Roy A. Cedeno, who, with 23
years in the Navy and four VP deployments under his belt, said the P-3 “is one
of the strongest and most reliable aircraft I have had the pleasure to work on
during my Navy career. However, the biggest challenges during the last
deployment was getting good aircraft parts, and our maintainers had to work
more than normal working hours because of the shortage of trained P-3
personnel. Additionally, the extremely hot temperatures strained our aircraft
as well as our personnel. The outstanding group of leaders, maintainers and
aircrews are making the impossible miracle of continuing flying these
50-year-old exhausted warfighter aircraft because ‘we do what we do.” 

“It is both an honor and a challenge
sundowning the mighty P-3,” said Lt. William Knox, one of VP-40’s patrol plane
commanders. “We are the last of something truly great, and there is so much
history behind us. It truly is something special to be counted in that chapter
in naval aviation history. But, as anyone who has ever been in a similar
situation can attest, there is no such thing as normal, and every day is a new
challenge. We have risen to the occasion and it has made us all better pilots,
better officers and better Sailors because of it.”

A squadron tactical coordinator, Lt.
Austin Vorwald, echoed the sentiment.

“It’s a huge honor for me to still be
operating aircraft that have had such a long time in service,” he said. “It
still amazes me that something as old and as storied as the P-3 is still so
capable on station. A large majority of this credit goes to the maintainers who
continually troubleshoot and fix our planes though, and I’m continually humbled
by the amount of hard work they put in. It’s incredible to hold some small part
in closing out a hugely successful aircraft.”

McKerring will have that honor of
leading the Fighting Marlins into the transition to the P-8A, as will
approximately 70 percent of squadron personnel, those who will be with the
squadron at least through August 2020.

“I’m excited to learn a new aircraft
and take the things that I’ve learned from operating the P-3 and apply them to
the P-8 to improve upon its success,” Vorwald said. “Deploying as the last
active-duty P-3C squadron has given me a stack of lessons learned that I
believe can in some way benefit VP-40 and hopefully MPR as a whole in the
future.”

“Being Skipper for the last
active-duty maritime P-3 deployment is a great honor, but it is also a little
sad to write one of the final chapters in the proverbial P-3 history book,”
McKerring said. “After 57 years and counting, the P-3 has had one of the most
prodigious careers of any plane in the U.S. Navy and aviation history. This is
my third tour with the Fighting Marlins, going all the way back to 2004, and I
couldn’t be prouder to lead this squadron, which has shaped so much of my
professional career.”

Although
it is no longer in the regular fleet deployment cycles, the P-3 will continue
for several more years to be operated by several units, including two reserve
VP squadrons, VP-62 and VP-69, as well as VP-30, Special Projects Patrol
Squadron 2 (VPU-2), Scientific Development Squadron 1 (VXS-1) and Air Test and
Evaluation Squadron 30 (VX-30). 

The
EP-3E electronic reconnaissance version will continue to deploy from Naval Air
St Whidbey Island with detachments of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One
(VQ-1) until the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial vehicle is deployed in enough numbers
with signals intelligence capability.       

The
growing military capabilities and escalating belligerence of China, Russia and
Iran are increasing the possibility that the U.S. Navy’s unarmed and
thin-skinned support and supply ships — and even U.S. commercial cargo vessels
— could face hostile action for the first time since World War II.

The potential that these ships and their crews of civilian mariners could be exposed to deadly weapons was strengthened when the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps said he might need these and other unconventional vessels to augment or replace traditional amphibious warships to transport and sustain his Marines during expeditionary operations in heavily contested littoral waters.

Check out the digital edition of December’s Seapower magazine here.

This
emerging danger and the need for a broader concept of expeditionary vessels was
bluntly stated by Gen. David H. Berger in his “Commandant’s Planning Guidance,”
released July 17, in which he said:

“Our
nation’s ability to project power and influence beyond its shores is
increasingly challenged by long-range precision fires; expanding air, surface
and subsurface threats; and the continued degradation of our amphibious and
auxiliary ship readiness. The ability to project and maneuver from strategic
distances will likely be detected and contested from the point of embarkation
during a major contingency. Our naval expeditionary forces must possess a
variety of deployment options, including L-class and E-class ships, but also
increasingly look to other available options such as unmanned platforms, stern
landing vessels, other ocean-going connectors, and smaller more lethal and more
risk-worthy platforms. We must continue to seek the affordable and plentiful at
the expense of the exquisite and few when conceiving of the future amphibious
portion of our fleet.”

L-class
ships are the traditional amphibious platforms, such as amphibious assault
ships (LHA) and amphibious transport docks (LPD), which are built to military
standards and crewed by uniformed Sailors. E-class ships are newer types of
auxiliary or support vessels, such as the expeditionary transport dock (ESD) ships
and expeditionary fast transports (EPF), which are operated by the Military
Sealift Command (MSC), are built to commercial classification and crewed mainly
by civilian mariners.

Berger Suggests More ‘Black-Bottom’ Ships

In his guidance, Berger also suggests using
“commercially available ships and craft that are smaller and less expensive”
and “a wider array of smaller ‘black-bottom’ ships” that “might supplement the
maritime preposition and amphibious fleets.” Black-bottom ships usually refer
to commercial vessels.

In
March, Dakota Wood, a retired Marine officer and
defense analyst at The Heritage Foundation, released the Marine Corps edition
of the foundation’s “Rebuilding America’s Military” series. In that report,
Wood said, “The supporting amphibious fleet is limited to a small number of
ships and only a portion of those would be available for an operation in one
part of the world.” He recommended the naval services “redefine amphibious
shipping and support capability requirements to account for combat operations
in a contested littoral environment in support of a naval campaign.” The
Marines, Wood said, “must work with the Navy to develop smaller, lower cost
ships that are better suited to the type of dispersed operational posture
implied by LOCE [Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment],” which is a
new Marine concept for expeditionary operations.

Earlier this year, the Center of
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments released a detailed report focused on the
maritime logistic forces, calling them “inadequate to support” the national
defense strategy and “major military operations against China or Russia.” Echoing
Berger’s views, CSBA said the logistic fleet was too small and had the wrong
types of ships to transport and sustain U.S. forces in waters defended by enemy
missiles, submarines and aircraft. Failing to remedy those shortcomings, the
report said, “could cause the United States to lose a war and fail its allies
and partners in their hour of need.”

Fortunately,
MSC and other defense organizations have recognized this growing danger and are
taking steps to better prepare those ships and crews for possibly going into
harm’s way. And the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have joined in developing an
Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment for next year that could address
Berger’s need for a larger and more diverse expeditionary support fleet and the
associated risk to the logistical and sealift ships if they have to operate in
contested waters.

The
threat to those support forces was recognized in 2017 by the MSC commander at
the time, Rear Adm. Dee Mewbourne, who told Seapower, “The debate over
whether we’re in contested waters is over. We are sailing in contested waters,”
and the threat could get worse. With the “adversaries’ rapid improvements” in
military capabilities while his command has remained relatively static, “the
capability of an adversary will exceed our capability. We need to bend the
curve” and to change directions to be able “to operate in all the changing
environments from peace to full combat.”

