GROTON, Connecticut – The Navy’s newest Virginia-class attack submarine, future USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN 795), was christened during a ceremony at General Dynamics’ Electric Boat shipyard facility in Groton, Connecticut, July 31, the U.S. Navy said in a release.

“This submarine is a fitting tribute to Admiral Rickover, who truly transformed our Navy,” said Adm. James Caldwell, director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, during his remarks at the celebration.

Caldwell credited Rickover — who served for 63 years in the Navy and is credited with spurring the service to adopt nuclear propulsion after World War II — with not only technological advances but cultural ones. He lauded Rickover’s legendary work ethic, frankness, attention to detail and commitment to excellence, which he said has since permeated throughout the Navy.

“It’s really great to see this ship come together, and to see so many people here to celebrate the christening of the Hyman G. Rickover and honor the Hyman G. Rickover legacy,” said Cmdr. Thomas Niebel, commanding officer of the newly christened submarine.

The Honorable James F. Geurts, performing the duties of Under Secretary of the Navy, told those in attendance that the construction of the future USS Hyman G. Rickover is a testament to the dedication of America’s shipbuilders and sailors.

“We did not close a shipyard, public or private, for one day during the pandemic,” Geurts said. “The sustained commitment to excellence displayed by this workforce shows in the construction of this boat and adheres to the culture of excellence promoted by Hyman G. Rickover.

“It’s not just a matter of having the world’s best ships,” he continued, “you have to have the world’s best Sailors to maintain the world’s best Navy, and we have both.”

Darleen Greenert, the submarine’s sponsor, a Navy veteran, and wife of former Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert, highlighted the sacrifice of military families during her remarks, and remembered the late Eleonore Rickover, the namesake admiral’s wife.

“She set the bar [for ship sponsors],” Greenert said of Eleonore Rickover, who was the sponsor for a previous Los Angeles-class submarine to bear the Hyman G. Rickover name, SSN 709. “She loved her crew.”

The first Hyman G. Rickover was commissioned at Submarine Base, New London, in Groton, on July 21, 1984. SSN 709 and its crew deployed 12 times until its decommissioning in December 2007. Over the years, its decorations included the Atlantic Fleet Golden Anchor Award, Submarine Squadron Eight’s anti-submarine warfare white “A” and engineering red “E” awards and the prestigious Sixth Fleet “Hook ‘Em” award for anti-submarine warfare excellence.

Greenert asked family members of the crew of the future USS Hyman G. Rickover to stand together when her daughter, Matron of Honor Sarah Greenert McNichol, broke the ceremonial bottle of sparkling wine across the bow.

Other speakers at the ceremony included Electric Boat President Kevin Graney, Newport News Shipbuilding President Jennifer Boykin, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-CT and U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin, D-RI.

Rickover will eventually joint the fleet with a displacement of 7,835 tons, crew of 132, and a weapons payload of 12 vertical launch systems and four torpedo tubes.

Fast-attack submarines like Rickover are multi-mission platforms enabling five of the six Navy maritime strategy core capabilities — sea control, power projection, forward presence, maritime security, and deterrence. The submarine is designed to excel in anti-submarine warfare; anti-ship warfare; strike warfare; special operations; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; irregular warfare; and mine warfare – from open ocean anti-submarine warfare to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, to projecting power ashore with Special Operation Forces and Tomahawk cruise missiles in the prevention or preparation of regional crises.

The Jones Act and commercial cargo operations in general must be strengthened to avoid further erosion of U.S. shipping strength versus commercial powerhouse China, said speakers at a Navy League Sea-Air-Space Prequel “Lunch and Learn” virtual session on July 21.

Dr. Sal Mercogliano, associate professor of history at Campbell University in North Carolina and a former merchant mariner, led a panel discussion entitled “The Jones Act, Where Commerce and Defense Converge.”

Mercogliano and the speakers sounded the alarm about the status of the U.S. merchant marine, particularly when compared to China.

“Are we a true proponent of sea power if we have the No. 1 Navy in the world and the No. 21 merchant marine in the world, when China is basically No. 2 in both and growing?” Mercogliano asked.

