LOUISVILLE,
Ky. — BAE Systems has received a follow-on contract to produce 28 more payload
tubes for the U.S. Navy’s Block V Virginia-class attack submarines, the company
said in a July 25 release.

Under the
contract with General Dynamics Electric Boat, a builder of the Virginia class,
BAE Systems will deliver seven sets of four tubes each for the Virginia Payload
Modules (VPM).

The Navy
is adding significant capability to the latest Virginia-class boats by
increasing the firepower and payload capacity of the Block V submarines. The
VPM extends the length of Block V subs over previous versions of the Virginia
class by adding a midbody section to create more payload space. Each
large-diameter payload tube can store and launch up to seven Tomahawk and
future guided cruise missiles.

“The VPM
is critical to the Virginia class because it offers not only additional strike
capacity, but the flexibility to integrate future payload types, such as
unmanned systems and next-generation weapons, as threats evolve,” said Joe
Senftle, vice president and general manager of weapon systems at BAE Systems.

“We’ve
invested heavily in the people, processes and tools required to successfully
deliver these payload tubes to Electric Boat and to help ensure the Navy’s
undersea fleet remains a dominant global force.”

BAE
Systems is also providing nine payload tubes under previously awarded VPM
contracts. As the leading provider of propulsors and other submarine systems,
the company has a long history of supporting the Navy’s submarine fleet. In
addition to payload tubes, BAE Systems is also providing propulsors, spare
hardware and tailcones for Block IV Virginia-class vessels and is prepared to
do the same for Block V.

Work under this contract
will be performed at the company’s facility in Louisville, Kentucky, with
deliveries scheduled to begin in 2021.

CINCINNATI
— The U.S. Navy has approved the commissioning date for the future littoral
combat ship USS Cincinnati (LCS 20), the commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S.
Pacific Fleet, said in a July 25 release.

The Navy
will commission Cincinnati on Oct. 5 in Gulfport, Mississippi. The
commissioning ceremony signifies the acceptance for service and the entrance of
a ship into the active fleet of the U. S. Navy.

Former
U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker is the ship’s sponsor. As the sponsor,
Pritzker leads the time-honored Navy tradition of giving the order during the
ceremony to “man our ship and bring her to life!” At that moment, the
commissioning pennant is hoisted, and Cincinnati becomes a ship of the fleet.

An Indianapolis
native, Cmdr. Kurt Braeckel, is the commanding officer of Cincinnati.

Former Navy
Secretary Ray Mabus announced LCS 20 would be named for Cincinnati at the
Cincinnati Reds baseball game on July 19, 2015.

LCS 20
will be the fifth ship in naval history to be named Cincinnati. The first
played an integral part in the Civil War; the second enforced neutrality laws
during the Cuban Revolution and saw service during the Spanish-American War;
the third acted as a patrol and flagship during World War II; and the fourth, a
Los Angeles-class submarine, was commissioned in 1978 and served during the
Cold War.

LCS is a highly maneuverable, lethal and adaptable ship designed to support focused mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare missions. The LCS class consists of two variants, the Freedom variant and the Independence variant. Cincinnati is a Freedom variant.

The future Cincinnati will be homeported at Naval Base San Diego.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy will
commission its newest Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, the future
USS Paul Ignatius (DDG 117), during a 10 a.m. EDT ceremony on July 27 at Port
Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, according to a Defense Department release.

The ship is named in honor of Paul
Robert Ignatius, who served in the Navy during World War II and later
during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson as assistant secretary
of defense for installations and logistics from 1964 to 1967 and secretary of
the Navy from 1967 to 1969. 

Current Navy Secretary Richard V.
Spencer, who is also performing the duties of deputy secretary of defense, will
deliver the commissioning ceremony’s principal address. Ignatius’ wife, Nancy,
who passed away earlier this year, is the ship’s sponsor. Elisa Ignatius,
granddaughter of Nancy Ignatius, will serve as the ship sponsor’s
representative. Elisa Ignatius will honor naval tradition when she gives the
first order to “man our ship and bring her to life!”

