ARLINGTON, Va. — GE, which provides gas turbine engines to naval ships around the world, is looking to provide engines for the U.S. Navy’s next-generation guided-missile destroyer (DDG(X)), a company official said. 

“We’re in a good position,” said George Awiszus, director, Military Marketing and Business Development for GE Marine, noting the success of his company’s family of marine engines, which company marketing materials point to a 99% reliability and 98% availability of its LM2500 engines. 

Awiszus noted during an Aug. 4 interview with Seapower that the U.S. Navy is looking to making its next-generation destroyer a “full electric ship.”  

He said the current Arleigh Burke-class DDG ‘is maxed out” in terms of electrical power and that more power will be needed for the sensors, weapons and propulsion that likely will be installed in the DDG(X). 

Awiszus praised the Navy’s efforts to get industry, including shipyards and naval architects, involved early in the concept design process. 

GE will be providing LM2500+G4 engines for the new Constellation-class frigate. LM2500 engines already are in use on the Fincantieri FREMM frigate that is the basis for the Constellation class. The Constellation’s engines will feature the Composite Enclosure that provides better noise attenuation, a 5,500-pound weight reduction, costs 50% less than the steel enclosure and keeps the engine room cooler. GE will have delivered 24 engines with the Composite Enclosure by year’s end. 

GE improves its marine engine designs over time as lessons are learned, new materials are provided, and processes are refined. The company now offers electric starting capability as an option along with hydraulic or pneumatic starting methods. 

GE has delivered 1,365 LM2500 and LM6000 gas turbine engines to navies worldwide and 2,585 used for industrial purposes. 

NASHUA, N.H. — BAE Systems has received a $93 million Undefinitized Contract Action (UCA) to provide critical sustainment support for the F-35 electronic warfare (EW) system, the company said in an Aug. 4 release. 

BAE Systems has received a $93 million, five-year UCA from Lockheed Martin to provide critical sustainment support for the AN/ASQ-239 EW countermeasure system. The contract will ensure the mission readiness of the growing global fleet of F-35 aircraft. 

“We have a strong track record of sustaining electronic warfare systems to support our customers’ mission readiness,” said Rob Dykema, F-35 Sustainment program director at BAE Systems. “This contract lays critical sustainment groundwork, establishing and optimizing the infrastructure to support the aircraft.” 

Under the contract, BAE Systems will provide software maintenance, depot test equipment support, logistics analysis, obsolescence monitoring, technical field support, and reach-back support for the F-35 U.S. Reprogramming Laboratory. 

The contract complements the BAE Systems F-35 performance-based logistics (PBL) program, through which BAE Systems ensures EW material availability. Under the EW PBL, BAE Systems has demonstrated a 60% improvement in supply support, delivering better than 85% EW material availability to the F-35 enterprise with reduced cost per flight hour using a cost-effective, outcome-based support strategy. 

The AN/ASQ-239 electronic warfare suite provides real-time situational awareness and superior electronic warfare attack and countermeasure capabilities.  

NORFOLK, Va. — Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, U.S. Pacific Fleet, and U.S. Naval Forces Europe commenced Large-Scale Exercise 2021 in the USFF, PACFLT, and NAVEUR areas of responsibility, Aug. 3, Fleet Forces Command said in a release. 

LSE 2021 is a Chief of Naval Operations-directed live, virtual, and constructive, globally integrated exercise that spans multiple fleets. LSE 2021 is designed to refine how we synchronize maritime operations across multiple fleets in support of the joint force. The training is based on a progression of fleet battle problems and scenarios that will assess and refine modern warfare concepts, including distributed maritime operations, expeditionary advanced base operations, and littoral operations in a contested environment. 

“We have shifted focus from the individual Carrier Strike Group to a larger fleet-centric approach, challenging fleet commanders’ abilities to make decisions at a speed and accuracy that outpaces the adversaries,” said Adm. Christopher W. Grady, commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command. “LSE is more than just training; it is leveraging the integrated fighting power of multiple naval forces to share sensors, weapons, and platforms across all domains in contested environments, globally.” 
   