“When our ships are sailing in a contested environment, the threats they could face are evolving all the time.”

Navy Capt. Hans Lynch

Mewbourne
said what worried him was the Navy’s slow response to the German submarine
threat during the World War II cost America at least 600 merchant ships and
more than 1,000 mariners. And in the Pacific, the Navy had to fight for sea
control to be able to support the campaign against Japan. Now he sees growing
threats from China’s rapidly improving military capabilities, a resurgent Russia
and even from violent extremists in the Middle East, indicated by missile
attacks on unarmed ships.

In
response, Mewbourne said, MSC established a training division “to prepare our
mariners to sail in contested water,” to ensure they are aware that the decades
of uncontested seas are gone, and they know how to avoid enemy detection and to
survive if attacked. He is now deputy commander of the U.S. Transportation
Command (TRANSCOM), which oversees MSC and the other logistical ships operated
by the Maritime Administration (MARAD), led by retired Rear Adm. Mark Buzby,
who strongly endorsed CSBA’s findings.

TACAD
Trains Mariners to Operate in Contested Waters

In
2017, MSC also created the Tactical Advisor (TACAD) program, which uses Navy
Reserve officers, who are licensed mariners in their civilian jobs, to provide
training and guidance to the officers of MSC vessels on how to operate in a
hostile environment. That new capability was tested during a short-notice “turbo
activation” of 33 MSC and MARAD ships in September, in which five sealift
vessels conducted convoy operations against simulated enemy threats, with the
support of TACAD officers.

“When
our ships are sailing in a contested environment, the threats they could face
are evolving all the time,” said Navy Capt. Hans Lynch, MSC’s Atlantic
Commodore and who directed the East Coast activation. “The biggest threats we
face include hostile submarines and mines, and these are the threats we were
training for during the turbo activation.” They trained the crews to “sail
their ships as quietly as possible” to prevent detection of their
electromagnetic signatures “because our ships also could face anti-ship
ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, fighter aircraft and enemy bombers,” Lynch
said in a TRANSCOM release.

Each
of those MSC ships sailed with a TACAD, who in addition to providing training
served as liaison between the Navy and the civilian crews. “The TACAD program
is a relatively new concept but is based on years of experience and past
lessons learned,” said Cmdr. Vincent D’Eusanio, the TACAD on one of the convoy
ships and MSC’s TACAD program manager. “During World War II, we lost lots of
merchant ships and mariners. Some of this was a result of not knowing how to
sail a merchant ship in a hostile environment. When the Navy began to train
mariners to counter threats, like the German U-boats, our losses dwindled.”

“We
really need to continue to apply energy to the TACAD program,” Lynch said. “I
think we need to expand what they are being exposed to” beyond the MSC sealift
fleet “to other platforms and the combatant ships and aircraft to better
understand what they bring to the table and broaden their experience.”

The
Navy announced Oct. 31 that Marines and Sailors from the Fleet Anti-Terrorist
Security Team Central Command embarked on the MSC chartered commercial vessel
Arc Liberty from Oct. 21 to Oct. 24 during a transit of the Strait of Hormuz,
where Iran has seized two commercial ships and shot down a Navy RQ-4 Triton
unmanned aircraft.

Rear
Adm. Michael A. Wettlaufer, the current MSC commander, said he did not think
the threat to his ships was anything new. “It was always a possibility that our
ships could go into harm’s way.” What may be new “is the expanded
acknowledgement of ‘Great Power Competition’ — sort of noncombat at this time
but potentially some level of conflict,” Wettlaufer said in an interview with Seapower.

“What
are we doing? We’re training like crazy, because that’s what we do. We’re the
military,” he said.

Because
most of the military’s maritime logistics and support ships are leased or on
contract with commercial firms or are in MARAD’s reserve fleet, and MSC does
not get access to them until they are activated, Wettlaufer said, “We rely on
some of that training to occur at the [mariners] union level.” MSC provides an
unclassified basic operation course and has started an advanced course for
senior mariners.

“At
the MSC level, our own sealift folks have the same process. And, with the MSC
force that is operating all the time … in a continuing contested environment — physical, kinetic, information and cyber — our folks are
training all the time,” he said.

Turbo
Activation ‘Great for the Mariners’

Wettlaufer
said the convoy operation during the turbo activation was “great for the
mariners because they don’t often get a change to steam in formation. … Those
are skill sets that need to be mastered.” The TACADs assigned to those ships
brought Navy communications equipment on board, which is necessary because “you
can’t do anything if you can’t communicate as the Navy and the joint force
needs us to do.”

For
the activation, the admiral said he deployed the MSC commodores for the
Atlantic and Pacific, who are active Navy captains on his staff. And his flag
aide at Norfolk headquarters is a strategic sealift officer (SSO), a licensed
mariner who helps him understand how the commercial fleets work. MSC has more
than 2,000 TACADs and SSOs it can deploy to advise and assist civilian mariners
during missions. They are mainly Navy Reserve officers and in some cases are graduates
of one of the federally supported maritime academies who have a reserve
commitment, which they fulfill when activated as TACADs.

Wettlaufer noted that after the Cold War ended “the maritime academies stopped teaching some of the military things that we used to teach … and that created a hole in knowledge. That’s one of the reasons the TACAD program is there, to try to bridge that gap on what the Navy might need and how we operate between a master and the captain of a Navy ship.

“We are looking at a holistic approach to the problem. But the real point here is warfighting effectiveness. That is our job. We support the warfighter. We support the joint force, and if we can’t do that, then we’re not contributing to warfighting and effectiveness.”

The Persian Gulf is one of the most important commercial shipping regions in the world — and also one of the most fraught with danger for shippers in recent years.

While most people think of the U.S. Navy alone in patrolling the Gulf, the sea service is slowly building a coalition of countries to help maintain security for shippers, relying on allies with shared interests to help them keep a sharp eye on the region and any problems that may arise.

Check out the digital edition of November’s Seapower magazine here.

Australia reportedly became the latest to join a U.S.-led naval group to protect commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman in the wake of alleged attacks by Iran against vessels in those waters — allegations that Iran denies. But even before recent tensions with the Iranians, the two gulfs have been important choke points for shipping, making the area of high interest to commercial shipping and the nations who rely on the cargo that travels through it.

“The United States believes that the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce are important principles based upon international law that should be preserved by a collective effort of the international community,” Lt. Pete Pagano, spokesman for Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said via email. “As such, the recent attacks on international shipping that threaten the freedom of navigation in the region require an international solution.”

The U.S. 5th Fleet-led International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC) includes international partners Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Australia and the United Kingdom. This group conducts maritime domain awareness and surveillance of the region to create a common operational picture that helps the partners protect maritime shipping there.

“The operation is designed to preserve the free flow of commerce and deescalate regional tensions,” Pagano said. “The IMSC is active and engaged in this vital mission with each partner nation determining their own level of participation.”

The group was created in recognition of just how critical it is that the maritime domain be secure for commerce, especially in this region.

“The United States believes that the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce are important principles based upon international law that should be preserved by a collective effort of the international community.”

