ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is continuing to build and repair ships amid the COVID-19 pandemic but also is looking ahead to position itself to accelerate as the nation recovers from the pandemic, the service’s top acquisition official said. 

The repair yards are “continuing to get the work done,” James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said during an April 1 teleconference with media. 

“We’ll see some challenges,” Geurts said, but noted that his office is focused on “one or two steps down the road” and on “how to accelerate out of recovery” to maintain the readiness of the fleet.

See: COVID-19 Testing, Isolation Expand for Crew of Aircraft Carrier 

He said that 95% to 98% of the Navy’s acquisition work force is teleworking and that he “was not seeing a drop-off in performance.” 

The assistant secretary reiterated his focus on three lines of operation:  

• The health of the defense industrial work force, including the government work force and its industrial partners such as prime contractors, subcontractors, small suppliers and individuals.  
• Ensuring the health of the industrial base.  

• Ensuring warfighting readiness of the Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. 

“We haven’t slowed down,” he said, and that the work force “is continuing to press hard.” 

Geurts said he continues to see some tightening in the supply chain and that his workforce in continually reassessing measures to work out the challenges. He lately is focusing attention on the transportation and distribution networks to monitor potential disruptions in the supply chain. 

Geurts has been pressing to get contracts issued earlier than normal to assure the shipbuilders and repair yards and their suppliers that “work is coming.” 

He pointed out that awarding contracts two months early has the advantage of getting planning and work started early; “creating some resiliency” as challenges arise; and making possible an acceleration of the post-pandemic recovery.  

He said that contracts awarded recently included those for two Navajo-class towing, salvage and rescue ships; 18 P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile, berthing barges and patrol boats, and that contracts were imminent for a Block II San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship and for the new class of utility landing craft. 

He also said he has yet to see the impact of the pandemic on the next-generation frigate program.  

Geurts also pointed to the upcoming April commissionings of the Virginia-class attack submarines Delaware and Vermont and the upcoming combat systems completion of the guided-missile cruiser USS Zumwalt as evidence that the Navy’s acquisition of ships is not slowing down.

WASHINGTON — In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Navy’s Regional Maintenance Centers (RMCs) are continuing to maintain the Navy’s ships, even in countries where the pandemic is especially severe, the Navy said. 

“Our priority is the protection of our workforce, [and] our commanders have the flexibility to respond to conditions in their areas to effectively carry out their missions while meeting the critical needs of their people,” said Colleen O’Rourke, spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command, in response to a query from Seapower. “Our RMCs continue to maintain the readiness of our fleet.” 

The Navy has RMC activities in two countries hardest hit by the virus, at Rota, Spain, and Naples, Italy. 

“We are committed to taking every measure possible to protect the health of our force,” O’Rourke said. “We remain in close coordination with host nation authorities, U.S. Embassy and public-health authorities to ensure the well-being of our personnel and local population.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has awarded Boeing a $1.5 billion production contract for the next 18 P-8A Poseidon aircraft, the company announced in a release. The contract includes eight aircraft for the U.S. Navy, six aircraft for the Republic of Korea Navy and four aircraft for the Royal New Zealand Air Force. 

The Republic of Korea Navy and Royal New Zealand Air Force acquired the aircraft through the foreign military sales process and will receive the same P-8A Poseidon variant designed and produced for the U.S. Navy. The Royal New Zealand Air Force is expected to begin receiving aircraft in 2022 and the Republic of Korea Navy is expected to begin receiving aircraft in 2023. 

The P-8 is a long-range multimission maritime patrol aircraft capable of broad-area, maritime and littoral operations. A military derivative of the Boeing 737 next-generation airplane, the P-8 combines superior performance and reliability with an advanced mission system that ensures maximum interoperability in the battle space. 

The P-8 is militarized with maritime weapons, a modern open mission system architecture and commercial-like support for affordability. The aircraft is modified to include a bomb bay and pylons for weapons. It has two weapons stations on each wing and can carry 129 sonobuoys. The aircraft is also fitted with an in-flight refueling system. 

With more than 254,000 flight hours to date, the P-8A Poseidon and P-8I variants patrol the globe performing anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, humanitarian and search-and-rescue missions. 

PASCAGOULA, Miss. — The USS Fort Lauderdale (LPD 28) was successfully launched at the Huntington Ingalls Industries Ingalls Division shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on March 28. Fort Lauderdale is the Navy’s 12th San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship. 

