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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) has entered into an agreement to acquire Hydroid Inc., a provider of advanced marine robotics to the defense and maritime markets and a U.S.-based indirect subsidiary, wholly owned by Kongsberg Maritime, HII announced. 

In conjunction with the transaction, HII and Kongsberg Maritime are also establishing a strategic alliance to jointly market naval and maritime products and services to the U.S. government market and, potentially, to global markets. 

Hydroid, which is based in Pocasset, Massachusetts, will become part of HII’s Technical Solutions division. The acquisition of Hydroid expands HII capabilities in the autonomous and unmanned maritime systems market. 

The transaction is subject to regulatory review and customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020. The value of the transaction is $350 million, which will be effectively reduced by tax benefits that are preliminarily valued over $50 million, to be received by HII. 

“We are very excited about bringing Hydroid into the HII family and establishing a strategic alliance with Kongsberg Maritime,” said Mike Petters, HII’s president and CEO. 

“Hydroid’s advanced capabilities and reputation for excellence in autonomous and unmanned maritime systems provide the perfect complement to our existing unmanned operations, including Proteus in Panama City and our partnership with Boeing to produce the Orca XLUUV. This transaction, along with the strategic alliance with Kongsberg Maritime, demonstrates our long-term commitment to the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard and our national security customers and allies globally.” 

The strategic alliance between HII and Kongsberg Maritime leverages the companies’ combined capabilities and resources to enhance their respective services and product offerings to the Navy, Coast Guard and other national security customers. The companies will also explore opportunities to market each other’s products to customers on a global scale and to collaborate to create innovative solutions and additional opportunities for growth. 

Kongsberg Maritime is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kongsberg, which is headquartered in Norway. The group delivers advanced technology systems and solutions to clients within the defense and aerospace market and commercial maritime market. 

Since 2001, Hydroid’s REMUS line of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) has provided rapidly deployable solutions for use in defense, marine research and commercial applications. Hydroid specializes in UUV design, engineering, production and support. 

Huntington Ingalls Industries is America’s largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of professional services to partners in government and industry. For more than a century, HII’s Newport News and Ingalls shipbuilding divisions in Virginia and Mississippi, respectively, have built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder.

PASCAGOULA, Miss. — The guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald is underway to conduct comprehensive at-sea testing, marking a significant step in its return to warfighting readiness, Naval Sea Systems Command said Feb. 3. 

The ship departed Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding’s Pascagoula shipyard to conduct a series of demonstrations to evaluate that the ship’s onboard systems meet or exceed Navy performance specifications. Among the systems that will be tested are navigation, damage control, mechanical and electrical systems, combat systems, communications and propulsion. 

The underway reflects nearly two years of effort in restoring and modernizing one of the Navy’s most capable warships after it was damaged during a collision in 2017 that claimed the lives of seven Sailors. 

“Since we launched the ship this past April, our efforts have focused on restoring ship systems, conducting pierside tests and readying the ship for sea,” said Rear Adm. Tom Anderson, NAVSEA director of surface ship maintenance and modernization, and commander of the Navy Regional Maintenance Center. 

“The government and industry team has been working hand-in-hand on this exceptionally complex effort, with a common purpose of returning Fitzgerald to sea and ultimately back to the Fleet.” 

When Fitzgerald returns to the shipyard, crew training and certifications will start as final work items are completed in support of the ship’s sail away later this spring. 

“We are excited to take the next step to get Fitzgerald back out to sea where the ship belongs. My crew is looking forward to moving onboard the ship and continuing our training to ensure we are ready to return to the fleet,” said Cmdr. Scott Wilbur, Fitzgerald’s commanding officer. 

After receiving its full complement of basic and advanced phased training, as well as crew and ship certifications, the USS Fitzgerald will return to the Fleet mission-ready with the improved capability and lethality required to successfully support high-end operations. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BOSTON — U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca returned home to Boston on Jan. 28 after a 57-day deployment to the Caribbean Sea, the Coast Guard 1st District said. 

During the patrol, Seneca rescued 187 Haitian Migrants, conducted countless hours of training exercises with Coast Guard Air Stations Jacksonville and Clearwater and spent several weeks as a law enforcement presence in the southern Caribbean aided by Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron Jacksonville. 

In late December, the Seneca crew intercepted an overloaded Haitian sail freighter. Coordinating a joint response with the Turks and Cacaos Royal Police, the two agencies rescued all 187 Haitian nationals from the vessel. 

“I am exceptionally proud of this crew and their success and achievements,” said Cmdr. John Christensen, commanding officer of the Seneca. 

“Over the course of the last two months, they persevered through the challenges of conducting operations at sea, put aside their personal sacrifices, particularly throughout the holiday season, and displayed an unwavering commitment to serving the United States and our partner nations throughout the Caribbean Sea.” 

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

TYSONS CORNER, Va. — With strategic adversaries like Russia
and China catching up technologically, the United States will need to rely on “intellectual
ability” to maintain a competitive military advantage, according to acting Navy
Secretary Thomas Modly.