China has the largest merchant fleet, “which dwarfs ours,” the largest coast guard, the world’s only maritime militia, produces 96% of the world’s shipping containers and owns seven of the 10 busiest ports in the world, said panelist Tony Padilla, director of the Office of Cargo and Commercial Sealift at the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration.

On an average day in the United States, 23 U.S.-flagged vessels call at ports, compared with 2,800 foreign-flagged vessels, he said. In the critical Indo-Pacific region, 35 U.S.-flagged vessels call at ports on an average day, compared with 20,000 foreign-flagged vessels.

“This should be a wake-up call,” he said. “This is a major issue that we need to get to like yesterday, like last year, like 10 years ago.”

Panelist Mike Roberts, senior vice president of government relations for Crowley Maritime Corp. and president of the American Maritime Partnership, joined Padilla in pointing out the dangers posed by China, an authoritarian country.

“China’s advantage in the commercial maritime sector is simply overwhelming in sheer numbers. The Navy League reported last December that there were roughly 6,000 large commercial ships controlled by China internationally. The corresponding number of American-flagged ships is below 200 and that includes ships operating in U.S. domestic trades,” Roberts said.

“It’s all about policy — laissez faire on steroids on the U.S. side, versus mercantilism on steroids on the China side.”

The Jones Act — officially known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — ensures that only U.S.-built, flagged and crewed ships can operate in domestic commerce, although it does allow for waivers of those requirements. Roberts said it is sometimes derided as a protectionist law aimed at bolstering the defense market, but one big value is promoting U.S. industry and workers.

“Foreign ships don’t obey American rules, hire American workers or pay American taxes. They should not be allowed to trade in our domestic markets, and that’s simply a function of American sovereignty, and not protectionism,” he said.

Costs are higher using U.S. workers versus developing nations’ labor, but “it’s simply not OK to replace American workers with foreign workers right here in America,” he said. “Those who complain about the cost of the Jones Act invariably miss that point.”

Jennifer Carpenter, president and CEO of the American Waterways Operators, a trade association for the tugboat, towboat and barge industry, said the U.S. commercial fleet showed its worth during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic by keeping goods flowing.

Throughout the worst days of the pandemic, “tugboats, towboats, barges and other domestic vessels continued to move the commodities that kept a weakened economy afloat,” not least by delivering equipment to fight the virus.

“How much worse could things have been if we’d had to rely on foreign vessels to move supplies on our domestic waters and if we had to deal with the potential to the disruption to our maritime commerce in the middle of contending with COVID?” Carpenter said. “Thanks to the Jones Act, we didn’t have to find out.”

Carpenter said commercial shipping can respond quickly in the case of disaster, such as when ships stepped up to deliver oil to riverine ports in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline shutdown. Jones Act opponents sometimes call for waivers in the wake of such events, but she said the recent National Defense Authorization Act puts new requirements on such waivers and includes transparency and accountability as to who is asking for them, “so Congress can provide oversight.”

The act also specifies that renewable energy projects — mainly, offshore wind farms — are subject to the Jones Act, just like oil and gas work is.

Building wind farms is a “generational opportunity,” Carpenter said. “Let’s let American maritime companies and American mariners make this tremendous investment that is going to serve our country and our economy and our security so well.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has brought charges against a Sailor who was a crew member of the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard for starting the fire that resulted in the devastation of the ship, the U.S. 3rd Fleet said in a July 29 release. 

“On July 29, charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice [UCMJ] were brought forth against a Navy Sailor in response to evidence found during the criminal investigation into the fire started on USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) on July 12, 2020,” said Cmdr. Sean Robertson, U.S. 3rd Fleet spokesperson. “Evidence collected during the investigation is sufficient to direct a preliminary hearing in accordance with due process under the military justice system. The Sailor was a member of Bonhomme Richard’s crew at the time and is accused of starting the fire.  