On March 7, 2020, the ship was transferred from the land-level facility to the dry dock in preparation for floating off. During the launch, the dry dock was slowly flooded until the ship floated off the blocks. 

“I am thrilled to get Fort Lauderdale in the water, so we can begin final outfitting and eventually take the ship out to sea for trials,” said Capt. Scot Searles, LPD 17-class program manager for PEO-Ships. “The San Antonio class has proven essential to expeditionary warfighters, and we are eager to deliver another ship to the fleet.” 

San Antonio-class ships support embarking, transporting and landing elements of 650 Marines by landing craft or air cushion vehicles. The ships’ capabilities are further enhanced by their flight decks and hangars, which can operate V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. Because of the ships’ inherent capabilities, they can support a variety of amphibious assault, special operations and expeditionary warfare missions, operating independently or as part of Amphibious Readiness Groups, Expeditionary Strike Groups or Joint Task Forces. 

Ingalls Shipbuilding also is in production on the USS Richard M. McCool (LPD 29) and Harrisburg (LPD 30). LPD 28 and 29 will serve as transition ships to LPD 30, the first LPD 17 Flight II ship.

ARLINGTON, Virginia — The Navy has ordered two more Navajo-class T-ATS towing, salvage and rescue ships, the Defense Department said in a March 25 contract notice.   

The Naval Sea Systems Command has awarded Gulf Island Shipyards LLC in Houma, Louisiana, a $129.9 million firm-fixed-price contract modification “to exercise options for the construction of two additional towing, salvage and rescue ships (T-ATS) and for the performance of unique item identification on the T-ATS 6-class program.  

“The contract also includes options for associated support efforts related to the ship design and construction for special studies, engineering and industrial services, provisioned items orders, unique item identification and data rights license,” the notice said. “Work is expected to be complete by October 2022.”   

The Navajo-class T-ATS is designed to combine and replace the current capabilities of the three Powhatan (T-ATF 166) class of fleet ocean tugs and two Safeguard (T-ARS 50) class rescue and salvage ships, which will reach the end of their expected service lives starting in 2020.  

The Navajo-class is designed with 6,000 square feet of deck space for embarked salvage and rescue systems. The ship will have an overall length of 263 feet and a beam of 59 feet. It will be able to carry a 1,796-ton load.  

Gulf Island Shipyard is currently building the first three T-ATSs: the future USNS Navajo (T-ATS6), USNS Cherokee Nation (T-ATS 7) and USNS Saginaw Ojibwe Anishinabek (T-ATS 8). These three ships are scheduled for delivery in 2021. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is taking active measures to ease the impact of the COVID-19 virus on the operations and finance of its defense industrial base to minimize disruptions to its acquisition and readiness, the service’s top acquisition official said. 

James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, speaking March 25 in a teleconference with reporters, said the Navy is “using all the levers we have” such as moving up contract awards, accelerating contract payments and establishing baselines to compare pre-virus versus post-virus contractor performance.

See: Port Visits Cancelled, Submariners’ Health Monitored to Contain Coronavirus

Geurts said his effort is focused of three lines of operation: 

• The health of the defense industrial work force, including the government work force and its industrial partners such as prime contractors, subcontractors, small suppliers and individuals. 
• Ensuring the health of the industrial base. 
• Ensuring warfighting readiness of the Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.  

Geurts said he is communicating with various stakeholders such as shipbuilder and aircraft builder presidents and Navy shipyards, regional maintenance centers and fleet readiness centers to take the pulse of operations and address concerns at all levels, including reducing barriers and freeing up funding. He said he is especially concerned about the resilience of the many small supplier companies that fill out the industrial supply chain. 

The Navy’s concerns about major shipyards vary by site, but Geurts said the sea service is “seeing a tightening on the supply base as smaller shops deal with their local situations. We’ve got a pretty good view of that with some of the real-time systems we are using. I do expect some delay or disruption.” 

Geurts said a key initiative was to establish baselines of the performance of current programs before the pandemic hit to understand the effects of delay and disruption with delays that were already incurred in programs and work through those issues on the back side of the pandemic and adjust as necessary. 

He said the Navy is not slowing down in its contracting activity and is, in fact, accelerating it “wherever we can to get that demand signal in” so that there is meaningful work waiting as the pandemic ends to avoid a lag effect in getting back to work at full speed. 

