MARINETTE, Wis. — Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine delivered the future USS St. Louis, littoral combat ship No. 19, to the U.S. Navy, according to a Feb. 6 Lockheed Martin release. 

“With LCS 19’s delivery, the U.S. Navy has 10 Freedom-variant littoral combat ships in the fleet,” said Joe DePietro, Lockheed’s vice president and general manager of small combatants and ship systems. 

“LCS 7 recently deployed, and it is gratifying to know that our team has delivered a ship that is relevant for today’s fight and that is needed around the world. Our team is encouraged by the positive feedback we’ve received about LCS 7 on deployment, and we continuously look to incorporate fleet input into capabilities on LCS hulls.” 

The Freedom-variant LCS delivers advanced capability in anti-submarine, surface and mine countermeasure missions. LCS was designed to evolve with the changing security environment. With an increase in near-peer competition from large nation states, Lockheed is partnering with the Navy to evolve LCS to meet these threats. Upgrades are already underway as computing infrastructures are receiving cyber upgrades and naval strike missiles are being installed to support upcoming deployments. 

The St. Louis is is the 10th Freedom-variant LCS designed, built and delivered by the Lockheed Martin-led industry team and will be commissioned in Pensacola, Florida, this summer.

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.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Boeing and the U.S. Navy successfully flew two autonomously controlled EA-18G Growlers at Naval Air Station Patuxent River as unmanned air systems, using a third Growler as a mission controller for the other two, according to the company. 

The flights, conducted during the Navy Warfare Development Command’s annual fleet experiment exercises, proved the effectiveness of technology allowing F/A-18 Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers to perform combat missions with unmanned systems. 

“This demonstration allows Boeing and the Navy the opportunity to analyze the data collected and decide where to make investments in future technologies,” said Tom Brandt, leader of Boeing’s manned-unmanned teaming demonstration. “It could provide synergy with other U.S. Navy unmanned systems in development across the spectrum and in other services.” 

Over the course of four flights, 21 demonstration missions were completed. 

“This technology allows the Navy to extend the reach of sensors while keeping manned aircraft out of harm’s way,” Brandt said. “It’s a force multiplier that enables a single aircrew to control multiple aircraft without greatly increasing workload. It has the potential to increase survivability as well as situational awareness.”

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.

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.”

As the last commanding officer of the USS Pittsburgh said
Jan. 17, “the old must be replaced by the new.” And with that salutation, the
crew of the Los Angeles fast-attack submarine, past commanding officers, Navy
League members and supporters bid farewell to the boat during its inactivation
ceremony at the U.S. Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington.

The USS Pittsburgh Relief Crew under the auspices of the
Pittsburgh Council has provided significant support to the submarine over its
35 years of active service. Though the boat, named for the city in
Pennsylvania, has been deactivated, a scholarship sponsored by the council for
current or past crew members and dependents of the sub will live indefinitely
at the Pittsburgh Foundation, a Pittsburgh metropolitan area philanthropy
organization.

The ceremony was the crew’s final event before their ship
is decommissioned and stored at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton,
Washington.

“The backbone of any crew, of any service member, is the
family that supports them at home,” said Jason Deichler, the 14th and final
commanding officer of the USS Pittsburgh, who himself is a Pittsburgh native.

“To the families of current and crewmembers here today,
thank you. The power of your faces, smiles, family grams, small tokens and love
enable the strength required for the impossible tasks we ask the crew to
perform. It is what sets us apart in many ways from the armed services of other
nations. We know the faces of our family, and we work to truly honor them.”

Carol H. Sawyer, a professor of organizational leadership
at University of La Verne, California, also spoke of what it’s meant for her to
have been the submarine’s sponsor and a part of the Pittsburgh family since the
ship’s commissioning in December 1984.

“It means that every day for 35 years, I have embodied
the gratitude of the American people. In my very person, in who I am, I have
literally lived our gratitude for the commitment, the service, the
professionalism, the sacrifice and the patriotism that I have witnessed,”
Sawyer said.

Rear Adm. Douglas Perry, commander of Submarine Group 9,
and a prior crew member aboard Pittsburgh, served as the ceremony’s guest
speaker.

Pittsburgh completed its
last deployment on Feb. 25, 2019. Then the boat and her crew made their first
arctic transit for a final homeport change from Groton, Connecticut, to
Bremerton, arriving on May 28 to begin the inactivation and decommissioning
process. Pittsburgh is the fourth U.S. Navy vessel to be named for the city of
Pittsburgh.

ARLINGTON, Va. – Naval ordnance experts will be testing heavy weapons precision ammunition, that could hit enemy drones “like a shotgun blast,” offering a counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) shield for littoral combat ships (LCS).

