NATIONAL HARBOR,
Md. — The Navy Department is showing progress in its drive to increase
readiness and prepare its forces to “fight tonight and win,” Navy Secretary
Richard V. Spencer said May 8. But in a luncheon speech at the Navy League’s
annual Sea-Air-Space exposition, Spencer spoke directly to the defense industry
representatives in the audience, telling them: “We cannot do this alone.”

“We need the
support. We welcome the support of industry if we are going to increase readiness
and meet the operational demands of today and tomorrow,” he said. “Our goal is
true partnership,” based on the concept that “shared risk produces shared
rewards.” He offered industry “a clear line of sight to our needs and resources,
and industry understands that our security, stability and prosperity rely on
ready and combat-capable forces that are capable of projecting naval power. …
We must work together to provide solutions to our challenges.”

The secretary
noted the message he has presented in congressional hearings that the
department‘s budget “we truly believe is prioritized on a strategy-driven,
balanced approach, building on prior investments, while sustaining the
industrial base and maintaining our competitive advantage as we transition to a
more cost-imposing, survivable and affordable future force.”

The process is
showing results, he said, noting that when he took office the readiness rate of
the Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets was “abysmal. “Today, the Navy is
tipping at 70% mission-capable rates, and the Marine Corps is in the high 70s,”
he said. He also mentioned a major program that has been accelerated two years
ahead of its original schedule, but he did not name the program.

“Our vision is for a more agile, sustainable and superior force.”

Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer

“We are getting
after these issues and readiness is increasing daily,” he said. The goal now is
“to increase our velocity.”

As part of its
reform of the acquisition processes, Spencer said, “we’re migrating from a
culture of risk eradication to understanding and managing risk,” while
conceding that completely eliminating risk is “unaffordable.” And referring to
the results of the investigations into the two fatal at-sea collisions of Navy
destroyers last year, he said the fleet was moving from a culture of
“normalization of deviation” from standards to increased focus on performance
and safety.

At the end,
Spencer said, “Our vision is for a more agile, sustainable and superior force. …
We want to be able to dominate future conflicts from the seafloor to space, in
blue waters, littorals, mountains and desert, and also throughout the
information domain.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Coast Guard has faced a challenging year — and going forward the sea service will continue to emphasize the importance of increasing resources in the Arctic, said Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz said May 8 during Sea-Air-Space 2019 here.

The service released a new Arctic Strategic Outlook in
April, which updated the same report from six years ago that highlighted the
shortfalls the service faces in the ever-evolving region.

“We were trying to be honest with the report, … be bold
enough and frank and be candid enough with what the circumstances are,” Schultz
said.

The service has a full-time presence, District 17 in Juneau,
Alaska, but have never had a full-time base in the Arctic. Over the past decade-plus,
the Coast Guard has upped the rhetoric on the need to increase funding for
resources in the region. This is starting to come into fruition, as the Coast
Guard has begun to recapitalize its dated icebreaking fleet.

In April, the service awarded a $745 million design and
construction contract to Pascagoula, Mississippi-based VT Halter Marine Inc. to
begin building the next heavy icebreaker for the service. The Coast Guard now
only has one, Polar Star, that is more
than four decades old and suffering from increased mechanical issues and missed
time at sea due to it.

Schultz added that the new icebreakers will have unmanned
systems and a helicopter on them. The current fleet does not have either of
these capabilities.

The commandant said the lack of resources, such as
icebreakers able to operate in the Artic, keeps him up at night. But the new
heavy icebreaker is expected to be ready by fiscal 2024, at the latest, though Schultz
acknowledged there will be challenges in filling in the gap between that cutter
coming online and keeping Polar Star operating.

“We are working on how we bridge this gap,” he said.

The service also has plans to build six new icebreakers — three
heavy ones and three medium capability — over the next two decades.

Schultz said the Arctic is competitive economically as well
as for national security. As sea lanes there open for longer periods due to melting
sea ice from climate change, cruise ship activity has increased, and commercial
ships are able to traverse through the former icy waters more frequently.

“It’s an increasingly dynamic portion of the world. How do
we innovate and adapt to the region?” the commandant said.