Lt. Pete Pagano, spokesman for Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet

“As we join together with other concerned nations, our posture and patrols increase our surveillance of the maritime transit lanes — it is purely preventive and defensive in nature — nonprovocative and de-escalatory,” Pagano said. “With that said, recent aggressive attacks on Saudi infrastructure and international tankers at sea provide great impetus for all forces in this region to be prepared to defend themselves. The IMSC allows for, augments and synchronizes that defensive posture and readiness of partner nations as a prudent precaution.”

Nations Committed to Joint Shipping Lane Defense

In mid-September, Vice Adm. Jim Malloy, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), kicked off the opening ceremony for the IMSC main planning conference aboard the HMS Cardigan Bay.

“In light of recent threats to international shipping, representatives reaffirmed their nations’ continued commitment to safeguarding freedom of navigation in the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, and the Straits of Hormuz and Bab al Mandeb and discussed multinational efforts aimed at enhancing maritime security throughout key waterways in the region,” according to a U.S. Central Command statement.

The 5th Fleet also leads the CMF, which focuses on illegal trafficking, terrorism and smuggling — and it includes one task force, CTF-150, that is keenly focused on keeping the maritime domain secure.

CMF covers about 3.2 million square miles of international waters and includes 33 member nations: Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Malaysia, The Netherlands,  New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, The Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom, United States and Yemen.

“The 33 nations that comprise CMF are not bound by either a political or military mandate,” U.S. Naval Forces Central Command says on its website. “CMF is a flexible organization. Contributions can vary from the provision of a liaison officer at CMF HQ in Bahrain to the supply of warships or support vessels in task forces, and maritime reconnaissance aircraft based on land. We can also call on warships not explicitly assigned to CMF to give associated support, which is assistance they can offer if they have the time and capacity to do so whilst undertaking national tasking.”

CMF started about a decade ago as a mechanism to bring Gulf countries into a joint group with the United States to tackle challenges in that region, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“They identify threats, share information and coordinate activities to intercept bad actors in the Persian Gulf,” Clark said. “CTF-150, which is a coalition or combined task force run by 5th Fleet, draws more broadly from countries that have an interest in keeping Persian Gulf waterways safe and free from threats. It’s more focused on protecting shipping lanes than strictly counter-trafficking or counter-terror efforts.”

As a result, CTF-150 includes countries from outside the Gulf that have a vested interest in keeping the shipping lanes there open, which means countries such as Turkey, Pakistan or even Japan. Even European countries provide some help occasionally.

The CMF and CTF-150 “have been pretty successful in terms of maintaining situational awareness, because you have a like-minded group of countries, giving you more eyes,” Clark said.

That said, the presence of other countries is nowhere near as ubiquitous as that of the United States. The CMF is successful more in terms of situational awareness and increasing collaboration between nations — the U.S. Navy still is doing most of the heavy lifting, Clark noted.

“Thus far, it’s been more of a messaging success than an operational one,” he said. “The countries that have come [into CMF] have been major players, but haven’t necessarily sent over lot of ships, and maybe ships they sent over would have been sent to CTF-150 anyway.”

Either way, one could argue that the CMF and CTF-150 have led to a reduced threat of terrorist attacks on the waterways, Clark said.

The U.S. Navy is taking some new initiatives
to sustain the ships of its busy fleet, including additional oversight, new
contracting strategies, shipyard workload stability and capital investment in
shipyard infrastructure.

The initiatives are focused on getting ships and submarines through their maintenance periods on time and back to the fleet to meet the requirements of combatant commanders. As the fleet — run hard by decades of war or crisis — grows in numbers, the challenge becomes greater.

Check out the digital edition of November’s Seapower magazine here. 

In an Aug. 23 release, James
Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition,
announced that the Department of the Navy was establishing a new deputy
assistant secretary of the Navy for sustainment (DASN-S) to develop, monitor
and, implement policy and guidance throughout the Navy who “will enable us to
better plan, program, budget and execute the Navy’s sustainment mission.” 

“Sustainment
is as critical as new construction to ensure the Navy is ready to deploy,”
Geurts added. “This position will allow us to improve and align the complex
drivers of maintenance and modernization completion — that in turn will
increase our output to the fleet. We have to get better, and this will help.” 

“We have grown the size of the naval shipyards from 33,850 [workers] to over 36,100 in the past three years. The goal was to get to 36,100 by the start of [fiscal 2020]; we actually got there a year early. That is good news, and that capacity is starting to yield some results to deliver the last eight of the last nine carriers [from maintenance] on time.”

Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, Naval Sea Systems Command

The
new DASN-S will have funding oversight and will “manage Navy and Marine Corps
sustainment and life-cycle management policies,” the release said. The new
position was authorized by Congress in the 2018 National Defense Authorization
Act. 

The new deputy “will help facilitate and
ensure we are putting the same level of aggressiveness into new tools, new ways
of doing business, new ways to contract for that effort, making sure that
they’ve got the full horsepower of the secretariat as [Naval Sea Systems
Command Vice] Adm. [Thomas] Moore’s teams execute that effort,” Geurts said in
an Aug. 23 media roundtable at the Pentagon, which Moore also attended.  

Moore said at the event that the Navy had been
focusing on building the workforce at its shipyards — necessary because the
backlog of ship maintenance occurred in part due to a shortage of skilled
workers.

“We have grown the size of the naval shipyards
from 33,850 [workers] to over 36,100 in the past three years,” he said. “The
goal was to get to 36,100 by the start of [fiscal 2020]; we actually got there a year early. That is good news,
and that capacity is starting to yield some results to deliver the last eight
of the last nine carriers [from maintenance] on time.” 

Moore said the Navy also is focused on getting
workers qualified more quickly by establishing learning centers. 

“Right now, what we are seeing is that [for]
the average worker — from the time we bring them in the door to the time they
are a productive person — we have cut the time in about half. … Even though
half my workforce has less than five years of experience, that trend is also
starting to turn in the right direction.” 

Moore also said the 20-year Shipyard
Infrastructure Optimization Plan (SIOP), implemented in March 2018 for aircraft
carriers and submarines in Navy-owned shipyards, has already “resulted in
significant investments in capital expenditures, great support from the Navy
and the budgets in ’18, ’19 and ’20 and great support from [Congress]. That is
a key enabler.” 

He pointed out that many shipyards are
hundreds of years old and the SIOP is engaged in building them into 21^st
century naval facilities by modernizing dry docks, replacing outmoded equipment
and improving workflow. In the 2021 budget proposal, the Navy plans to include an initiative
like SIOP to come up with creative ways to make capital investments in private shipyards.   

“We will look at dry-dock capacity, capital
expenditures, etc.,” Moore said. “It’s a little bit different to execute the
plan because, unlike in the public sector where we own everything and we can
budget for this, this [involves] individual private companies, and so, we’re
working with [Geurts] to come up with some creative ways as to how we could go
execute this. For instance, we could do like we do with small business
innovative research. The Navy would have a pool of money and, if industry came
to us with a good idea in their yard, maybe we could self-fund some of
it.”  