“Vice Adm. Steve Koehler, commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet is considering court-martial charges and has directed a preliminary hearing at which an impartial hearing officer will make determinations and recommendations required by the UCMJ prior to any further trial proceedings — including whether or not there is probable cause to believe an offense has been committed and to offer a recommendation as to the disposition of the case.” 

The Bonhomme Richard was pierside at the naval base in San Diego going through modernization when a fire started and spread through much of the ship over a period of days. The Navy considered several options to repair the ship, possibly in another role, but the service decided to decommission and scrap it. 

“Following an extensive material assessment in which various courses of action were considered and evaluated, we came to the conclusion that it is not fiscally responsible to restore her, then-Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite said in a Nov. 30 release. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — Lockheed Martin’s deliveries of electronic warfare capabilities to U.S. Navy now include Surface Warfare Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Lite as deliveries of (SEWIP) Block 2 reaches 100, a company official said. 

SEWIP Lite is a scaled version of SEWIP Block 2 designed for installation on smaller warships such as the Navy’s littoral combat ships (LCSs) and the Coast Guard’s new offshore patrol cutters now under construction. SEWIP Lite operates with the same hardware software and same inboard processing as SEWIP Block 2. 

“SEWIP Lite now is in production” said Joe Ottaviano, director for Maritime and Air Cyber/Electronic Warfare at Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems, in an interview with Seapower. “We’ve delivered several of those already. Some are on the way for installation on LCS.”  

Ottaviano said that some international customers have expressed an interest in SEWIP Lite, designed for ships smaller than an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer which have size, weight, and space limitations. Block 2 currently is planned for the Constellation-class frigate. 

The SLQ-32(V)6 SEWIP Block 2, including SEWIP Lite, is being installed on all active U.S. Navy surface combatants. Block 2 is in its second five-year full-rate production run. 

“We’re going through tech refresh now,” Ottaviano said. “A lot of the open-architecture things we had put in place over the years is allowing us to tech refresh SEWIP, our submarine programs, our airborne programs at a pretty rapid pace, every couple of years without causing a huge development cycle.” 

Lockheed Martin is continuing to work with the Navy as they integrate the [electronic attack] Block 3 portion into [SEWIP]. Block 3 is a Northrop Grumman program. 

“Block 2 brings the foundation of the Navy’s EW battle management — the displays, integration, the sharing of EW information across the fleet, and providing the enterprise protection,” Ottaviano said. “It actually cues Block 3 and helps drive its response.” 

He said the SEWIP is now tightly integrated into the Aegis Combat System.  

“Now we can do everything we need to do passively,” he said.  

The Naval Sea Systems Command Program Executive Office Ships (PEO Ships) is establishing a new program office to distribute the support ships, boats and craft responsibilities of PMS 325. PMS 325 currently manages acquisition and life-cycle support for auxiliary ships, boats, service craft and targets, special mission ships and foreign military sales. PMS 300 will assume the duties for boats and craft, while 325 will focus on the larger platforms.

According to NAVSEA spokesman Alan Baribeau, PEO Ships continually assesses and where necessary adjusts program office resources to ensure they are best aligned to efficiently and effectively deliver capability to requirements. 

“The PMS 325 portfolio has grown significantly over time and based on forecasted workload has reached the point where splitting into two separate, focused program offices is prudent,” Baribeau said.  “PMS 300 is being established as the USN & FMS Boats and Craft Program Office; it will oversee FMS, boats & combatant craft and service craft/targets. PMS 325 will be renamed the Auxiliary and Special Mission Shipbuilding Program Office and will oversee auxiliary ships and special mission ships including Next Generation Logistics Ship (NGLS), the Navy Cable Ship (T-ARC(X)) Program to replace the Navy’s only undersea cable installation and repair ship, and the ), and new TAGOS(X) Ocean Surveillance Shipbuilding Program.”

SANTA RITA, Guam — The Coast Guard’s three newest Fast Response Cutters were commissioned July 29 during a ceremony presided over by Adm. Karl Schultz, the Coast Guard’s commandant, the Coast Guard 14th District said in a release. 