Schultz noted that the conversation is expanding regarding
the Arctic. Congress is paying more attention, and the Defense Department conducted
extensive exercises there earlier this year.

“How do we speak with a unified voice up there?” he said.

Part of the new Arctic Strategic Outlook states the Coast
Guard will look to strengthen partnerships, address emerging demands in maritime
law enforcement there and advance and modernize the Arctic’s marine
transportation system.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Rear Adm. Danelle Barrett began her May 8 presentation at Sea-Air-Space 2019 with a cost comparison. A Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier costs some $13 billion, she said. A troublemaker can build a capable hacking device that could disrupt systems on a Ford carrier and potentially every other U.S. Navy platform, for about $9.97.

Given that Navy
computers rely on the same off-the-shelf providers as industry and the bad guys,
Barrett described how she is doing what she can to ensure that data gets
delivered safely and quickly to who needs it, without fear of being encumbered
by attackers.

Navy ships have
“about 50 different systems” funneling data to commanding officers, Barrett
said, who in turn have a limited amount of random access memory “to figure out
what to do with all that.”

The Navy needs the
right infrastructure, with machines capable of using artificial intelligence
(AI) to sift through the stream of data and provide the most important facts.

As an example,
Barrett cited the considerations the carrier Abraham Lincoln’s commander and
crew would face when planning a trip through the Straits of Hormuz.

“Things are tense
with the Iranians. We want a safe transit,” Barrett said.

Every key player
on the Lincoln wants to know specifics relative to his or her own job, she
said.

“The navigator
needs to know, can I navigate safely through at [a given] course and speed. The
chief engineer wants … data on problems I might have with the plant. The
communications officer wants to make sure I don’t drive out of my satellite
footprint. The intel folks, those on tactical watch and battle watch, need it,
too. The last time [a carrier] went through, about 20 nautical miles away, Iranian
UAVs came over to harass the ship,” Barrett said.

The Navy does not
have this capability — to provide data and ensure security to the lowest
possible element later — today, Barrett said. She also pointed out that
mischief likely would not manifest itself as some bold and splashy operation.

Rather, “They
would mess with the data just a little bit … just enough to make you make a
really bad calculation,” Barrett said. “It’s not going to be noticeable if it’s
coming from a very sophisticated adversary.”

Barrett is
spearheading a course that would have the right systems in place as quickly as
possible. Stove-piping of approval for new systems, or delivery of data, will
not work for her. The process will use “stuff that industry is doing,
leveraging the exact same products,” and will provide interoperability. The
Navy must be able to get its hands on the next fastest thing, get it installed
and have it functioning — before enemies upgrade their own capabilities.

“The environment
to the left of the boom is going to get more complicated,” she said.

Already, ships are
inundated with data from scores of sensors in and under the surface and in the
air, she said. Soon, thousands of such devices are going to be funneling such
information. Managing the data, Barrett said, will require ensuring that its
quality is as good as it can be. Commanders should be able to get what they
need within, say, a two-hour window of their next major milestone.

“If I could do that today, I’d have a huge
operational advantage,” Barrett said. “It’s a tall order. But we’ll get there.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Artificial intelligence in all its forms, from machine learning algorithms to unmanned systems, is a sure thing for the sea services and its partners, but there is still much to determine in terms of the technological and operational challenges it presents for warfighting.

In a panel discussion on May 8 at Sea-Air-Space, U.S. Coast
Guard Rear Adm. David Dermanelian, assistant commandant for C4IT and commander
of Coast Guard Cyber Command, framed the conversation as a relevant, real-world
issue for the sea services.

“This is not the art of the future. It’s happening today,” Dermanelian
said.

U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Christian Wortman, vice chief
of naval research, said the Corps has an expansive approach to AI and is
seeking to embed it into everything the service does, including machine
learning to make war more efficient and help make more informed decisions. But
he stressed that users “can’t look at this in isolation,” and the Marines also
need enhanced network capabilities and to use the cloud so algorithms can take
advantage of the data that is harvested.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Casey Morton, who was on day three of
his job as program executive officer of Unmanned and Small Combatants, said his
service is “firmly” moving in the direction of adding more unmanned elements to
its assets, from unmanned surface vehicles to unmanned underwater vehicles and
beyond.