Geurts said that the Navy is looking at other
shipyards that could be certified for Navy work, even though they have no
current Navy contracts.  

The
Navy is also executing a Perform to Plan initiative that identifies performance
gaps and barriers to execution so they can be addressed to improve performance,
according to the Aug. 23 release. 

USS Boise Illustrates Submarine Upkeep Challenges

Moore spoke of submarine maintenance being the
toughest challenge, noting that the extensive delay in returning the Los
Angeles-class attack submarine USS Boise to service was “the poster child” of
that challenge. The Boise completed its last deployment in 2015 and lost its
dive certification in 2017. He said the Boise delay caused the Navy to
recognize that the sea service did not have enough shipyard capacity for its submarines.  

There are only two private shipyards capable
of handling work on nuclear-powered submarines: Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport
News Shipbuilding in Virginia and General Dynamics Electric Boat in
Connecticut. These companies are occupied with construction of new submarines.  

“We were kidding ourselves that we could get
the work done,” Moore said. “In many ways, Boise caused us to really take a
hard look at what we needed to do in the naval shipyards and, also, caused us
to recognize that we would like to have some surge capacity in the private
sector, working with both Newport News and [Electric Boat] to give them work
when it makes sense. We have had some challenges with them the first time for
them to do submarine maintenance work in a long time. It is different than
building submarines. And so, they have had some proficiency challenges, which
we are working our way through.  

“We have to be careful that we’re not stepping
into the new construction lane with everything going on with Columbia [ballistic-missile
submarine] and [Virginia-class attack submarine] Block V, etc.,” he said.
“Newport News has expressed a very strong interest in developing a capacity to
do submarine sustainment over the long haul similar to what they do with carrier
maintenance today.” 

“In many ways, Boise caused us to really take a hard look at what we needed to do in the naval shipyards and, also, caused us to recognize that we would like to have some surge capacity in the private sector.”

VICE ADM. THOMAS MOORE

Moore said the Boise “will actually start at
Newport News probably in April 2020.” 

He explained that delays can be described in
terms of maintenance delay and idle time, the latter being the time a submarine
is idle awaiting the beginning of maintenance. Some idle time results when the
Navy squeezes more operational time out of a sub deployment, causing a boat to
miss its slot in the maintenance schedule. 

“What the data told us is that, if you
consider the variables to be idle time and maintenance delays, 80% of that was
due to the maintenance delays, and only about 20 percent of it was idle time,”
Moore said. “What we have focused on first from a systems standpoint is to fix
the maintenance delays and that is by growing the capacity of the shipyard.
We’re starting to see those maintenance delays [were cut] in half between ’18
and ’19 [and] the amount of workload carryover between what we saw at its peak
in ’16 to today has been reduced by 75%.” 

The idle time is coming down as well because
of the Navy’s initiatives — “down to about 1,800 total days of idle time, of
which 1,200 is Boise,” Moore said. “When you take Boise off the table, it’s
really relatively small and my expectation is that, by the end of fiscal ’20,
we will have no more idle time.”  

For the Surface Fleet, Enticing Private Yards to
Build Capacity 

In the private shipyards, where much surface
ship maintenance takes place, the Navy is working to entice growth in capacity.
Results so far are positive. 

“The data is getting better,” Moore said.
“Last year, we delivered 16% of our DDGs [guided-missile destroyers] on time.
“This year, it was up to about 40%, and we are forecasting that the next eight
DDGs will be on time.”

“Currently, 75% of the DDGs are on plan to
their life-cycle health assessment and, by 2023, we will have gotten the other
25% back on plan,” he added. “The [nuclear power community] have always been
very meticulous about staying onto the class maintenance plan. We’ve been a
little bit less rigorous on the surface side of the house probably over the
last 10 to 15 years, and we’ve paid the price for that.”  

Moore said that part of the success is
attributed to a new contracting strategy: “bundling [shipyard] availabilities
together so that they have an opportunity to project workload out,” enabling
shipyards to see the stability of enough work to cut costs and maintain the  workforce.

He said the Navy was not happy with the cost
and schedule performance of cost-plus contracts with a single company for five
years at a time. The service then switched to fixed-price contracts for one ship at a time, but
this made the private shipyards reluctant to hire additional workers when they
did not know if they would win the next contract. With the shipyard reluctant, hiring lagged behind the workload, resulting in delays in
delivery back to the fleet. Bundling fixed-price contracts is the new plan. 

Moore has been working with Geurts on bundling
availabilities together so that if a shipyard wins, it is “going to win
availabilities over a two-, three-, four-year period head-to-toe, then you’ve
got a stable plan and you can then go make capital investments in your plan,
and you can hire to have that workforce trained.”  

“My priority for the fleet is, ships come in on time, ships go out on time and they go out with all the work done.”

James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition

Another factor in delayed delivery is having maintenance
plans that aren’t executable. Moore said that working with the fleets to
provide an executable, level-loaded plan for the shipyards, staying away from
overloading them, is yielding progress in tackling the workload.  

Moore
said that NAVSEA’s “partnership with the fleets has been as good as it has ever been in
the 25 years [that] I’ve been a maintenance provider.” 

The Navy also is reducing quality assurance
checkpoints by 50%, which will cut shipyards’ costs. Moore cited the example of
a DDG hull being painted at a Vigor shipyard adjacent to a commercial ferry also getting fresh
paint. Vigor’s president pointed out to Moore that painting the DDG cost four
times more and took twice as long as the ferry work — and the difference was the
Navy’s onerous checkpoints. The ferry’s painter also provided a warranty. Moore
said the Navy will conduct a pilot project this year with two ships under a
contract with a warranty. 

“In return, we’ll reduce the checkpoints, and
let’s see if we can get the cost and the schedule down,” Moore said. “There are
a number of things out there like that that, over years, we have just added
bureaucracy into the system that really doesn’t add any value to get the work
done.” 

Geurts, referring to the Navy’s 30-year
maintenance and modernization plan that supplements the 30-year shipbuilding
plan, said: “We’ve got to get those balanced up right so that we cannot only
deliver the capabilities needed but sustain them to provide the operational
commanders the capabilities they need.  

“My priority for the fleet is, ships come in
on time, ships go out on time and they go out with all the work done,” he said.
“The fleet uses the term ‘on time in full.’ So, my priority is getting
credibility in the system so that a fleet commander is confident when they turn
a ship over to us to go do the maintenance work that it comes out on time and
in full. 

“Part of the rigging for speed is not just
delivering in peacetime, it’s really getting prepared for wartime,” he said.
“Ready to me means ready tonight to fight and then ready for the fights that
are coming in the future. It’s not just about meeting a schedule or a budget
target. If we can’t do the peacetime stuff well with credibility, we’re really
going to struggle in wartime mode.” 

Geurts said that sustaining the lethality of the
fleet is a matter of maximizing availability, capacity and capacity, and “the
trick is getting those synchronized and mutually supporting, not competing. To
some degree, if you spend too much time worrying about new construction but you
don’t worry about maintenance, then you’re not maximizing that investment. If
all you are doing is worrying about maintenance and not tracking the costs and
trying to drive that cost down, you won’t have money to modernize and build new
things.”