“The future USS Paul Ignatius
stands as proof of what the teamwork of all our people — civilian, contractor
and military — can accomplish together,” Spencer said. “From the
start of the acquisition process, to the keel laying and christening, to
today’s commissioning and the many missions she will fulfill going forward,
this destroyer enhances our capabilities for air, undersea, surface, strike and
ballistic missile defense.”

The future USS Paul Ignatius will be the 67th Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and is one of 21 ships under contract for the DDG 51 program. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers conduct a variety of missions from peacetime presence and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief to sea control and power projection.

Built in the Flight IIA configuration, the ship delivers rapid reaction time, high firepower and improved electronic warfare capabilities. The ceremony, using hashtag #USSPaulIgnatius, can be viewed on the Navy Live blog here.

MIAMI — The Coast Guard interdicted 12 Chinese migrants and two
suspected smugglers on July 23 about 13 miles east
of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Coast Guard 7th District said in a release.

The Coast Guard Cutter Paul Clark (WPC-1101) crew located the motor yacht, Carefree, with 14 people aboard during a patrol and safely embarked the 12 Chinese migrants and two potential smugglers. 

The two suspected smugglers were taken into U.S. Department of Homeland Security custody and the 12 migrants were transferred to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations custody.

“The Coast Guard maintains a focused and coordinated effort with multiple agency assets to interdict criminals in any attempt to unlawfully smuggle migrants by sea to the United States,” said Lt. Ray Lopez, chief of enforcement at Coast Guard Sector Miami. “Migrants should not attempt to smuggle themselves into the country. They not only risk going to jail but also endanger their lives by entrusting smugglers to bring them across the water with little or no lifesaving equipment on board.”

SEATTLE — U.S.
Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB-20) departed for a months-long deployment to the
Arctic Ocean on July 22, the Coast Guard Pacific Area said in a release.

The cutter
will support multiple science missions as well as Operation Arctic Shield, the
service’s annual operation to execute Coast Guard missions, enhance maritime
domain awareness, strengthen partnerships and build preparedness, prevention,
and response capabilities across the Arctic domain.

As the nation’s
primary maritime presence in the polar regions, the Coast Guard advances U.S.
national interests through a unique blend of polar operational capability,
regulatory authority, and international leadership across the full spectrum of
maritime governance.

Earlier
this year the Coast Guard released the Arctic Strategic Outlook, reaffirming
the service’s commitment to American leadership in the region through
partnership, unity of effort, and continuous innovation.

“While we
focus our efforts on creating a peaceful and collaborative environment in the
Arctic, we’re also responding to the impacts of increased competition in this
strategically important region,” Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz said.
“Our continued presence will enable us to reinforce positive opportunities and
mitigate negative consequences today and tomorrow.”

The Coast
Guard has been a leader in the Arctic for over 150 years and the sole provider
of the nation’s polar icebreaking capability since 1965. Presently, the Coast
Guard maintains two icebreakers — Healy, a medium icebreaker, and Polar Star,
the only heavy U.S. icebreaker.

While the
Healy deploys annually to the Arctic, the 43-year-old Polar Star is the only
cutter capable of supporting Operation Deep Freeze, the annual mission to
maintain U.S. presence in Antarctica.

If a
catastrophic event, such as a shipboard fire or getting stuck in the ice, were
to strand the Healy in the Arctic or the Polar Star near Antarctica, the Coast
Guard is left without a self-rescue capability.

By
contrast, Russia currently operates more than 40 icebreakers — several of which
are nuclear-powered.

The Coast
Guard is seeking to increase its icebreaking fleet with six new polar security
cutters (PSC) to ensure continued national presence and access to the polar regions.

“The polar security cutters will support the full range of Coast Guard missions, to include search and rescue, law enforcement, environmental response, and national defense,” said Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, the Coast Guard’s Pacific Area commander. “This investment will enable America to project presence in 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 PSC, which will be homeported in Seattle. The contract also includes options for the construction of two additional PSCs.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The Sailors file into the room, their weapons ready and their adrenaline
flowing. They operate as a team in a seamless manner. Their mission: to secure
an active-shooter situation and apprehend the holographic perpetrator. Commands
are given to the shooter, within the augmented-reality (AR) headset. The
shooter surrenders, and the Sailors’ mission is accomplished.