“They are going to be a part of our team,” Morton said. “It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when and how fast and how can we get there.”

Right now, he believes the Navy is not yet at human-machine
teaming but is working toward that future where Sailors and machines work
closely together. He cautioned that there are still a lot of unanswered
questions about AI, like what infrastructure it will need, where it will be
based in the fleet, how it will be supported, if it will be forward-deployed
and other policy issues.

“We are at the early stages of this still,” Morton said. “There
are a lot of questions here that are still unanswered.”

The U.S. Maritime Administration’s Christopher Walher, who
focuses on the education programs of MARAD’s six state maritime academies, sees
AI as a pedagogical challenge, since sometimes subject matter experts are too
advanced to be excellent teachers, often skipping over critical points that, to
them, appear obvious.

He prefers a “crawl, walk, run” approach to the training
pipeline, where MARAD leverages a training process so AI can manage what it
excels at and humans can focus on their strengths, much like the current relationship
between smartphones and users.

Key for MARAD going forward will be working with other organizations, including a meeting the agency has next month with AI experts so they can share information, versus starting from ground zero on research and development.

“As we talk about crawl, walk, run in the Maritime
Administration, we are the little ship that could,” he said. “We don’t have a
lot of money for R&D.”

Steven Escaravage, senior vice president for the Strategic
Innovation Group at Booz Allen Hamilton, briefly went over his company’s 60
current programs that involve machine learning and robotics, including areas
like sensor data processing, electronic warfare, predictive maintenance and
optimized planning.

Escaravage said the field of AI in the last six to 12 months
has focused on taking what has been written about and researched in the lab and
tried to operationalize those concepts so they can be used in real-world
environments. He said while AI has suffered from being overhyped, there are
some rich capabilities for it today.

“Although today’s capabilities are probably over-extended
and somewhat brittle, what’s going to happen in a matter of months is going to
be real capability that changes pretty much everything we do.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — U.S and Canadian sea service officers
and industry leaders looked forward to more seamless coordination and better
times for shipbuilding, which one U.S. Navy vice admiral said was just recently
emerging from a “readiness divot.”

“We’d flirted dangerously, we had been shrinking the Navy
for 40-plus years,” said Vice. Adm. William Merz, a panelist in “The Future of
Shipbuilding” program here at Sea-Air-Space on May 7.

Fellow speaker Rear Adm. Casper Donovan of the Royal
Canadian Navy brought insight into Canada’s 20-year shipbuilding program. “It’s
a great time to be in shipbuilding. For the first time, we have a long-term
shipbuilding strategy,” Donovan remarked of Canada’s approach.

Could Canada be setting an example for its neighbors to the
south in the U.S. sea services, who are still dealing with the effects of automatic
spending cuts under budget sequestration? That word — sequestration — came up a
lot during the hour-long discussion.

But fiscal years 2019 and 2020 seem to be helping the U.S.
Navy turn the corner, Merz said. The 2020 shipbuilding plan that is “now on the
streets” stresses adaptability, efficiency and agility and includes funding for
the Navy’s purchase of two Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, CVNs 80 and
81, and funding for the Columbia class of nuclear submarines, among several
programs.

“We will pay for
Columbia class, a very expensive ship,” Merz added.

The shipbuilding news is also better for the U.S. Coast
Guard, of course, with its 6/3/1 cutter construction strategy well underway,
which fits under the National Defense Strategy, said another panelist, Coast
Guard Rear Adm. Douglas Schofield.

“We’re finally recapitalizing a good portion of the Coast
Guard fleet,” Schofield told the audience for the panel discussion, which was
moderated by Matt Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America, and
included Steve Eckberg of General Dynamics NASSCO.

The Coast Guard’s Schofield highlighted the construction of new station boats, the new fast-response cutters, the delivery of the eighth national security cutter, the start of construction on the first Heritage-class offshore patrol cutter and the new contract to build three new polar security cutters for the Arctic, an area of renewed focus for the Coast Guard.