At well north of $100 billion for 12 vessels, the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine will be the most expensive new undertaking for the U.S Navy since the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier program. And everyone is hoping development and production goes a lot smoother for the new sub than the Ford class of carriers.

The Navy is trying to replace its aging fleet of 14 Ohio-class ballistic-missile subs, which carry nuclear-tipped Trident missiles and serve as the nation’s sea-based strategic deterrent. The sheer per-vessel cost of the Columbia class prompts one to draw comparisons to the $13-billion-per-ship Ford program — and that’s reason for concern considering the struggles throughout the carrier’s development.

Check out the digital edition of October’s Seapower magazine here.

Cost increases and schedule delays were a hallmark of the program during design, development and production, and the class still has its share of challenges. USNI reported earlier this year that the Ford had to spend months in dry dock to deal with problems with the ship’s nuclear power plant, and another report indicated that most of the carrier’s Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWEs) were not operational.

However, Columbia and Ford are certainly two very different programs, and the Navy believes it has a handle on the new sub.

Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Bill Couch told Seapower in an e-mail that the Columbia-class program is working hard to tackle challenges early and make sure the sub stays on schedule.

“The Columbia Class Submarine Program is executing schedule risk and cost-reduction activities (e.g., advance construction, continuous production of missile tubes) and closely manages technology development and engineering/integration efforts,” he said. “Additionally, the shipbuilder [General Dynamics Electric Boat] is executing a plan to meet the highest design maturity target for any shipbuilding program [83%] at construction start.”

The program has run into some issues early. Officials discovered a problem last year with the submarine missile tube welds that reportedly cost $27 million and a year of work to fix.

However, the Navy says that issue isn’t affecting the schedule.

“General Dynamics Electric Boat [GDEB] and the Navy continue to work together to manage schedule impacts caused by the missile tube welding defects, with currently no impact to lead ship delivery schedule,” Couch said. “Margin remaining to the missile compartment due to the missile tube deliveries is under review.”

He added that Columbia-class deliveries are still aligned with the retirements of Ohio-class submarines to ensure the nation’s strategic deterrence requirements are met.

Additionally, he said a potential fiscal 2020 continuing resolution is unlikely to affect the program.

The program hit a big milestone earlier this year, with Huntington Ingalls Industries hosting a ceremony at its Newport News Shipbuilding division — which is working with GDEB on the program — on May 23 to celebrate cutting the first steel for the program.

“The first cut of steel is a major construction milestone that signifies our shipyard and submarine industrial base are ready to move forward with production,” Jason Ward, Newport News’ vice president for Columbia-class construction, said in a statement.

The program hit a big milestone earlier this year, with Huntington Ingalls Industries hosting a ceremony at its Newport News Shipbuilding division on May 23 to celebrate cutting the first steel for the Columbia class.

“We have worked to engage the submarine industrial base and leveraged lessons learned from the successful Virginia-class program to building the Columbia-class submarines in the most efficient and affordable manner to provide the best value to the Navy.”

On March 6, the Navy announced that it had established Program Executive Office Columbia (PEO CLB) to focus entirely on the “Navy’s No. 1 acquisition priority,” according to a Navy statement.

“This is the Navy’s most important program and establishing a new PEO today will meet tomorrow’s challenges head-on,” James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for acquisition, research and development, said in the statement. “The evolution from initial funding to construction, development and testing to serial production of 12 SSBNs will be crucial to meeting the National Defense Strategy and building the Navy the nation needs. PEO Columbia will work directly with resource sponsors, stakeholders, foreign partners, shipbuilders and suppliers to meet national priorities and deliver and sustain lethal capacity our warfighters need.”

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said that there are reasons to be optimistic about the Columbia-class program despite the challenges of the Ford class.

For one thing, the Ford-class program had a lot more new technologies creating compounding risk, as opposed to the Columbia program, he said. He noted that there were some new technologies to watch, such as an all-electric propulsion plant and a new kind of propulsor assembly.

However, the Navy has done some advance work on that technology to reduce risk, Clark said.

“On the propulsion plant, the Navy built a land-based prototype to get the technical risk burned down,” he said. “The Navy spent quite a bit of time trying to tackle [the technical risk] by prototyping and demonstrating. But you can never completely eliminate the risk. They lost some time and margin because of technical challenges not fully tackled.”

And while the program has margin built in, the recent problems — particularly with the missile tubes — risk eliminating that margin early and creating no room for error with still many years left until the first sub is scheduled for delivery in 2028.

The good news is that the Navy may be through the hard part, Clark said.

“On the manufacturing side, I think there’s just having to do some rework and some more effort to test and inspect things before they get pushed out to the construction yard, which will introduce a little bit of schedule delay — but it is somewhat bounded,” he said. “I think compared to the Ford, the risks with Columbia are smaller in number, more bounded, and relatively understood.”

A delegation from U.S.
Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) embarked on a three-nation, 10-day tour in South
America at the end of August, traveling along Brazil’s coast for multi-nation
military exercises, then cutting across the continent to observe military
training in Paraguay followed by a diplomatic mission to Lima, Peru.

On its second multination trip this year to South America, the Miami-based SOUTHCOM staff, headed by its commander of 11 months, Adm. Craig Faller, has under Faller’s concerted guidance virtually landed running since his swearing-in in last November, overseeing a tireless travel itinerary to visit every nation and dependency in the central and southern reaches of the Western hemisphere while seeing to the implementation of programs, attending events and monitoring the well-being of the command’s extended embassy and military staffs.

Check out the digital edition of October’s Seapower magazine here.

Even as Faller and his team
are focused on commitments set forth in its May 2019 strategic plan, “Enduring
Promise for the Americas,” SOUTHCOM’s achievements to date include a remarkable
checklist of already-cemented programs, including medical and rescue
operations, military training and civic and community development.

With an area of
responsibility that includes 31 countries and 16 dependencies in Central
America, South America and the Caribbean, the command’s impact is playing out in
Panama, Guatemala, Honduras and Columbia. In addition, SOUTHCOM governs the
ongoing medical assistance mission of the USNS Comfort and operates in Brazil’s
Amazon rainforest, where a joint U.S. and Brazilian military medical team recently
completed a 26-day riverine humanitarian mission to provide medical care to isolated
communities along the Amazon.

Meanwhile, Faller kicked off
the SOUTHCOM tour on Aug. 19 at Base Naval do Rio de Janeiro, where he and Adm.
Leonardo Puntel, commander of the Brazilian Operational Navy, presided over
opening ceremonies of UNITAS LX (60), an annual multinational maritime exercise
of more than 3,100 naval forces from 13 countries.

“I think you all should just savor the moment. Look around the room,
look at the group of like-minded professionals that you are with,” said Faller,
underscoring a key theme of the SOUTHCOM’s Enduring Promise, while sending a
clear message to the South American military teams whom he addressed throughout
his tour.

“We all have so much to learn from each other. Take every advantage of the
opportunity to teach, to make new friends, to build trust. This is how we are
going to fight. We are going to fight together. As like-minded democracies, as friends,”
he added. 