Regarding ship repair periods, the secretary said the Navy is reducing the normal 10% payment withholdings across the board.  

For claims that have been adjudicated but not yet paid, the Navy is looking to pay those out, and where claims have not yet been adjudicated, it will attempt to accelerate adjudication of those claims. 

“On the [contract] penalty side, we will continue to understand where those penalties are and work through how to deal with those penalties,” Geurts said.    

Geurts said his team is 90% to 95% dispersed and teleworking but he is “driving the team to accelerate” and he praised its dedication to performance despite the disruption of the virus. 

The secretary said the Navy is working to make sure there is no or only minimal disruption to the construction of the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine and the remaining work on the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford.  

He said he has “not seen any major impacts to that work [on the Columbia SSBN] yet but we are tracking it very closely.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy plans to put two Virginia-class attack submarines in commission in April despite the COVID-19 pandemic, but the ceremonies marking the events will be delayed.   

“Due to public health safety and restrictions on large public events, the commissioning ceremonies for the future USS Delaware and future USS Vermont were canceled for April 4 and 18, respectively,” Bill Couch, a spokesperson for Naval Sea Systems Command, said in a March 24 e-mail to Seapower. 

“The commissioning of both ships will take place administratively, and the ships will begin normal operations with the fleet.” 

The Delaware is the eighth and last Block III Virginia-class SSN. The Vermont is the first of 10 Block IV Virginia-class subs. The two submarines were built jointly by General Dynamics’ Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding. 
 
“We greatly value the support of all those who were planning to attend, and we will look for a future opportunity to commemorate these special events with the sponsors, crews and commissioning committees,” Couch said. 

ATLANTIC OCEAN — “Man all flight quarters stations!” These words were heard across every space on the USS Gerald R. Ford as the carrier prepared to launch and recover aircraft from Carrier Air Wing Eight (CVW-8) to complete flight deck certification (FDC) and carrier air traffic control center (CATCC) certification on March 20. 

Conducting flight operations is the key role of every carrier. To certify Ford’s flight deck and air traffic control center, the ship was required to complete a precision approach landing systems (PALS) certification and finish two straight days of flight operations with 50 day traps on the first day followed by 70 day traps and 40 night traps on the second. The crews of Ford and CVW-8 exceeded those minimums. 

Over a two-day period, F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornets from four squadrons assigned to CVW-8 conducted 123 daytime and 42 night cats and traps aboard the Ford to reach this milestone in the ship’s operational readiness. 

“Our Sailors performed at a level that was on par with a forward-deployed aircraft carrier, and this was a direct result of the hard-core training and deployment ready mentality we have pushed every day for the past year,” said Capt. J. J. Cummings, the Ford’s commanding officer. “Our team put their game faces on, stepped into the batter’s box and smashed line drives out of the park. It was fun to watch.” 

Prior to FDC and CATCC certification, Ford received its PALS Mode IA and Mode II certification from Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division. PALS, through the assistance of air traffic controllers in CATCC, aids pilots as they execute night or bad-weather landings, guiding pilots to a good starting position for approaches, and is a requirement for ships to conduct flight operations.  

“PALS cert was a critical step to achieving our flight deck certification,” said Cmdr. Phil Brown, the Ford’s air operations officer. “Our system performed really well during our approaches and provided a solid level of confidence to NAWCAD in our ability to recover jets.” 

The Ford CATCC team was not only essential to FDC but was also required to complete a certification in concert with the flight deck certification. 

Ford’s CATCC certification was the culmination of a three-phase process that began in October 2019 at the Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC) in Pensacola, Florida. Since then, NATTC instructors have been alongside Ford Sailors for every phase, testing their practical knowledge, reviewing their checklists and observing their recovery operations. 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Southeast awarded a $191.9 million fixed-price award-fee contract March 20 to Alberici-Mortenson, Joint Venture out of St. Louis, Missouri, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast Public Affairs said in a March 23 release. The first phase of the design-bid-build contract is for the recapitalization of the dry dock at Naval Submarine Base (NSB) Kings Bay, Georgia. 

“The overhaul and restoration of the Kings Bay Dry Dock is the most important strategic deterrence enterprise modernization effort outside of the construction of the new Columbia-class SSBN, a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine,” said Trident Refit Facility Commanding Officer Capt. Paul Dinius. 