The Office
of Naval Research (ONR) Global TechSolutions program has teamed with Naval
Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities
Development Command and two industry partners, Magic Leap Horizons and Haptech
Inc., to develop an AR training environment.

The Tactically
Reconfigurable Artificial Combat Enhanced Reality (TRACER) project was recently
tested at the Center for Security Forces (CENSECFOR) Detachment Chesapeake, on
Naval Support Activity Northwest Annex, in Currituck County, North Carolina.

TechSolutions
is ONR Global’s rapid-response science and technology initiative that develops
prototype technologies, to address problems voiced by Sailors and Marines,
within about 12 months.

The TRACER
system consists of a Magic Leap One AR headset, a backpack processor and a
Haptech instrumented weapon, designed to deliver realistic recoil. TRACER uses
software developed by Magic Leap Horizons as part of the U.S. Army’s Augmented
Reality Dismounted Soldier Training (ARDST) project, providing advanced weapons
tracking and allowing trainers to create multiple and adaptable simulation
scenarios for security personnel to experience.

“Our
training system is built mostly from commercial-off-the-shelf products, so we
are using widely available gaming gear,” said Patrick Mead, TRACER project
lead from the Human Systems Research and Development branch at NSWC Dahlgren.

“All
of these technologies combine … to give us extremely accurate weapon and
movement tracking capabilities as well as highly immersive simulation visual,
auditory and haptic (relating to the sense of touch) feedback. Ultimately,
TRACER provides Sailors with dynamic, engaging and less predictable training
scenarios that would otherwise be too costly or time consuming to create in the
real world.”

The
mission at CENSECFOR is to train Sailors from divergent career fields in U.S.
Navy security force fundamentals, code of conduct, anti-terrorism and expeditionary
warfare training to achieve maritime-interdiction and irregular-warfare
superiority.

“We
can integrate this AR, virtual training environment into our existing curriculum,
and it allows us to be very reconfigurable,” said Cmdr. Kim Littel,
CENSECFOR’s director of training innovation. “We can go in and we can change
the scenarios, or we can change the opposition forces and the threat that they
pose.”

For
Sailors who often must train and remain proficient while at sea, flexibility is
crucial.

According to Littel, the necessary space required to conduct training operations on a ship is limited and the opportunity to conduct training without impeding on regular operations is scarce. TRACER will help mitigate those issues and help increase proficiency and currency in more expansive training scenarios.

“In an environment where we’re taking students from the fleet, from their primary jobs, to train them, we need to maximize the limited time we have to make them as proficient as possible,” Little said.

“This technology provides a huge advantage by being quickly adaptable to different scenarios, geographic locations and opposition forces. Using this technology, we can conduct training almost anywhere, anytime.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAMP
LEJEUNE, N.C. — Program Executive Officer Land Systems is equipping the Marine Corps’
first infantry battalion — 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division — with
the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, and U.S. Navy and Marine leadership visited to
witness the event.

“I am very
proud of the Joint Marine Corps and Army team whose mission-first approach and
close interaction with the end user has delivered our Marine operators the
JLTV,” said James Geurts, assistant Navy secretary for research, development and
Acquisition. “The fielding of these JLTVs provides our Marines the light
tactical vehicle capability needed to compete and win on the modern
battlefield.”

Joining Geurts
for the July 18 tour at Camp Lejeune of the II Marine Expeditionary Force JLTV
fielding site were: Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Gary Thomas; Lt.
Gen. Charles Chiarotti, deputy commandant for installations and logistics; II
Marine Expeditionary Force Commander Lt. Gen. Brian Beaudreault; Michael
Stewart, deputy director for integrated warfare; John Garner, program executive
officer, Land Systems; and Marine Corps Systems Command Brig. Gen. Arthur
Pasagian.

The JLTV
family of vehicles is made up of four different variants: the utility variant;
general purpose vehicle; heavy guns carrier; and close combat weapons carrier.
All variants include multiple mission package configurations and provide
protected, sustained and networked mobility that balances payload, performance
and protection across the full range of military operations.

Col.
Farrell Sullivan, chief of staff, 2nd Marine Division, spoke to Geurts on
behalf of the operating forces.

“I think
the battalion, like most battalions, are eager to get these out into the
field,” Sullivan said. “We’re excited about the additional capability [the
JLTV] brings and also for its ability to get Marines to where they need to be.”