The Coast Guard Cutters Myrtle Hazard (WPC 1139), Oliver Henry (WPC 1140) and Frederick Hatch (WPC 1143) were commissioned during a rare triple-commissioning ceremony at their new homeport at Coast Guard Forces Micronesia Sector Guam.  

“The triple commissioning of Coast Guard Cutters Myrtle Hazard, Oliver Henry, and Frederick Hatch signals our dedication to regional partners and the growing maritime demand in the region,” said Capt. Nick Simmons, commander, Coast Guard Forces Micronesia Sector Guam. “It was an honor to celebrate this historic event with the crews, families and sponsors for each cutters’ namesake.”  

Like the 30-year-old Island-class patrol boats before them, they will support the people of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and our international partners throughout Oceania. The FRCs represent the Coast Guard’s commitment to modernizing service assets to address the increasingly complex global Maritime Transportation System.  

The Coast Guard already has a well-established presence within the region due to its bilateral shiprider agreements with Pacific Island Forum countries. These shiprider agreements allow partnering nations’ defense and law enforcement officers to go aboard Coast Guard vessels to observe, board and search vessels suspected of violating laws or regulations within their exclusive economic zones.  

By embarking shipriders, Coast Guard crews are able to support allies in the region and work towards expanding security by addressing regional challenges to peace, prosperity, and social inclusion. The retention of crewmembers from these invaluable missions means the lessons learned from joint operations will carry over to the new FRCs, ensuring goodwill developed by past Coast Guard assets will remain applicable.  

“These initiatives cultivate relationships and they solve practical problems,” said Schultz. “In this way the Coast Guard’s distinct contributions to maritime government are built on people-to-people relationships.” 

Named after Coast Guard enlisted heroes, FRCs are equipped with advanced command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems and boast a greater range and endurance. At 154-feet long, they reach speeds of over 28 knots covering a distance of 2,500 nautical miles over a five-day patrol. They are armed with a stabilized 25-mm machine gun mount and four crew-served .50-caliber machine guns. 

These advanced capabilities greatly improve the Coast Guard’s ability to conduct missions ranging from search and rescue to national defense while also contributing to joint operations between the United States and its regional partners as they work towards common goals such as the prevention of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.  

“The people of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Micronesia can rest assured that these multi-mission platforms stand ready to support our partners throughout the region,” said Simmons.  

Each FRC has a standard 24-person crew. This brings over 70 new Coast Guard members to Guam, along with their family members. Prior to the FRCs’ arrival, the Coast Guard presence on Guam was composed of approximately 250 active-duty personnel and 40 reservists. 

SAN PEDRO, Calif. — The Coast Guard broke ground Wednesday on a new facility at Base Los Angeles/Long Beach in San Pedro that will be home to the service’s newest additions to its fleet, the Coast Guard 11th District said in a July 28 release. 

Located at 1001 S. Seaside Avenue, the new $35 million, 11,500 square-foot Naval Engineering Department facility is scheduled to be an extension to the existing Maintenance Augmentation Team (MAT) building that will support the Coast Guard’s first two offshore patrol cutters.  

The 360-foot Coast Guard Cutter Argus (WMSM 915) and Coast Guard Cutter Chase (WMSM 916) are under construction and expected to arrive in late 2022/early 2023. The offshore patrol cutters will join the four 154-foot fast response cutters — Forrest Rednour, Robert Ward, Terrell Horne, and Benjamin Bottoms — and the 175-foot buoy tender, the Coast Guard Cutter George Cobb (WLM 564), currently stationed at Base LA/LB.  

Once completed in October 2022, the facility will accommodate approximately 60 personnel who will provide maintenance, weapon, and naval engineering support for the fast response and offshore patrol cutters. In addition to the building, a new 257-foot pier extension is scheduled to be built to make room for the Chase. Improvements are also slated for the existing Electronics Support Detachment and warehouse on the base. 