Evaluating and improving naval integration and the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps’ ability to integrate all domains in a high-end global conflict is a necessary investment in the current and future readiness of our forces. 
   
“LSE 2021 provides our Navy-Marine Corps team the opportunity to plan, direct and establish full spectrum naval operations. We must build naval readiness and advance the art and science of naval warfare to be ready to fight tonight – the stakes could not be higher,” said Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet.  “The international rules-based order is essential to our nation, and our partners and allies for peace, security and stability.”   
   
Included in the exercise will be evaluations of experimental technology from a variety of warfare areas including unmanned technologies. 

“LSE will test our commanders’ abilities to deliver coordinated effects, from all directions, any time or all the time. It will help us build the necessary muscle memory to do this routinely at the operational to strategic levels of war,” said Adm. Robert P. Burke, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe. “By exercising the full weight of our operational fleets, working together in a global mindset, we will truly harness the inherent flexibility of naval forces in controlling the sea and projecting power.”  
   
LSE 2021 is part of an on-going series of exercises that demonstrates the U.S. Navy’s ability to employ precise, lethal, and overwhelming force globally across three naval component commands, five numbered fleets, and 17 time zones. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday discussed the Large-Scale Exercise during Sea-Air-Space 2021 this week.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The outbreak of COVID-19 on a forward-deployed U.S. aircraft carrier helped Navy medical personnel learn how to fight the virus at sea and prevent its spread ashore, the Navy Surgeon General says.

“Our wakeup call was the Theodore Roosevelt,” Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham told a panel discussion on the coronavirus pandemic at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor Aug. 4.

After COVID-19 was detected among the crew following a port call at Da Nang, Vietnam, in March 2020, the USS Roosevelt was sidelined at Guam for months.

The data gathered by a deployed medical unit aboard the stricken carrier, where more than one thousand crew members tested positive for COVID-19 in early 2020, and one died, “helped us understand the behavior of the virus,” Gillingham said. “It was from that investigation that we really learned the role of pre- and asymptomatic transmission of COVID and how critically important it was to understand and prevent that.”

More than 76% of the crew who tested positive for COVID were not showing symptoms of the virus when tested, and only 55% later developed any symptoms.

With the experience gleaned from the Roosevelt and a smaller outbreak on the destroyer USS Kidd, “we were able to learn how to diagnose, quarantine and isolate in a shipboard environment, the surgeon general said. That led to a search for ways to create bubbles to manage the risk of COVID for forward deployed personnel, including restriction of movement for 14 days before deployment and testing personnel coming out of quarantine.

Another study by Navy scientists looked at Marine Corps recruits at Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot to assess the response to the virus of healthy young adults in a tightly controlled, congregate setting. “Even in that environment, about one-sixth of recruits still became infected,” Gillingham said.

Both the Parris Island and Roosevelt/Kidd research findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “I’m proud our folks were able to contribute to the national discussion on how to defeat COVID,” he said.

Another panelist, Rear Adm. Dana Thomas, director of Health, Safety & Work-Life at the Coast Guard, said it is also crucial to monitor the mental and emotional health of personnel working under the trying conditions imposed by the pandemic. 

In field communications, “I established, early on, Wellness Wednesdays,” hour-long panel sessions with chaplains, doctors and others to talk about stress and anxiety,“bringing that conversation into the ward room or the workplace,” she said.

“That was one thing we will continue as a best practice,” said Thomas, who is also an admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. — That Sea-Air-Space 2021 was able to be held this year shows the power of partnerships, acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Harker said Aug. 4.

“The fact that we’re able to gather today is a testament to the power of partnership — pharmaceutical companies, scientists, government researchers, military and civilian leaders — all working together to develop the vaccine,” Harker said. “That’s how we must confront all of our adversaries. Together.” 

Future military planning requires a transparent understanding of needs and limitations, Harker said, adding that such an approach will protect the supply chain while strengthening small-business opportunities. 

