ARLINGTON, Va. — The last Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) built, USS Cheyenne, will be the first of the class selected to go through a service life-extension program, a senior Navy admiral said.

The Navy is planning to refuel six Los Angeles-class SSNs, said Adm. Frank Caldwell, director of the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program, speaking Nov. 16 in a webinar for the annual symposium of the naval Submarine League.

The Navy is undertaking the effort to shore up the numbers of attack submarines in the fleet as other boats in the Loc Angeles class are decommissioned in order to partially fill in the “trough” in the mid-2020s when the inventory of SSNs declines to 41 boats.

“We will extend these boats for another operating cycle,” Caldwell said. “To get after this, over the last two years, we’ve been making the required investments in cranes, equipment and facilities to support these refuelings at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard [Kittery, Maine]. This is a big effort, and there is a lot of work going on.”

Rear Adm. Ed Anderson, commander, Undersea Warfare, also speaking in the webinar, said the Navy is hoping to squeeze more than a 10-year nominal operational cycle out of each of the six submarines in the life-extension program.

“We’re gathering the data to give the fleet as much time as possible,” he said. Refueling of the Cheyenne will begin in February 2022, Caldwell said.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s submarine force is in high demand worldwide and is in the midst of a very high operations tempo (optempo), a Navy senior admiral said. 

“Navy leaders, fleet commanders, combatant commanders have high expectations for us,” said Adm. Frank Caldwell, director of the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program, speaking Nov. 16 in a webinar for the annual symposium of the naval Submarine League. “They love what we bring to peacetime operations and they are absolutely counting on us and our warfighting capability and our readiness to execute those wartime responsibilities.  

“We are a force that’s in very high demand,” Caldwell said. “In fact, all of the maritime commanders want a lot more of what the submarine force can bring and what we bring to the undersea domain. Our team is out there every single day doing eye-watering work on submarine missions or on patrols. The deployed OpTempo is very high right now and our boats and our crews are stepping up to the challenge. This is true even in the midst of COVID, which has put friction in the entire system, whether it’s from building new-construction submarines, delivering boats from deep maintenance, or simply executing the operational schedule. 

The admiral said there “has been a strain on our families and on our crews. But through it all I have been really impressed with the way our submarine commanders have kept their crews safe and continued to meet deployed operational commitments not only for missions but also for strategic deterrent patrols.”  

In addition to a high optempo, the submarine force also is in a construction boom at a level not seen in two decades, he said.  

“We are building submarines at rates that we have not seen in over 20 years,” Caldwell said. “The new-construction build halls are full and more facilities are under construction. We have modern, high-end fixturing that allows us to hold large components in place and allow high-precision, automated cutting and welding. While submarine construction in the 1980s and 1990s relied on retaining large openings in the hull in order to insert components and equipment, today we are building more and more components on rafts or on modules, long before we slide them together into the hull to complete the submarine.” 

Caldwell said the Navy “strives to keep the individual construction efforts on a steady, uninterrupted drumbeat. We refer to this as continuous build … capitalizing on the work force learning to build more efficiently, to reduce construction timeline, and continue to gain efficiency as we go forward.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The commander of the U.S. Navy’s submarine forces said the service’s submarine community is looking at several options for the basis of the next-generation nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN). 

Vice Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander, Submarine Forces, speaking Nov. 16 in a webinar for the annual symposium of the naval Submarine League, said the service is looking at three options: a development of the Virginia-class SSN; a development of the Columbia-class nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine; and a new-from-scratch SSN design. 

“We’re going to get alternatives and make decisions on how to make this new SSN match what we need to stay ahead of our peers,” Caudle said. 

Caudle discussed some characteristics and capabilities that would be desirable in the next SSN. Increased speed is one characteristic he said is a requirement. 

“Speed is basically important to every improve every single joint warfare function,” he said. Speed “plays out so well in all of our wargaming [because] it helps compensate for bad decisions. It also helps us get to the fight faster and helps sustain an all-domain maneuver warfare.”   

The admiral said, “We can never get enough payload capacity, so we do want submarines with large payload capacity.” 

He also said that stealth is important and not limited to acoustic stealth, but across all spectrums. 