“Every Coast Guard mission starts and ends at a base. This new cutter support facility will enhance the capabilities of future Coast Guard cutters to meet critical mission needs in a demanding and constantly evolving maritime environment,” said Vice Adm. Michael F. McAllister, commander U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area. “The Coast Guard’s first two offshore patrol cutters will be homeported at Base Los Angeles-Long Beach and this facility will provide the operational support needed to ensure future Coast Guard crews can accomplish their mission successfully.” 

With the addition of the two new offshore patrol cutters, the base will require more space and staff to support the growing fleet. Personnel at Base LA/LB nearly doubled since 2018. 

The offshore patrol cutters are the newest vessels in the Coast Guard’s fleet. The state-of-the-art ships are scheduled to replace the service’s 270-foot and 210-foot medium-endurance cutters and will be used to patrol the open ocean in the most demanding maritime environments. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — Two senior House Armed Services Committee members, who strongly support U.S. Navy plans to acquire a wide range of unmanned air and maritime systems to enhance the size of the fleet, say they still have concerns about how undefined the mission remains.

Appearing at a virtual unmanned defense systems conference sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) on July 27, both Reps. Joe Courtney (D-Connecticut), and Jim Langevin (D-Rhode Island), agreed that unmanned surface and undersea vessels will have a key role confronting the pacing threat of China across the vast distances of the Indo-Pacific region.

“These systems will be the key to a distributed force that moves away from exquisite, expensive platforms — which are high value targets — and towards a more modular and nimble fleet that can, hopefully, plan to overwhelm the adversary,” said Langevin, who chairs the HASC’s Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee.

Having unmanned platforms ranging in size from small to extra-large vessels that reduce the risk to Sailors in a contested environment, and handle jobs that don’t require human presence, “is just a really smart investment moving forward,” said Courtney, chairman of the HASC Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee.

However, “we’ve been wrestling with the issue of what is the future fleet size for the Navy and what’s the fleet architecture look like,” Courtney said, adding that the Biden administration’s first Navy budget had no FYDP [future years defense plan] and the shipbuilding plan had only ranges of vessels, not specific numbers. He acknowledged the White House will have more time and experience by next year’s budget, adding that will be the one to watch.

“We really do need some clarity about just where are we going,” Courtney said, recalling the HASC’s “traumatic experiences” in the past with unique new platforms that were funded in a hurry, like the littoral combat ship, but “didn’t pan out as well as the Navy or Congress hoped.”

Langevin, whose subcommittee Courtney described as “the tip of the spear for a lot of these questions,” said he was concerned the Navy and other services could become over-reliant on unmanned systems.

“They can be a great component, but I’m still very cautious — recognizing that our enemies and adversaries understand where we’re going with new technologies. They’re going to invest in and try to create asymmetric systems that will interfere with those capabilities and take them out,” with less compunction than they might for a manned vessel in a non-war situation, he said.

“The other thing that we have to ensure is, as we get more and more into the 21^st century and make use of machine learning and artificial intelligence, we absolutely have to ensure the integrity of the data decisions are based on and also, that there’s always a human in the loop,” Langevin said, adding, “We have to make sure that we understand the decision-making process by making sure that when it comes to carrying out kinetic effects, we don’t delegate too much in terms of AI decision-making.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — Northrop Grumman expects the U.S. Navy to issue a Request for Proposals in August or September for the Very Light-Weight Torpedo (VWLT) Program, company officials said.   

The Navy’s VLWT program RFP was delayed from an expected January issuance, now expected to be issued this summer. Northrop Grumman has used the delay to refine its planned manufacturing processes, adapt robotics to the processes, and press for ways to reduce manufacturing cost. 

The RFP will be for taking the non-production-designed VLWT prototype — designed by Penn State Applied Physics Lab (APL) — into a production design. and develop it as an All-Up Round it to be suitable for manufacturing. Other Transactional Authority will be used to deploy the torpedo to the fleet.   

APL developed the Counter Anti-torpedo Torpedo (CAT), a defensive weapon for use by aircraft carriers to defeat incoming submarine-launched anti-ship torpedoes. Five aircraft carriers were fitted with CAT launchers. The Cat was the first new-design U.S torpedo since the 1980s with the development of the Mk54 Lightweight Torpedo.  