The Navy’s submarines serve as the nation’s sea-based deterrent strategies. The Dry Dock Recapitalization Project at NSB Kings Bay is in direct support of the future of submarine warfare. The new Columbia-class submarine is replacing the Ohio-class submarine. 

“There have been several dedicated teams brought to bear for this effort,’ said NAVFAC Southeast Deputy Construction Management Officer Travis Baker. “So many have worked tirelessly to ensure the project would be ready for award and of high quality.” 

Dinius explained, “This will be the hardest single effort executed in this region since the construction of the dry dock more than 30 years ago, but I’m confident that Team Kings Bay is ready for the challenge.” 

The work to be performed includes concrete and steel repairs, overhaul and repair of the steel caisson and upgrades to power distribution, chilled water and fire detection and alarm systems. The entire superstructure will be re-coated, along with replacement of the roof, wall panels, and other plumbing and piping. The control system, electronic components and the auxiliary seawater system will also be upgraded. 

All existing training and maintenance facilities will be retrofitted and some new facilities will be constructed to support the next generation of submarines. 

“The window of opportunity to perform the majority of the work is limited,” said Baker. “The sheer magnitude of the work to be accomplished combined with the limited time to accomplish everything is almost overwhelming.” 

In order to meet this tight deadline, NAVFAC Southeast has established a Construction Management Office on site at NSB Kings Bay with dedicated resources capable of supporting 24-hour-a-day activities. 

“We have been successful in pulling several dedicated teams together to prepare for this effort,” said Baker. “Our team has worked tirelessly to ensure the project would be ready for award and be of high quality.” 

Baker explained that this is the most significant project he has ever seen in his career both in terms of importance and scale. “The amount of senior-level leadership and supported command focus and support has been unparalleled.” 

The contract also contains unexercised options, which if exercised, would increase the cumulative contract value to $592.3 million. The work is expected to be complete by July 2023. 

ARLINGTON, Virginia  — The secretary of defense said the Military Sealift Command’s hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) is deploying to Los Angeles to relieve the city’s hospitals of some of their non-COVID-19 patient burden as they deal with the virus pandemic. 

During a March 23 news conference at the Pentagon, Secretary Mark Esper said the Mercy was departing its layberth in San Diego the same day for Los Angeles. The sister ship USNS Comfort would deploy at a later date for New York City for the same mission. The two ships will not be caring for COVID-19 patients but will treat acute care and surgery patients with other needs to relieve local hospitals that are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Esper said that some field hospitals are being readied for similar missions and that some hotels and college dormitories may be put in service as well for patient care. 

He said that to date 137 Defense Department personnel had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and that one department civilian had died. 

During a separate Pentagon news conference on the same date, Rear Adm. Timothy H. Weber, commander, Navy Medical Forces Pacific, said that 800 medical personnel were being embarked on the Mercy and were being drawn from eight military treatment facilities, primarily from naval hospitals and clinics in San Diego, Camp Pendleton, California, Twentynine Palms, California, Bremerton, Washington, and Oak Harbor, Washington. A total of 58 Navy Reserve medical personnel — all volunteers — also are being embarked. Weber said that none had been involved in treatment of COVID-19 patients. 

Also at the news conference, Capt. John R. Rotruck, commanding officer of the Mercy’s Medical Treatment Facility, said the ship would dock at Los Angeles “within the week” and will start care of the local population the following day. He said the ship will operate under the control commander, Destroyer Squadron 21, and operate for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 

Rotruck said the Mercy will embark a total of 1,128 personnel, including the ship’s civilian crew, the military medical treatment team and a few civilian contractors. The Mercy has 1,000 hospital beds and will be operating nine of the 12 operating rooms on the ship. He said the embarked crew will be screened for COVID-19 but not tested unless needed. 

Rotruck said the Mercy will offer a broad range of medical services but will not be staffed to handle obstetric or pediatric cases. The ship has a fully capable blood bank on board. 

“The Mercy is ready to go,” said the Mercy’s master, Capt. Jonathan Olmsted, also in the conference. He said the Mercy will be underway for about two days to runs some tests of its systems before docking pierside in the Port of Los Angeles.  

Rotruck said the time underway at sea will be used to train the medical team. 

“Our Mercy team is ready to deploy and support FEMA and local relief agencies against the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said. “I have an amazing team, and we are truly honored to answer the nations’ call to protect the health of the American people.”