“Keep challenging the Navy and Marine Corps to innovate and transform,” Harker said. “That’s how we keep the faith with the American taxpayers and our oversight partners on the Hill. Every dollar is a strategic asset that must be maximized.” 

The decision-making process for the coming budget has been tough, Harker said, acknowledging that costs associated with personnel, maintenance and recapitalization efforts have exceeded the rate of inflation. As a result, investment planning by vital industrial-base partners will be affected. 

“We refuse to create a hollow force. We will not leave holes in units and create a force that leaves our Sailors and Marines without proper training,” Harker said, citing the lessons learned from the separate collision incidents involving the destroyers Fitzgerald and McCain. 

The two incidents occurred because Sailors and Marines were asked to do more with less, Harker said. 

“One-time fixes aren’t enough,” Harker said. “We have to make changes, putting controls in place to prevent future events. We’re putting procedures in place to ensure that we don’t return to bad habits of the past.”

The acting secretary highlighted efforts to improve a moribund auditing process, after independent government assessments revealed discrepancies and shortcomings he said must be addressed. 

Harker called for a “get real, get better approach, demanding rigorous self-assessment, strong characterization of current performance, detailed analysis based on accountability and the opportunity to implement needed improvements.”

Citing personal experience, Harker reiterated the Defense Department’s stance that mental-health counseling must be destigmatized and treated equally with any other form of health care treatment. He also reiterated the overall commitment to rid the ranks of sexual harassment and assault.

“Data shows that a command that tolerates harassment and destructive behaviors increases the risk of sexual assault,” Harker said. “We’ve distributed a watch list which has the top five signals of risk for sexual assault, to assist commanders in both the Navy and Marine Corps to identify warning signs and signals so they can take action to improve their command.” 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy is making considerable progress in the drive to field a high-energy laser system that can meet the demand for a directed energy system capable of defeating anti-ship cruise missiles called for in Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday’s 2021 Navigation Plan, Christopher Lloyd, distinguished scientist for Laser Weapon Lethality at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren, Virginia, said Wednesday.

After at-sea trials of a 30-kilowatt laser aboard the USS Ponce in 2014-2017, a “150-kilowatt class” system was tested on the USS Portland, a new amphibious transport dock, including the destruction of an unmanned aerial vehicle target May 16, Lloyd said at a Navy League Sea-Air-Space expo briefing.

“We think we’re getting to the point where we can actually start building these,” Lloyd said. “No one thinks directed energy can solve all problems, but it’s another tool we can use.” A big advantage of a laser weapon, particularly in the key mission of killing anti-ship missiles, is expanding a surface combatant’s magazine and replacing expensive missiles, “which puts us on the right side of the cost curve” against cheap enemy weapons, he said.

Although much of the attention on high-powered lasers is on their role as a weapon, Lloyd said Sailors involved in the tests on Ponce said it was a better sensor than other systems they had.

The laser “enables real-time combat identification and intent determination,” according to a data sheet Lloyd presented. It also provides speed of light delivery, precision engagement and graduated effect. “We want to be able to scale it up,” for different missions and effects, he added. “Bottom line, it addresses mission gaps we have.”

Although Lloyd would not say how powerful the laser tested on Portland was, he said “it looks like we have a glide slope for 300 kilowatts.”

Tests on Ponce and Portland used separate batteries to power the lasers, which requires gaps in firing to allow battery recharging. Dahlgren experts are working, along with others, to develop more powerful and higher capacity batteries to alleviate that problem, but also look to the greater integrated electrical power systems being developed in surface combatants as primary or backup power for the lasers, he said.

Dahlgren also is working on other high-energy systems, including a “dazzler” that can provide non-lethal crowd control, Lloyd said.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – The ramifications of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing are readily apparent on nations whose economies depend on fishing, but the practice has an impact on U.S. national security as well, a panel of experts said Aug. 4 at Sea-Air-Space 2021.

Moderator Whitley Saumweber, who directs the Stephenson Ocean Security Project, described a scenario in which 90% of the world’s fish stocks are either at or above sustainable capacity while demand continues to increase. 