Geurts,
Thomas, Chiarotti and Beaudreault then had the opportunity to speak to the
Marines of 3/8 operating forces while taking a closer look at the vehicle.

Of the
event, Geurts said, “It was an honor to hear directly from the Marines
operating these vehicles about how much of a capability leap it presents over
their aging legacy vehicles and the many ideas they have on how to leverage
them to enable new methods of mobility and expeditionary operations for the
future fight.”

The Marine
Corps is planning to field 15,390 JLTVs, replacing all High Mobility
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles in the Corps’ legacy fleet in a one-for-one swap.

PEO Land Systems began
delivery of the JLTV in February to the Corps’ schools of infantry and other
supporting units. The Light Tactical Vehicle program office at PEO Land Systems
will begin fielding the JLTV to First and Third Marine Division units by the
end of September.

BOSTON — Boston-based
Sea Machines Robotics has entered into a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department
of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) to demonstrate the ability
of Sea Machines’ autonomous technology in increasing the safety, response time
and productivity of marine oil-spill response operations, the company said July
24.

To make the
on-water exercises possible, Sea Machines will install its SM300
autonomous-command system aboard a skimming vessel owned by Marine Spill
Response Corp. (MSRC) and will train MSRC personnel to operate the system.
Then, on Aug. 21, Sea Machines and MSRC will execute simulated oil-spill
recovery exercises in the harbor of Portland, Maine, before an audience of
government, naval, international, environmental and industry partners.

The response
skimming vessel is manufactured by Kvichak Marine Industries of Seattle and is
equipped with a MARCO filter belt skimmer to recover oil from the surface of
the water. This vessel typically operates in coastal or near-shore areas. Once
installed, the SM300 will give the MSRC vessel these new capabilities:

•        Remote autonomous control from an
onshore location or secondary vessel

•        ENC-based mission planning

•        Autonomous waypoint tracking

•        Autonomous grid line tracking

•        Collaborative autonomy for multivessel
operations

•        Wireless remote payload control to
deploy onboard boom and other response equipment

•        Obstacle detection and collision
avoidance

Additionally,
Sea Machines enables minimally manned and unmanned autonomous operations. Such
configurations allow operators to respond to spill events 24 hours a day, seven
days a week depending on recovery conditions, even when crews are unavailable
or restricted. These configurations also reduce or eliminate exposure of
crewmembers to toxic fumes and other safety hazards.

“Autonomous technology has the power to not only help prevent vessel accidents that can lead to spills but can also facilitate better preparedness [and] aid in safer, efficient and effective clean-up,” said Michael G. Johnson, CEO of Sea Machines. “We look forward to working closely with MARAD and MSRC in these industry-modernizing exercises.”

“Our No. 1 priority is the safety of our personnel at MSRC,” said John Swift, vice president of MSRC. “The ability to use autonomous technology — allowing response operations to continue in an environment where their safety may be at risk — furthers our mission of response preparedness.”

VIENNA — Croatia’s
Maritime Safety Directorate issued the first mobilization request to the
European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) for CAMCOPTER S-100 maritime
surveillance services, according to Schiebel, provider of the UAS services.

Starting in
the summer of 2019, the service provision for Croatia will assist in maritime
Coast Guard functions such as search and rescue, monitoring and surveillance,
ship and port security, vessel traffic, environmental protection and response
and ship casualty assistance as well as accident and disaster response.

For these
purposes, the CAMCOPTER S-100 UAS will be based on the island of Brač and will
carry out regular patrolling flights, on-demand incident monitoring missions
and specific inspection operations.

EMSA awarded
the multiyear maritime surveillance contract for a vertical takeoff and landing
remotely piloted aircraft system to Schiebel last November. In execution of
this contract, Schiebel will provide simultaneous maritime surveillance
services to several European Union member states and EU bodies.

“The CAMCOPTER S-100 is the
perfect vertical takeoff and landing UAS to perform these Coast Guard
functions,” said Hans Georg Schiebel, chairman of the Schiebel Group. “Backed
by an impressive service record in the maritime domain, the S-100 has
established itself as the best choice whenever sophisticated maritime
surveillance is required.”