“When this new SSN rolls out, we’re going to have peer competitors that are going to be able to detect us not just acoustically but through algorithms that are going to break the water interface.”  

Caudle stressed that the Navy would have to make research and development investments to achieve the characteristics desired in the new SSN.   

PUERTO LEMPIRA, Honduras — A Coast Guard Helicopter Tactical Squadron (HITRON) MH-65 Dolphin aircrew forward deployed aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Seneca (WMEC-906) provided humanitarian assistance, Nov. 13, to Honduran villages after Hurricane Eta impacted the country, the Coast Guard 7th District said in a Nov. 15 release.  

The HITRON aircrew and Seneca crew medevaced multiple people and redistributed relief aid across the hurricane impacted area as needed.  

“I am very thankful to have been able to assist in the medevac and rescue efforts following the wake of Hurricane Eta in Honduras,” said Petty Officer 1st Class James Mann, a HITRON flight mechanic. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Honduran people and our fellow service members continuing to help them rebuild. We wish for a speedy recovery to all those affected.”  

“The Seneca is proud to be assigned to CTF-45 and support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations in Honduras,” said Cmdr. Matthew Rooney, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Seneca. “Our embarked MH-65 helicopter was well suited to provide medical evacuations, conduct aerial surveys of critical infrastructure and deliver emergency supplies in remote areas. The Seneca’s crew performed magnificently and I am grateful that we could provide assistance after Hurricane Eta made landfall in Honduras.”  

Joint Task Force-Bravo is leading the humanitarian aid disaster relief efforts under the responsibility of U.S. Southern Command. The mission of JTF-Bravo includes being prepared to support disaster relief operations in Central America, South America and the Caribbean, when directed by SOUTHCOM. JTF-B’s training and strategic location allows them to mobilize and respond to an emergency with very short notice, enabling them to rapidly respond to the needs of our partners. 

Coast Guard Seventh District, along with regional partners, are monitoring Hurricane Iota and urges caution to all mariners in the Western Caribbean Sea. The Coast Guard stands ready, relevant and responsive to aid and render assistance when needed.  

The Coast Guard Cutter Seneca is a 270-foot medium-endurance cutter with a crew complement of 100, with missions ranging from counter-narcotics, migrant interdictions, search and rescue to living marine resource operations from the Gulf of Maine to the Pacific Ocean. The cutter was commissioned in 1987 and is homeported in Boston, Massachusetts. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ARLINGTON, Va. — President-elect Joseph R. Biden’s Jr. twin goals of rebuilding America’s infrastructure, while protecting the environment, could bolster support for maintaining the 100-year-old law that protects the U.S. maritime industry, according to a Washington think tank analyst.

The Biden campaign “had expressed interest in new infrastructure, in new green initiatives, and the maritime industry is actually a pretty good confluence of the two,” Tim Walton, a fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, told a Navy League webinar marking the 100^th anniversary of the Jones Act.

Also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, the Jones Act bars foreign-built, foreign-owned or foreign-flagged vessels from conducting coastal and inland waterway trade within the United States and between the United States and its non-contiguous states and territories such as Alaska and Puerto Rico.

The long-standing legislation could figure in plans “where we’re talking about building maritime infrastructure, building low carbon emitting transportation mechanisms, green industries that support our economy in the oceans as we build a blue economy,” Walton added. A “Blue Economy,” according to the World Bank, is built on sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs and ocean ecosystem health.

Critics say the aged Jones Act has led to higher shipping costs, which are passed along as higher prices to vendors, retailers and consumers. They also maintain higher costs have driven the commercial shipbuilding industry overseas, leading to a smaller pool of qualified U.S. merchant mariners.

Without the law, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard officials have argued there would be no pool of U.S. noncombat ships — or trained American seafarers to man them — in a war or other national emergency. During the Nov. 12 webinar, former Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft (retired) called for “a coherent maritime national strategy that connects with a national security strategy. That’s where the Jones Act needs to be woven into our national security strategies.”

Former U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook, an Oklahoma Republican, said the need for such a strategy is evident, in a world where 90% of trade is moved by ship, and Great Power competitor China is the world’s biggest shipbuilder, by some measures has the world’s largest navy, and is expanding its commercial ports and naval bases around the world.