Rogue civilian drones and enemy attack and surveillance UAS are a growing concern across the military, especially after swarms of drones attacked Saudi Arabian oil facilities last September. Two months earlier, a Marine Corps anti-drone system downed an Iranian UAS that got within 1,000 yards of a Navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

“There’s a lot of interest in the Navy now for a counter
drone system,” said Kevin Knowles of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. “How do
you shoot down these quadcopters? Trying to hit them with a round is not that
easy,” he added.

Northrop Grumman, which makes mission modules for the LCS,
is exploring something called precision air burst munition for the twin 30 mm
guns in one of the Surface Warfare Mission Modules. A laser range finder on the
gun determines the range.

“There’s a modification that would need to be made to the
gun to fire the round,” Knowles explained Jan. 16 at the Surface Navy
Association convention. “It actually programs the round to fly out a certain
distance. And then it blows up almost like a shotgun blast,” he said, noting
the point-and- shoot proximity round can actually detect the target and gets
about a certain distance away before exploding.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) is slated to run tests on the proximity rounds in the Spring, he said.

“And so, assuming that test goes well, then we’ll start putting those rounds in the magazines” of the 33 mm guns on both the Freedom and Independence variants of the LCS. Because the 30 mm gun has a dual ammunition feed, the high explosive rounds the guns now fire could be loaded in one feed while the precision air burst proximity rounds could be fed into the other. “That will give the LCS a counter UAS capability,” Knowles said.

McLEAN, Virginia — The U.S. Navy has awarded BAE Systems a prime position on a five-year, $34.9 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide life cycle sustainment and technical support for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s (NAWCAD) Special Communications Mission Solutions Division, the company said in a Jan. 23 release. The contract was awarded through the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Contracting Office.  

“For more than 40 years, BAE Systems has been the contractor of choice for life cycle sustainment and technical support for NAWCAD’s Special Communications Mission Solutions Division,” said Mark Keeler, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems’ Integrated Defense Solutions business. “As a leading systems integrator, we understand the need for quick-reaction field support to ensure our military customers are mission ready and maintain a tactical edge.”  

Through this award, BAE Systems will support and sustain variety of C5ISR (command, control, computers, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems embedded within vehicles, watercraft and specialized communications platforms in the NAWCAD inventory. The company’s C5ISR efforts will include maintaining and upgrading command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, integrated and networked to improve the situational awareness of military operators and decision makers. Work on this program will be performed in forward deployed mission locations include Central Command and Africa Command Areas of Responsibility. 

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The development of unmanned watercraft for expeditionary warfare has been
progressing rapidly, said the program manager of U.S. Navy Unmanned Maritime
Systems.

“We made a tremendous
amount of progress in the expeditionary warfare area in 2019,” Capt. Pete Small,
PMS 406, said Jan. 16 during a briefing at the Surface Navy Association symposium
here. That progress included successful testing of three Mine Countermeasures
USVs (MCM USV) on three different platforms.

The Navy is
using Textron’s Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle for the MCM USV program, one of
the mission modules for littoral combat ships. The long endurance, semi-autonomous,
diesel-powered boat has been tested with Raytheon’s AQS-20 and Northrop
Grumman’s AQS-24 mine-hunting sonars.

“We have three
vehicles operational in the water,” Small said. In 2019, all three were
operated with three different payloads — a suite payload and the two different
towed sonars. Testing was done in different locations on the East, West and
Gulf coasts, sometimes simultaneously in multiple locations. “We have accrued
just shy of 900 hours of on-water operational time deploying this payload in
2019,” Small said.

Additionally,
PMS 406 conducted integration tests with the LCS and two different vessels of
opportunity — a U.S. expeditionary sea base and a British amphibious platform.

Small said formal
developmental testing and operational assessment of the suite variant of the MCM
USV was completed in late November. “That was a major milestone for us, and we
are rapidly nearing a milestone C decision and the award of low rate production,”
Small said.

Progress also continued with the Knifefish Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV), another counter-mine package for the LCS, completed formal testing and operational assessment in August. “We’ll continue low rate production of that throughout [fiscal 2020],” Small said, adding the Navy will continue additional development and testing of the General Dynamics-made, medium class UUV to demonstrate the full capability of the mine counter measures mission package.

PMS 406 — a unit of Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants, which oversees the littoral combat ship and its mission modules and related systems — also develops unmanned maritime vehicles, both surface and undersea, for three different warfare domains: unmanned expeditionary, unmanned undersea and unmanned surface, “our most rapidly growing warfare domain,” Small said.