The technological gap is only going to grow in the rising ‘great
power competition,’ Modly told a gathering of defense industry executives here.
“You all see this because your companies are getting ripped off by the Chinese
and others. They’re pulling that technology and they’re quickly putting it into
systems that will compete with us,” he said.

The best way to maintain “our enduring competitive advantage in an environment like that is going to be our intellectual ability — to think, to be agile thinkers,” Modly told the audience at a National Defense Industry Association-sponsored discussion hosted by government consultants LMI.

A growing need for Sailors, Marines and civilian workers who
could think strategically and adapt quickly was revealed by the Navy’s
Education for Seapower study, leading to the Navy decision to ramp up and
prioritize education as a strategic enabler.

Joining Modly on the panel, John Kroger, the department’s
first chief learning officer, enumerated changes to enhance and encourage
educational opportunities and more fully integrate the Navy and Marine Corps.
Kroger, a Yale-educated academic and Harvard-trained lawyer who enlisted in the
U.S. Marine Corps at age 17, said it would be “a transformational thing for our
force if we can get education right.”

The first job, he said, would be creating a Naval Community
College to provide technology education beyond traditional military and naval skills.
Kroger said the school will be based in Quantico, Virginia, close to the Marine
Corps base housing the Marine Corps University, Marine Corps War College and
numerous schools, including Command and Staff, Officer Candidate and Basic
schools.

Interviews to select the new school’s president and provost
are underway, Kroger said, adding that he hoped to have the first students
enrolled by June 2021. The curriculum would include both residential and online
classes. Kroger said he and his staff consulted with the U.S. Army and Air
Force, which have outpaced the Navy in developing new education programs.

Currently, the Community College of the Air Force is the
only degree-granting institution of higher learning in the world dedicated
exclusively to enlisted personnel. It offers enlisted airmen the opportunity to
earn a two-year associate in applied science degree.

Kroger said it would be prohibitively expensive to educate 40,000 to 50,000 students a year at a brick-and-mortar school. But the revolution in education — that includes distance learning and minimal in-person residency like executive education programs conducted at many university business schools — makes such a sweeping goal possible.

The Navy Department announced plans in December 2019 to add more than $300 million to its spending on education over the next five years, starting with $109 million shifted to learning initiatives in fiscal year 2020. The Education for Seapower initiative also calls for creating a new unifying Naval University System to strengthen existing Navy and Marine Corps educational institutions and align strategic needs and increase agility.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MCMURDO STATION, Antarctica — The 159
crewmembers of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) arrived Jan. 22
at McMurdo Station, following a 58-day transit from the United States, the Coast
Guard Pacific Area said in a Jan. 22 release. The cutter departed its homeport
of Seattle on Nov. 26.

This year marks the Polar Star’s 23rd
journey to Antarctica in support of Operation Deep Freeze, an annual joint
military service mission to resupply the United States Antarctic stations, in
support of the National Science Foundation, the lead agency for the United
States Antarctic Program.

The 399-foot, 13,000-ton Polar Star
arrived after creating a 23-mile channel through the ice to McMurdo Sound, which
will enable the offload of over 19.5 million pounds of dry cargo and 7.6
million gallons of fuel from three logistic vessels. Together these three ships
carry enough fuel and critical supplies to sustain NSF operations throughout
the year until Polar Star returns in 2021.

Each year, the Polar Star crew creates a
navigable channel through seasonal and multi-year ice, sometimes as much as 21 feet
thick, to allow refuel and resupply ships to reach McMurdo Station.

“I am immensely proud of all the hard work
and dedication the men and women of the Polar Star demonstrate each and every
day,” said Greg Stanclik, commanding officer of the Polar Star. “Maintaining
and operating a 44-year-old ship in the harshest of environments takes months
of planning and preparation; long workdays; and missed holidays, birthdays and
anniversaries with loved ones. The Polar Star crew truly embodies the ethos of
the Antarctic explorers who came before us — courage, sacrifice and devotion.”

Commissioned in 1976, the Polar Star is the
United States’ only operational heavy icebreaker. Reserved for Operation Deep
Freeze each year, the ship spends the winter breaking ice near Antarctica, and
when the mission is complete, returns to dry dock in order to conduct critical
maintenance and repairs in preparation for the next Operation Deep Freeze
mission.

If a catastrophic event, such as getting
stuck in the ice, were to happen to the Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) in
the Arctic or to the Polar Star near Antarctica, the U.S. Coast Guard is left
without a self-rescue capability.

By contrast, Russia currently operates
more than 50 icebreakers several of which are nuclear powered.

The Coast Guard has been the sole
provider of the nation’s polar icebreaking capability since 1965 and is seeking
to increase its icebreaking fleet with six new polar security cutters to ensure
continued national presence and access to the Polar Regions.

In April, the Coast Guard awarded VT
Halter Marine Inc. of Pascagoula, Mississippi, a contract for the design and
construction of the Coast Guard’s lead polar security cutter, which will be
homeported in Seattle. The contract also includes options for the construction
of two additional PSCs.

“Replacing the Coast Guard’s
icebreaker fleet is paramount,” said Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, commander of
the Coast Guard’s Pacific Area. “Our ability to clear a channel and allow
for the resupply of the United States’ Antarctic stations is essential for
continued national presence and influence on the continent.”