Walton’s comment about Biden came after a webinar viewer asked where the Democrat stood on the Jones Act. Both Biden and President Donald Trump support the law, although Trump considered, but later rejected, an extended waiver for foreign carriers to deliver liquid natural gas to hurricane wracked-Puerto Rico and LNG-dependent New England States. Biden incorporated Jones Act support in his campaign’s Buy American/Ship American strategy.

“Historically, the U.S. maritime industry has been a leader in technology,” Walton said, “but now in the 21^st century, the Biden administration, as it appears it’s going to be, will have an opportunity, I think, to take some leadership and, as Adm. Zukunft said, actually craft an integrated national strategy for the maritime industry, and then implement it.”

To read the new Navy League special report on the Jones Act and its impact, go here.

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

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

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

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

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

ARLINGTON, Va. — The secretary of the Navy and chief of naval operations announced on Nov. 13 the following flag assignments: 

Rear Adm. Alvin Holsey will be assigned as commander, Navy Personnel Command; and deputy chief of naval personnel, Millington, Tennessee.  Holsey is currently serving as special assistant to commander, Naval Air Forces/commander, Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, with additional duty as director, Task Force One Navy, Washington, D.C. 

Rear Adm. (lower half) Richard J. Cheeseman Jr. will be assigned as commander, Carrier Strike Group Ten, Norfolk, Virginia.  Cheeseman is currently serving as commander, Carrier Strike Group Two, Norfolk, Virginia.  

Rear Adm. (lower half) Brendan R. McLane will be assigned as commander, Navy Warfare Development Command, Norfolk, Virginia.  McLane is currently serving as commander, Carrier Strike Group Ten, Norfolk, Virginia.  

Rear Adm. (lower half) Scott F. Robertson will be assigned as commander, Carrier Strike Group Two, Norfolk, Virginia.  Robertson is currently serving as commander, Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center, San Diego, California.  

NATO now has all five NATO RQ-4D Phoenix unmanned Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) aircraft at the Main Operating Base at Sigonella, Sicily.

AGS is based on the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk wide-area surveillance drone and the MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance platform. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for AGS and leads an industry team comprised of Leonardo, Airbus, and Kongsberg and other defense companies from all of the procuring nations participating in the AGS program.

The first AGS arrived a year ago.  The first test and training flight of the unmanned aircraft by NATO AGS Force pilots was conducted on 4 June 2020.  The final AGS landed at Sigonella yesterday (Nov. 12, 2020).

Northrop Grumman ferried the aircraft to Sigonella via a non-stop transatlantic flight. The aircraft departed on Wednesday, Nov. 11 from Palmdale, California and landed nearly 20 hours later on Nov. 12 at Sigonella, near the Italian city of Catania on the island of Sicily.

According to a NATO statement, “The five drones will support NATO operations by monitoring the ground and providing situational awareness, also known as Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or JISR. This gives decision makers an increased tactical awareness of what’s happening on the ground, in the air and at sea, allowing accurate decision making based on real time-shared information.”

The AGS RQ-4D Phoenix is a remotely piloted surveillance aircraft developed with contributions from 15 NATO Allies: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States. Intelligence data gathered by the AGS system – which also includes associated command and control ground stations – will be available to all NATO Allies.

The 30 NATO nations have ships, battalions and aircraft, funded and maintained by the nations themselves.  But there are some capabilities that are owned by NATO, itself.  It amounts to less than 1% in investment money, and includes programs like the NATO  AWACs (Airborne Warning and Control System) and AGS, which are owned by NATO itself.

According to a statement from Northrop Grumman, NATO AGS is a system of systems comprised of aircraft, ground and support segments. Work remains to complete handover of the AGS System to the NATO AGS Force (NAGSF), the statement said.

“Once the NATO AGS system achieves handover, NATO commanders will have greater flexibility and redundancy to support the mission of protecting ground troops, civilian populations and international borders in peacetime and times of conflict as well as humanitarian missions during natural disasters,” said Jane Bishop, vice president and general manager, autonomous systems, Northrop Grumman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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