In addition to the U.S. and
Brazil, UNITAS LX participants included naval forces, representatives and
observers from Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru, Portugal, Great Britain and Japan. Unique to UNITAS LX this year, the
Brazilian navy, as host of the event, demonstrated regional maritime
cooperation in a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) scenario.

“This is the 60th [year] of UNITAS, and today we have more of an emphasis on disaster relief and humanitarian relief,” said Puntel, who reflected on Brazil’s longstanding maritime ties to the U.S. and Royal Navy dating back to World War I when, during the events of 1917, British Admiralty requested naval assistance from distant allies, including Japan. “The relationship between the Brazilian navy and the U.S. Navy is very important and started back in the first World War when the Brazilian navy sent a task force to Gibraltar to fight against the German navy, and we fought side-by-side with the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy and the Japanese navy in the mouth of the Mediterranean.”

In Rio later that day, Faller
addressed students and faculty at the Brazilian Armed Forces’ Escola Superior
de Guerra (War College), where he discussed the significance of the U.S.-Brazil
military alliance and the urgency to elevate the importance of Central and
South American regional partners, which has led to Brazil’s designation as a
non-NATO major ally, as outlined in the Defense Department’s National Defense
Strategy. To that end, Faller explained how he views the region as a “shared
neighborhood” — a notion that also illustrates the close partnership between
the U.S. and its South American allies.

“I say this neighborhood of
the Western Hemisphere because we are neighbors, and we are close neighbors.
And, we’re partners. And, we’re friends,” Faller told students and instructors
at Brazil’s war college. “We share all the domains that we study — and we’re
fighting air, land, sea, space, cyber — but most importantly, we share values.
We share a belief in freedom. We share a belief in sovereignty, respect for
human rights and for democracies. The hemisphere is blessed with democracies.”

“I say this neighborhood of the Western Hemisphere because we are neighbors, and we are close neighbors. And, we’re partners. And, we’re friends.”

U.S. Southern Command’s Adm. Craig Faller

In his remarks, Faller explained
how the United States and SOUTHCOM view regional security in terms of the
pervasive and ever-present threats that touch every South American nation,
among them anti-government political factions, counter-drug trafficking, illicit
mining, money laundering, the influence of violent extremist organizations, Russia’s
anti-U.S. crusade and criminal ties, China’s economic offensive, and to discuss
the reality of corruption across governments, militaries and communities in the
region.

“You look at what we share, and the opportunity that is presented — it
is also being challenged by the threats we share. The threats we share … are
chacterized by a vicious circle that includes corruption,” Faller explained.
“Yes, I do include that as a military threat. Because with corruption thrives criminal
networks, transnational criminal networks … that respect no laws, no boundaries
and that are aiming at our way of life. And there are violent extremists — a
fancy name that we made up in the United States for terrorists. They are
operating here in this neighborhood and they thrive on those same conditions.”

At the South American
Defense Conference (SOUTHDEC) in Natal, Brazil, SOUTHCOM met with members of
the Brazilian Armed Forces for a forum that included defense leaders from
Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay as
well as representatives from Canada, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.
With its theme of “regional defense cooperation in response to hemispheric
challenges,” militaries attending the conference took part in two days of
dialog, briefings, roundtables and meetings that focused on humanitarian
assistance missions, disaster relief operations and international cooperation
targeting transnational threats.

“The world is undergoing transitions with a diversity of threats, demanding joint efforts to neutralize them for regional stability and lasting peace.”

Fernando Azevedo e Silva, Brazil’s minister of defense

At the conference, Fernando
Azevedo e Silva, Brazil’s minister of defense, noted the climate of present-day
security challenges compared to a decade ago, and, like Faller, emphasized the
need for South American countries and their allies to join forces.

“The world is undergoing
transitions with a diversity of threats, demanding joint efforts to neutralize
them for regional stability and lasting peace,” Azevedo said.

SOUTHCOM staff and
delegations from other countries included senior enlisted leaders who met
concurrently for the third consecutive year to discuss the meeting’s top line
themes, while also dedicating time to the important role of the region’s
professional enlisted corps, and examining more closely fitness, talent
management, professional development, and the growing contributions of women to
peace and security missions.

In a first visit to the
region, Faller and the SOUTHCOM delegation traveled to Asuncion, Paraguay,
where they met with Lee McClenny, U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, as well as U.S. Embassy
and host nation officials. Together, they observed a Joint Combined Exchange
Training (JCET) at Vista Alegre Infantry Training School in which a team of trainees
from a Paraguayan Joint Special Forces Battalion demonstrated an ambush. The
exercise was as part of a 30-day bilateral training engagement between instructors
from the 20th Special Forces Group of the Massachusetts Army National Guard and
about 40 soldiers in Paraguay’s special forces battalion.

Faller said Paraguay’s
challenges mirror the threats seen in other South and Central American
countries. A landlocked country in the center of the continent, Paraguay, with
its tri-border area where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet, is lodged right
in the middle of a critical area in South America that has served as a hub for narcotics trafficking, illegal mining, money laundering and that serves
globally and transnationally in the flow illicit materials overseas, Faller
said.

“When you look at
transnational criminal organizations and the threats, there is a nexus in
Paraguay,” Faller explained. “A lot of the challenges that Paraguay faces are
principally, for them, law enforcement-type challenges — police challenges,
border challenges. As in all our countries, their military is very capable and
there is a role for the military in support of those police efforts. So, we are
focused on education and training and on these J-CETs. [Paraguay] is a small
country with a small force. I think we saw how eager they were, how motivated
they were, and how important this was to them.”

SOUTHCOM’s final stop
included meetings in Lima, Peru, at Peruvian army headquarters in Lima, where Faller
met with Peru’s minister of defense, Peruvian navy Adm. Jorge Moscoso, and Krishna
R. Urs, U.S. ambassador to Peru.

At Peru’s Centro Naval,
Faller and his staff met with Gen. Cesar Astudillo Salcedo, head of the
Peruvian Armed Forces Joint Command. Following the meeting, Faller received, on
behalf of the country of Peru, the Medalla Gran Cruz (“Great Cross”), the
highest award given to leaders as a show of gratitude and thanks and to honor
the SOUTHCOM’s support in natural disasters, humanitarian aid and in
multinational operations and training between both countries, while also
honoring the commander’s military service.

At several meetings with
South American leaders and military personnel, Faller discussed the importance
of professionalism as a key concept for achieving unified, effective and
enlightened partnerships among allies in Latin America and the Caribbean. A
common theme in SOUTHCOM’s Enduring Promise, Faller returned time and again to
the topic of professionalism as a means for remaining strong across the
hemisphere.

“Building our team, it is about
professionalism. No one here is going to argue about the concept of professionalism.
But what goes into it for a military force, for a security force?” Faller said.
“Whether you are a police force, whether you are foreign service, with professionalism, it is doing the
right thing. It is integrity, it is legitimacy, it is human rights, it is
forces that respect talent, and gender integration. We can’t fight the future
without accepting the talent into our teams that makes us better and stronger.
We’ve all got to figure that out as we move forward.”