“This combines with increasing global competition, particularly from China, which uses its fishing fleets both as a source of economic and food security but also as a way to project soft power on the globe,” Saumweber said. 

Coast Guard Vice Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan said illegal fishing is replacing piracy as the top global maritime security threat facing the nation. 

“It’s a sovereignty issue, it’s a maritime security issue and it jeopardizes nations’ economic food security,” Fagan said. “It weakens the global rules-based order that we all rely on for our standard of living.”

Tackling IUU, Fagan said, will require both experienced leadership and close work in both building new partnerships and fostering existing one around the globe. 

“We recently had the Mohawk, a 270-foot cutter, with another nation’s coast guard on board enforcing fisheries rules,” Fagan said. “It’s those types of partnerships where we provide an asset and the other nation provides their expertise and authority to get after the threat.”

Navy Rear Adm. Heidi Berg, the former Director 12 at U.S. Africa Command, said IUU fishing drew considerable attention during her tenure because of the challenges it created in other areas. She specifically cited the effects caused by China’s growing presence and activity. 

“In the Gulf of Guinea, [China] is now devasting those economies,” Berg said. “They engender corruption. They continue to act to support authoritarian regimes that can ensure their continued access.”

Other crimes, such as weapons and drug trafficking, are on the increase as a direct result, Berg said. Terrorist organizations such as al Qaida and the Taliban are gaining influence as well, she added. 

Constance Arvis, the acting deputy secretary of state for oceans, fisheries and polar affairs, said the State Department is actively working with other agencies and 69 international partners on a “groundbreaking treaty” called the Port State Measures Agreement.

“We are seeking to build a clean value chain of seafood that only accepts authorized catch from authorized vessels,” Arvis said. “If a port state believes that a vessel that wishes to come in has in fact engaged in IUU fishing, it can be denied port services and entry. Information is going to be shared with other ports to make clear that no IUU fishing enters the international market.”

The Defense Innovation Unit is actively seeking ideas from academia, government and industry by which new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning could help foster better enforcement of fishing regulations and quash IUU fishing in the process. 

“We have no pride in where the solution comes from. But it is critical that when we get things to work, we find out [if] we can use the types of data here — space-based SAR [synthetic aperture radar] — to accurately identify activity that’s indicative of IUU fishing and vessels that may be doing it,” said Jared Dunnmon, the unit’s director of artificial intelligence. 

Dunnmon said that the unit is conducting a prize challenge for innovators to submit ideas for countering IUU.

“The challenge is open to anyone,” Dunnmon said. “It launches this month, and we’ll run it for about three months.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A key to alleviating the chronic challenge of better maintainability and sustainability of increasingly complex naval ships is earlier and constant collaboration between the services acquisition officials and industry, starting with upfront dialogue on requirements for new systems, a panel of service and industry leaders said Wednesday.

Those problems have been acerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the shipbuilding work force and supply chain, the lack of clarity in the Navy’s future shipbuilding plan, the cybersecurity threat and the reoccurring budget uncertainty, the panel members agreed. But help may be in sight with the push for artificial intelligence, which could improve predictability of component failures and demand for spare parts, the leaders told a Navy League Sea-Air-Space expo forum.

“Success for us is working with our industry partners,” looking for feedback, starting with setting requirements for new programs and “getting it right up front,” said Tom Rivers, executive director Amphibious, Auxiliary and Sealift programs at PEO Ships.

Among the top priorities for the Coast Guard is interoperability and “life-cycle engagement with industry and our sister services,” said Rear Adm. Douglas Schofield, Assistant Commandant for Acquisition.

Improving efficiency and savings depends “a lot on collaboration and feedback with the services,” said Larry Ryder, vice president Business Development and External Affairs, Austal USA. “We have put forward ideas that can reduce cost, increase reliability. But we need to work with the services.”

To avoid logjams in major maintenance, “we need industry to tell us where those tricky spots are. … Tell us up front so we knew” how to schedule the work, Rivers said. If they get “feedback up front from industry” where they expect problems, ‘we’ll change our requirements.