“The partnership with industry is now more important than
ever,” he said.

All panelists agreed that the “boom/bust” cycle hurts
shipyards and private industry, because when the yards stand down from military
ship construction, it’s very hard to engage them again. They go out of business
or move on the construction of civilian-sector vessels.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — In its second annual Maritime Gala the night of May 7, the Navy League honored awardees from the highest levels of the sea services, but also dedicated the night to the often unsung work of sea service spouses.

The night’s keynote speaker, retired Chief of Naval
Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, pointed out that numerous military support
organizations were founded by spouses, like Operation Gratitude and the Semper
Fi fund, and he urged audience members to remember these organizations’
important work in their annual giving.

“Our sea services and our families would be hard-pressed to
function without sea service spouses … and they do it time after time,” Greenert
said.

He focused his speech on the importance of retaining the
public’s trust in the institution of homeland security and the military. Greenert
noted that many other pillars of American life are losing ground in Americans’
confidence, like the government or clergy, but the military is earning its spot
as an exception to that rule.

“The American public needs and deserves an institution that
we trust.”

He also acknowledged the service of Navy League National President Alan Kaplan, who is in the last few months of his term leading the organization in support of the sea services.

“The national president of the Navy League, the title, is
really the ultimate volunteer position,” Greenert said. “It’s a gift to those
of us in the sea services.”

The show featured an awards program, bestowing the Adm.
Arleigh Burke Leadership Award to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson,
where he was given the award by his wife, Dana Richardson, who gave the award
to her “high school sweetheart and best friend.”

Richardson played an important role in another organization
awarded the evening of May 7. The Navy League gave its first-ever Sea Service
Spouse Organization Award to Naval Services FamilyLine, where Dana Richardson
serves as an ambassador.

The award, which was given by Ellyn Dunford, a long-time advocate for military spouses and wife of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, was accepted by FamilyLine chair Leanna McCollum, who acknowledged her organization’s long history of volunteers that have kept it strong.

“It wouldn’t be possible to be here tonight without the
support of the countless number of volunteers both now and since 1965,” McCollum
said.

In a surprise announcement, Navy League Executive Director Mike Stevens, retired Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, gave Naval Services FamilyLine a check for $10,000.

Head of corporate citizenship for First Data, Dr. Vivian Greentree, also a military spouse, gave out the night’s second award, the Theodore Roosevelt Award, to Bruce Mosler, chairman of global brokerage at Cushman & Wakefield. He is an advocate for the veteran and military spouse community, focusing his efforts on the 100,000 Jobs Coalition, now the Veteran Jobs Mission.

The night included performances by the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon and closed with a trio of country music stars, including Chuck Wicks, the Navy League’s first goodwill ambassador; Mark Wills; and Lonestar’s Richie McDonald.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy and industry must do a better job at collaborating and monitoring progress throughout the entire acquisition process if the service hopes to improve how acquisition is done, a panel said at Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium May 7.

Vice Adm. Nicholas Hine, 2nd Sea Lord with the Royal British Navy, said there is a need to monitor industry partners throughout the acquisition process, as “too often” the government just hands money to them and doesn’t check up, opting to deal with problems late in the acquisition process when major changes might need to be made.

Rear Adm. Michael Johnston, Coast Guard deputy commandant for mission support, said that both sides need to focus on the end mission goal.

“We always vet a team on the contractor side and really are with them every day,” he said. “We’re part of the risk meetings. That’s how we get at where we are in a program at every given time, and monitor the program early and often so we make minor adjustments.”

Vice Adm. Michael Moran, the Navy’s principal military deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said that the Navy needs to focus on real-time decision-making. He said that’s what happened in the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile program — a program that would normally take eight to nine years to field that only took four years as a result.

“Robust engagement between industry and government teams, sharing the models, enabling real-time decision-making — that’s a must for us,” Moran said. “That’s just a must.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Grabb-It is turning car-windows into visual displays, grabbing not only the attention of occasional passersby, but their data as well.

Four cars lined up in front of the Gaylord National Resort
& Convention Center, which hosted Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2019 exposition,
showed off the start-up company’s digital display windows for their client,
Lockheed Martin. Video of the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter covered
the back-right window of the front car in the display — as if the window was
replaced by a computer monitor.