Early in the CAT design process, its potential as a multi-mission torpedo was noticed, said David Portner, Northrop Grumman’s senior program manager for undersea weapons, in a July 28 interview with Seapower magazine. 

The offensive variant that will be the subject of the RFP, the Compact Rapid Attack Weapon (CRAW), involved a software change to make the CAT into an anti-submarine weapon, Portner said. 

The hardware-enabled, software-defined VLWT would be equipped with advanced electronics and processing power, with the software enabling the same weapon to serve in an offensive or defensive role.  

The nine-foot-long VWLT is one third of the size of the Mk54 — the Navy’s most advanced light-weight torpedo — and weighs just over 200 pounds, compared with the 608-pound Mk54. With this weight advantage, a platform can carry more torpedoes or carry the same number at longer ranges and give the platform more endurance. The VLWT could be carried by surface, airborne, and undersea platforms, manned and unmanned.    

The Mk54 is known to carry a 96.8-pound warhead. Portner said he was not at liberty to discuss the size of the VWLT’s warhead, but he said its power has everything to do with the warhead’s design, which he said will give it lethality against modern submarines. 

Portner said the VLWT could be carried by such anti-submarine aircraft as P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, MH-60R helicopters and MQ-8 Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicles.   

During an Advanced Naval Technology Exercise in 2018, Northrop Grumman demonstrated the deployment of a VLWT from a surrogate helicopter simulating a Fire Scout.  

The torpedo is fitted with a parachute to reduce the shock of impact with the water. The VLWT also could be fitted with a glide wing kit similar to the one on Boeing’s HAAWC (High-Altitude Anti-submarine Weapon Concept), which is in development to extend the launch range and altitude as well as precision guidance for the Mk54 torpedo.    

Portner said the VLWT also could be deployed from a vessel such as a littoral combat ship by way of an unmanned surface vehicle or unmanned underwater vehicle. He said the light weight of the CRAW, compared with the MK54, would enable a platform to carry more weapons the same distance or the same number of weapons to a greater range or endurance.  

Portner said in a December interview the Navy already has demonstrated that the legacy Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes that fire Mk46 and Mk54 light-weight torpedoes could be fitted with internal sleeves to accommodate the smaller-diameter VLWT, but a new launcher could be developed to house a larger number of VLWTs. He also said one or more VLWTs could be fitted to an Anti-Submarine Rocket in place of a MK54 torpedo if the Navy decided to do proceed with that. 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. ­– Crowley Maritime Corp.’s Solutions business unit has been awarded a multi-year, $638 million contract for vessel acquisition management (VAM) by the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD), the company said in a July 28 release.  

Crowley’s strategic acquisition and vessel management service will assist MARAD in the enhancement of the Ready Reserve Force, helping reduce the overall age of the fleet and increase ship reliability. The fleet executes U.S. Department of Defense sealifts.   

To carry out the contract, Crowley will use a new, proprietary information technology system to assess, research and make purchasing recommendations. Once the vessels are acquired, Crowley will oversee any required reflagging, reclassification, modification and maintenance to ensure they are fit for service in compliance with U.S. Coast Guard, American Bureau of Shipping, and Defense Department requirements. After ships enter the fleet, Crowley will maintain and operate the vessels on behalf of MARAD. 

“A successful VAM program is important to the U.S. as a maritime nation, the maritime industry and Crowley as we mutually invest in the strength of our nation,” said Mike Golonka, vice president, government ship management in Crowley Solutions. “We want to share our innovative, successful approach to vessel ownership and lifecycle engineering with the U.S. government.” 

Building on over 20 years of experience managing MARAD and other government and Navy vessels, Crowley will use the web-based platform to perform data analysis of the lifecycle of vessels and their components. The SHIPFAX platform will provide data-driven recommendations based on essential service requirements, as well as important factors to successfully manage and operate vessels.   

Crowley will execute the contract with Stena Line, Serco and LCE (Life Cycle Engineering), who bring specialized and unique experiences and services in acquisitions, naval ship architecture, engineering and applied technology.