To report this story, Daisy R. Khalifa traveled with the U.S. Southern Command delegation on its three-nation, 10-day tour of South America and the visits with their militaries. This is the first in a series of stories on her trip.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are aggressively changing course
and refocusing their resources and training to prepare the fleet and
expeditionary forces for a “Great Power Competition” with China and Russia. But
a growing number of Navy officers and defense analysts are warning that current
and planned maritime logistics capabilities are seriously inadequate to sustain
forward-deployed combat forces in an extended fight against such peer
competitors.

This deficiency would be particularly severe in a high-intensity
conflict against China, which is rapidly developing military capabilities
specifically aimed at keeping U.S. forces far from their shores and able to
threaten Pacific Ocean-based logistical support facilities, the critics warned.
A fight against a resurgent Russia could be a repeat of the 1940s “battle of
the Atlantic” with a small Military Sealift Command (MSC) force and an American
merchant marine fleet — a fraction of the size of the World War II armada — trying
to evade scores of sophisticated Russian submarines in a desperate effort to
reinforce and supply U.S. forces in Europe.

“Failing to remedy this situation, when adversaries have U.S. logistics networks in their crosshairs, could cause the United States to lose a war and fail its allies and partners in their hour of need.”

Comprehensive report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment

“Failing to remedy
this situation, when adversaries have U.S. logistics networks in their
crosshairs, could cause the United States to lose a war and fail its allies and
partners in their hour of need. An unsupported force may quickly become a
defeated one,” said a comprehensive report released this spring by the Center
for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA).

A
similar warning was issued by retired Navy Capt. Pete Pagano, who wrote in the
May edition of the journal Proceedings: “The combat logistics force must be
able to sail in harm’s way and defend itself, with enough ships in inventory to
absorb losses and still sustain Navy forces at sea. The Navy will not possess
sufficient surface combatants to meet this demand signal, even if it reaches
its goal of 355 ships.”

Last
October, the U.S. Maritime administrator, retired Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, said
the Navy told his agency that it would not be able to escort sealift and supply
ships during a major war. For those ships to survive, crews have been told to
“go fast and stay quiet,” with the latter referring to reduced electronic
signaling. But MSC ships, with sustained speeds of 15 to 20 knots, can’t go as fast
as 30-knot Navy warships.

Also, in
May, defense analyst Loren Thompson,wrote in Forbes that the well-trained and
equipped U.S. military is facing “a big operational challenge that few
policymakers or politicians are even aware of — its ability to get to the fight
is wasting away. So even with the most capable fighting force in history, the
United States might find itself unable to respond effectively to future
military contingencies. … Until recently, military planners could at least
assume the safety of commercial sea lanes outside war zones. But now even that
assumption is being called into question.”

‘Unchallenged Sea to Contested Waters’

MSC Commander Rear Adm. Dee L. Mewbourne in 2017 told Seapower, “The operating environment is changing,” going from “unchallenged sea to contest waters. … I would maintain that the debate over whether we’re sailing in contested waters is over.” Looking at the situation today, “there is a persistent threat to the ships that are going through those areas,” Mewbourne added, citing missile attacks on U.S. and other ships sailing near Yemen and China’s growing sea-denial capabilities.

“The question
might be, ‘Will it be like it is, or could it get worse?’ I would suggest it’s
the latter,” Mewbourne said, showing a graph depicting a rising curve of the
threats from China and Russian and a nearly flat line of likely U.S. sealift
capability to meet that threat. To adjust, Mewbourne said he is working on ways
to harden his fleet of tankers and ammunition and cargo ships and to train his
crews of primarily civilian mariners to survive in contested environments.

The most comprehensive analysis of the threats to maritime
logistics was the 124-page CSBA report, “Sustaining the Fight, Resilient
Maritime Logistics for a New Era,” which Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer
praised, saying “this is a critical issue for the [Department of the Navy]. We
have not funded it, and we
really have to get after it.

“It is key that we focus on this now,” Spencer said at
the report’s rollout. “Over the past two decades, our naval logistic
enterprises have performed admirably, in an environment of truly expanded
responsibility and resources that were constrained. But the world has changed. …
And we have to start addressing this in earnest” and not as “business as usual.”

Spencer noted that the National Defense Strategy recognized the logistical problem,
“and we have to stay ahead of it.” He saw the report as “a forcing function.”

‘Brittle’ Maritime Logistics Forces

The CSBA report said that although the defense strategy listed “resilient and agile logistics” as one of the eight capabilities that had to be strengthened for the great power competition, the Navy’s latest 30-year shipbuilding plan reduced the funding for maritime logistical forces and “further reduces the logistical forces as a proportion of the fleet.” It also noted that “decades of downsizing and consolidation” have left U.S. maritime logistics forces “brittle” and contributed to the decline of the U.S. shipbuilding industry and the Merchant Marine, which is expected to carry the bulk of military material and equipment for an overseas contingency.

To create a logistical force able to prevail in a major conflict with a peer competitor, CSBA recommended increasing that force from the current 299 ships to at least 364 by 2048. Most of those ships are not included in the Navy’s target of a 355-ship battle fleet.

“Over the past two decades, our naval logistic enterprises have performed admirably, in an environment of truly expanded responsibility and resources that were constrained. But the world has changed.”

Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer

The largest
increases CSBA proposed would go to refueling capabilities, from the current 21
tankers and fleet oilers to 69; the towing and salvage fleets, from five to 25;
and maintenance and repair, from two tenders to 17.

The report also
recommended growing cargo and munitions support from 12 ships to 25 and
creating a combat search and rescue (CSR) and increasing medical care capability
from the current two large and aging hospital ships to seven. That would
include platforms for CSR helicopters and MV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft and small
“expeditionary medical ships,” based on the expeditionary fast transports
currently being built.

This larger
logistical support force would include several new ship types — including a
variety of tankers and smaller oilers able to refuel combatants and commercial
tankers to move fuel forward to replenish fleet refuelers. The CSBA report also
urged that munitions ships be able to reload vertical launching system (VLS)
tubes at sea and that new tenders be able to repair surface combatants and even
unmanned surface vessels.

The greater
numbers and new types of support ships are needed, the report argues, to allow
logistical support to continue despite the high attrition expected in a great
power conflict, to provide support in contested waters, and to make up for the
likely damage to forward support facilities such as Guam, the Marianas and
Diego Garcia.

Still in Need of an ‘Expeditionary Navy’

Much of the CSBA recommendations were supported in a July 24 opinion article in Real Clear Defense by surface warfare Capt. Anthony Cowden, who wrote: “A navy that cannot rearm itself at sea, that cannot conduct ship systems repairs organically” without use of a friendly port “is not an ‘expeditionary’ navy. … The United States needs an expeditionary navy, and that’s not what it has.”

The CSBA report echoed
the call from the congressional sea power subcommittees to expand and modernize
the sealift fleet, much of which is old and still powered by ancient,
inefficient steam power plants. The report endorsed the congressional plan to
have U.S. shipyards build a variety of new ships using a common hull under the Common
Hull Auxiliary Multi-Mission Platform concept and buy used cargo vessels off
the international market.