“We usually park the cars in strategic locations to
showcase whatever creative content they want to show or whatever call-to-action
they want to showcase,” a Grabb-It employee working the display said.

But the potential of Grabb-It’s display technology isn’t
limited to advertising, according to the employees at Sea-Air-Space display. “It
actually pings people’s devices while [the cars] are out in the city,” one
employee said. “There are sensors you can put on them to get a bunch of
data as they are driving around.” As in more specific data than a cellphone
tower can provide.

The employees also pointed out their clients have crossed
into various industries from banking to music and now defense, hence their presence
at the Gaylord for Sea-Air-Space.

“That’s the interesting part about it. It’s
something relevant to all kinds of industries, not just advertising or media,” one
employee said. “I never expected to be working with Lockheed Martin.”

NATIONAL
HARBOR, Md. — Using the congressionally approved Other Transaction Authority
with the Marine Corps Systems Command, Raytheon will integrate the Naval Strike
Missile (NSM) into the Marine Corps’ existing force structure.

In recent
years the Corps has determined a need to field an anti-ship missile to defend
its forces ashore and the fleet that supports them.

Randy
Kempton, Raytheon’s NSM program director, briefing reporters at the Navy
League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition here, was not at liberty to discuss which
platforms would deploy the NSM. He did say the Corps had a lot of integration
options and that the missile would be the same as the one on order with the U.S.
Navy.

The Navy has
selected the Naval Strike Missile for its littoral combat ships and
new-generation guided-missile frigate.

The NSM is a fifth-generation
long-range precision-strike cruise missile originally designed by Kongsberg. A
mobile, land-based version is deployed with the coastal defense forces of
Poland.

The missile
is produced “in partnership with Norway and its defense leader Kongsberg,” a
May 7 Raytheon release said. “The Marine Corps’ selection of the Navy’s
anti-ship missile enhances joint interoperability and reduces costs and
logistical burdens.”

NATIONAL HARBOR,
Md. — The meeting of Navy leaders with submarine shipbuilding industry
officials, planned for this month, will focus on integrating the production of
the Columbia-class ballistic missile sub and the future Virginia-class attack
boats, the Navy’s top acquisition executive said May 7.

The biggest issue is removing any conflict in the production of the two classes of submarines, which will be built by the same two shipyards — Newport News and Electric Boat, James Geurts, the assistant Navy secretary for research, development and acquisition, told reporters after his luncheon speech at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space exposition. The concern is the impact on Columbia if Virginia production “gets out the box,” Geurts said. That issue could become acute in five years when both submarines are in serial production.

The planned
meeting was announced by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, who
said it would seek to add back some of the schedule margin for Columbia that
has been eroded by production problems. Maintaining the schedule for Columbia
is crucial, because the first boat must be ready for its strategic deterrence
patrol in 2031 when the first of the Ohio-class ballistic missile subs is
forced to retire.

If any conflict in production emerges, Geurts said, the priority will be Columbia.

One another
current acquisition issue, Geurts minimized the impact from President Donald
Trump’s decision to reverse the Navy’s budget proposal to retire the aircraft
carrier Harry S. Truman rather than put it through the planned mid-life nuclear
refueling and overhaul, which would give it 25 years of additional service
life. Geurts said the change affected very little money in the fiscal 2020
budget, which is being processed in Congress. The cost of keeping Truman in service
and paying for the refueling and overhaul will be worked into the fiscal 2021
budget, and “we’ll do what needs to be done,” he said.

In his speech at
the Navy League luncheon, Geurts urged the industry and Navy officials in the
audience not to focus on sequestration and other budget problems but look at
what the Navy has accomplished in the last 18 months. “I’ve been incredibly
impressed with how fast this organization has changed,” he said.

He said the Navy
has saved about $30 billion through acquisition reform and has accelerated some
production systems by six to eight months, and industry is saving money through
innovation. He noted that the Navy would deliver 12 ships this year, more than
it has produced in decades. “We are getting tools out to the fleet,” he said.