 “New programs have a lot of requirements” and we need to “work with industry from the start to get right, Rivers said. “We really need to build ships faster.”

Rivers said the Navy also is making internal change, including adopting a plan for data analysis of systems and creating a “war room” that will provide focus and contact with industry partners. And they are designing for maintainability and flexibility in new ships. “We’ve never done that before.”

The Navy major new start is the DDGX, the next-generation major surface combatant, Rivers said. It will draw heavily on technologies and lessons learned from the Arleigh Burke DDG-51 program, he said. His office is engaged in developing the new light amphibious ship to meet the Marine Corps’ need for a cheaper, more mobile platform for its distributed operations in contested littoral. And to alleviate a serious lack of dry dock capacity on the Pacific coast, Rivers said the Navy will put out a contract this year for a new dry dock.

The three officials agreed that there are concerns with the fragility of the shipbuilding and repair industrial base, with major problems with the second- and third-tier suppliers, some of whom went out of business because of a slowdown in orders during the pandemic. Ryder said industry needs greater stability in demand from the services in order to build and retain a work force.

Schofield raised the new threat of cyberattacks, saying the Coast Guard is working with its service partners and industry on cybersecurity, “making sure industry can facilitate security,” a concern echoed by the other two speakers.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Naval Air Systems Command is testing out a new unmanned cargo delivery platform that can transport small amounts of cargo between Navy ships, and a NAVAIR official said Wednesday he expects it to become a program of record soon.

A team at NAVAIR was able to take the Skyways unmanned aerial vehicle and demonstrate it aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78) after just a few months, and the Navy is highly interested in going beyond that, Tony Schmidt, director of rapid prototyping, experimentation, and demonstration, said at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland.

Schmidt said his team was initially approached by Military Sealift Command, who had discovered that about 80% of the parts they were transporting by helicopter were less than 10 pounds.

“So we said let’s see if we can use a Group 2 or 3 UAS to transfer parts back and forth,” Schmidt said.

Despite having very little money or resources, Schimdt’s team met with industry to identify possible solutions and settled on the Skyways UAV. They delivered the prototype in October 2020. Once Rear Adm. John Meier, commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, caught wind of the program, he asked them to deliver the aircraft for testing aboard CVN-78 just three months later.

Meier said the team missed that deadline by only a week. “Pretty awesome,” he said.

Interest in the effort only grew after that. In July, the team took the UAV on a ship-to-ship mission from the USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) to the USNS Joshua Humphreys (T-AO-188). In recent weeks, they’ve been in conversations with Navy officials and Schmidt said he is “pretty sure it’s going to get picked up as a program of record.”

While the new program won’t necessarily use the Skyways drone, it will take lessons from it. The team is looking at a delta wing design instead of a standard wing size, and they will experiment to see what works best in a carrier environment, as well as determine how to extend the range of the aircraft.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy no longer has a monopoly on key technologies as it did at the end of the Cold War and now must turn to tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to gain an advantage over adversaries, a top Navy official said Wednesday.

The key challenge the Navy faces in the coming years is finding that advantage at the tactical level with communications and unmanned assets, Vice Adm. Scott Conn, deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities (N9), said during a panel discussion at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland.

“When I say the tactical level, I’m talking at the numbered fleet level, at the task force level, at the task group level,” Conn said. “The world is a different place. At the end of the Cold War, there was an anomaly in history that the U.S. had a monopoly on the key critical technologies, and that’s no longer the case.”

This is particularly true in the areas of range and precision of strike weapons, he said.

“Because of that, we need to expand our operational reach — our ability to sense, make sense and act,” Conn said.

Part of accomplishing that is through better communication and initiatives like Project Overmatch, and another part is using unmanned systems in the air, on the surface and in the sea to identify warfighting advantages at the tactical level.

It is of critical importance for the Navy to master these areas, Conn added.

“This is not about in times of crisis, competing — this is about winning,” he said.