Spencer supported
that two-track plan, but said, “I can’t afford a lot of $400 million new ships,”
when he could buy a lot of surplus ships for much less. He said he has been “up
on the Hill asking for some money” to update the sealift fleet.

CSBA estimated the
cost of buying the additional ships and different capabilities at $47.8 billion
over 30 years, which the report said would be $1.6 billion a year above what
the Navy plans to spend on its maritime logistics capabilities.

The need for that spending was illustrated by the CSBA report’s co-author, Harrison Schramm, who said the Chinese are focusing on counter-logistics in their campaign plans because “they know that forward-deployed naval forces are limited by magazine size.” Once the onboard munitions are expended, the U.S. fleet’s capabilities are drastically diminished, Schramm said. That problem is aggravated, he added, by the Navy’s inability to reload VLS tubes without use of a functioning port.

The report also stressed a point that Buzby also made: The U.S. flagged merchant marine has shrunk to a degree that it would be of limited help in providing logistical support in a major conflict. And, CSBA noted, leasing cargo ships or tankers from larger international fleets is complicated by the fact that China owns or controls a substantial portion of those ships. And Buzby also warned that if the U.S. tried to expand its civilian merchant marine for a crisis, it would have trouble manning those ships — because of an estimated shortage of more than 1,000 qualified mariners.

Ever since the V-22 Osprey entered service for the first
time in 2007 — nearly two decades after its first flight — the tilt-rotor aircraft
has been in heavy use by the U.S. Marine Corps and has seen action in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya and Kuwait. But there is one stubborn problem that continues
to plague the program: readiness.

The aircraft was long delayed in reaching the field due
in no small part to deadly accidents during its development and a hefty price
tag, but when it finally did arrive, the V-22 gave the Marines the versatility
the service craved — an aircraft that could land on the deck of an amphibious
assault ship like a helicopter but speed off like a fixed-wing aircraft when
necessary. While the battles over development and procurement are long over,
the Pentagon continues to struggle with a stubbornly low availability rate for
an aircraft that serves not just the Marines but also the U.S. Navy and the U.S
Air Force.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUNJTAybCQQ

Currently, four out of 10 of its Ospreys are unavailable
for combat, according to the Marine Corps, which means the program is a long
way from the goal of 80% overall readiness set by former Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis. Several media outlets reported earlier this year that the overall
readiness rate of the aircraft was even more dismal — 52%.

The question of why readiness is so low is complicated,
but the uniqueness of the aircraft may be a large factor.

Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at the Teal
Group, said that the limited number of users of the V-22 makes it tough to have
an adequate stock of V-22 spares available.

“Normally, a pool of users — services and countries — can
share costs and inventories, but the Marines are the only sizeable user, and
the [Air Force] CV-22 community probably focuses on its own systems and
missions,” Aboulafia said. Even when the Navy gets [Carrier Onboard Delivery]
V-22s, the Marines will still oversee budgeting. Adequate provisioning is
further complicated by the shipborne nature of the platform.”

But the Marine Corps says that while the overall availability rate may be low, training and deployed squadrons have higher overall readiness levels. The service also says it’s taking significant steps to improve the aircraft’s overall readiness.

Better Readiness With Block C

Capt. Christopher Harrison, a Marine Corps spokesman,
said that while the availability of the Marine MV-22 fleet is currently at
around 60%, he also noted that training squadrons and deployed aircraft, which
have a common Block C configuration, regularly report an 80% mission-capable
rate.

The Marine Corps is trying to improve availability with
the V-22 Readiness Program (VRP), which Harrison described as a “top
priority” of the service, Harrison said.

“VRP takes a holistic approach to readiness recovery by
providing contract maintenance support, increased engineering support and
improved training for our maintainers and increased component supply depth and
breadth,” he said in an email response to questions from Seapower.
“VRP also consists of two major aircraft modification plans: The Common
Configuration-Readiness and Modernization [CC-RAM] initiative and nacelle improvements.”

CC-RAM aims to improve on availability rates by
modernizing older Block B aircraft with upgraded avionics and components to
produce the Block C, which are in production now. In addition to having “readiness
enhancements,” making more of the fleet in the Block C configuration
streamlines maintenance and sustainment, Harrison said.

Meanwhile, the nacelle improvement initiative includes
improving wiring harnesses and making the nacelle easier to maintain, he said. “We
believe we’ll see an additive positive effect on readiness by introducing more
reliable systems, streamlined procedures and improved maintainability.”

Analytics in Use to Improve MCR

In addition to those two initiatives, the Marines are using analytics to reduce scheduled maintenance and spot emerging trouble areas, which could improve mission-capable rates by as much as 15%, he claimed.

CC-RAM started in January 2018 and four aircraft are
currently undergoing modifications.

“The Osprey is our most in-demand and deployed aircraft,”
Harrison said. “At any given moment, five to seven VMMs are forward-deployed.
The MV-22 transformed the way the Marine Corps conducts assault support.
Capable of self-deploying, the Osprey’s speed, range and lift allows it to
sustain and move the MAGTF [Marine Air-Ground Task Force] anywhere in the world,
and it is routinely at center stage for humanitarian assistance operations.”

“The Osprey is our most in-demand and deployed aircraft. The MV-22 transformed the way the Marine Corps conducts assault support.”

Capt. Christopher Harrison, a Marine Corps spokesman

Boeing — which produces the aircraft jointly with Bell —
said in a statement that fleet enhancements and upgrades that are funded
through the Defense Department budget outyears include an improved engine inlet
separation system; a cockpit engine health indicator; component reliability and
safety improvements for swashplate, rudder, conversion actuators, O2N2
concentrator and shaft-driven compressor; and rotor blade time-on-wing
improvements.

Bell Boeing received a performance-based logistics and
engineering (PBL&E) contract in January that includes other initiatives
meant to boost the reliability of the aircraft. “Bell Boeing have the
flexibility to incorporate data analytics into maintenance efforts, yielding
innovative approaches such as predictive and condition-based maintenance to
improve aircraft availability and readiness,” their statement reads.

The company supports three customers: the MV-22 for the
Marine Corps, the CV-22 for Air Force Special Operations Command, and the
CMV-22 for the Navy. In all, more than 350 aircraft are scheduled to be built,
Boeing said.

“Bell Boeing is also executing a supply chain contract,
which includes the purchase, repair, stocking and delivery for more than 200
part numbers,” the statement notes.

A total of 129 Block B Ospreys will get the CC-RAM
upgrade, Boeing said. The last of those aircraft was built in 2011. “Boeing
expects to see a marked improvement in the mission-capable rate of Ospreys that
go through CC-RAM,” according to the company.

The company also expects to see “marked improvement” in
availability rates through the nacelle improvement initiative.

Other investments are being
made to address the problem of the mission-capable rate. Boeing reportedly
spent $115 million and two years transforming a 350,000-square-foot facility
near Philadelphia into a fuselage factory for V-22s. The facility will be home
to the CC-RAM program, making it a key part of the push to improve readiness.

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.