QUANTICO, Va. — The Marines’ annual appeal to industry is focusing
heavily this year on capabilities that would allow distributed Marine Corps forces
to not just survive but persist within the deadly areas created by the kinds of
high-technology weapons that a peer competitor — such as China — can create.

The priorities at the Modern Day Marine exposition were unmanned
systems, man-machine teaming, long-range precision fires, more secure and
alternative forms of communications to counter the adversaries’ demonstrated
abilities to intercept, jam and distort traditional means, and systems that
better integrate with the U.S. Navy — all directives from Commandant Gen. David
H. Berger.

And it all must be lighter, faster and affordable, Lt. Gen.
Eric Smith, the Corps’ top future capabilities officer, stressed.

“We’re looking for autonomy, man-unmanned teaming, we need
to get lighter. … I’m willing to take risks,” Smith, commanding general of Marine
Combat Development Command, told industry representatives on Sept. 17 at the
opening of Modern Day Marine.

Smith repeated the commandant’s guidance that new systems
should be “good, not exquisite. … It’s not an existential threat to use good
enough for a few years until the budget improves.” But the ultimate need is the
ability “to persist in the weapons-engagement zone. Not survive, persist,” he
said.

Panels of the senior officers and civilian officials in the
Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) and the Combat Development and
Integration division under Smith’s command repeated those views as they
discussed their programs. And all of them emphasized the focus on integrating
with the Navy in ways that would allow the Corps to help naval task forces get
through the anti-access, area-denial capabilities that China — and to a lesser
extent Russia and Iran — can create with long-range missiles, mines and other
weapons.

Col. Tim Barrick, director of wargaming at MCWL, said Berger’s guidance to the Corps emphasized the need for additional wargaming to shape the missions and capabilities they would need to meet the emerging great power competition. To meet that demand, the Marines are planning to create a wargaming center that would go from 22 to more than 200 personnel and serve not just the Marines but the joint forces in the Washington, D.C., region.

Barrick said they were stressing three concepts: distributed operations; littoral operations in a contested environment; and expeditionary advanced based operations. “We’re focused on a naval campaign. How does the Marine Corps support naval operations,” he added.

Many briefers said the level of Marine integration and cooperation with the Navy leadership and senior staffs was the highest they had ever seen. The greatest deficiencies cited by the briefers was a lack of long-range precision fires in the ground forces, the need for command, control and communications systems that are mobile enough to move with small distributed combat units but work in the highly contested information environment, and logistics methods and systems that can sustain those distributed units within the deadly “weapons-engagement zone.”

Unmanned and robotic systems were proposed as possible solutions to some of those capabilities gaps.

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Representatives from the U.S. Army and federal and local elected officials joined Vigor employees for a keel laying ceremony on Sept. 16, celebrating the first milestone in the construction of the Army’s next-generation landing craft, the Maneuver Support Vessel (Light) or MSV(L), according to a release from Vigor.  

The nearly billion-dollar contract to build MSV(L) was awarded to Vigor in October 2017. The new design, developed in partnership with BMT, dramatically improves the capabilities of the current LCM-8 and provides the optimal combination of performance, operational flexibility and life-cycle cost while maintaining the reliability and versatility of the Army’s current craft. 

The MSV(L) prototype is named in honor of Staff Sgt. Elroy F. Wells, an Army watercraft operator killed in action in 1970 in Vietnam. 

The event began with a welcome from Vigor CEO Frank Foti. Remarks were delivered by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle, Timothy Goddette, U.S. Army Program Executive Office, Combat Support & Combat Service Support and Col. (P) Jered P. Helwig, the Armys chief of transportation. Helwig also gave the dedication honoring the service of Staff Sgt. Elroy F. Wells. 

The ceremonial welds performed by Beutler and Helwig marked not only the start of the MSV(L) program but also the beginning of a new era in shipbuilding at Vigor’s recently acquired state-of-the-art all aluminum fabrication facility in Vancouver. Vigor expects the site to employ up to 400 workers by 2023 building high-performance military craft, workboats and aluminum fast ferries in addition to MSV(L).  

Once the Staff Sgt. Elroy F. Wells is completed and testing and refinements have occurred, the schedule calls for four vessels in the low-rate production phase, followed by up to 32 vessels once full production is underway. Vigor’s MSV(L) team consists of partners such as BMT, Gladding-Hearn and Northrop Grumman. 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy has established the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Unrestricted Line (URL) Officer Acquisition Corps (AC) and Major Program Manager (MPM) career path, the chief of naval personnel public affairs said in a release. 

The NSW URL AC will professionalize an acquisitions career path for SEAL officers and build a cadre of leaders who can expertly develop, field and sustain capabilities needed for NSW’s and the Navy’s future operating environment, according to the release. 

Experience, education and certification requirements for major acquisition command selection result in career patterns different from URL officers who serve exclusively in their primary warfare specialty. The most significant difference is the need for NSW URL AC designated officers to serve in acquisition-related billets before and after completing NSW O-5 command or NSW O-5 acquisition milestone assignments. 

SEAL officers selected for NSW URL AC will receive designation as NSW AC eligible via an additional qualification designator. 

NSW AC eligible candidates can compete for Major Program Management (MPM) and sequential major acquisition command slating after a minimum of 48 months of experience in acquisition-coded or related billets. Officers who accept orders to NSW O-5 acquisition milestone assignments will not be eligible to compete for URL major operational command. 

The first NSW O-5 acquisition milestone board is slated to occur concurrently with the NSW commanding officer/executive officer administrative board in 2019.

PENTAGON — The Navy has created a new leadership position — deputy assistant secretary of sustainment — in its work to sustain and grow lethal capacity and move faster to respond to the growing size of the fleet. 

“Building a workforce aligned to mission is critical to competing and winning,” James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, announced on Sept. 13. “Establishing a deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for sustainment [DASN-S] to develop, monitor and implement policy and guidance throughout the Navy will enable us to better plan, program, budget and execute the Navy’s sustainment mission.” 

Geurts added, “Sustainment is as critical as new construction to ensure the Navy is ready to deploy. This position will allow us to improve and align the complex drivers of maintenance and modernization completion — that in turn will increase our output to the fleet. We have to get better, and this will help.” 

The new DASN-S position will report directly to Geurts and have oversight of sustainment funding across the Department of the Navy, which will be important to meeting Defense Department readiness goals. Additionally, DASN-S will oversee and manage Navy and U.S. Marine Corps sustainment and life-cycle management policies.  

Additionally, to improve maintenance flow, the Navy is taking other steps. For surface ship maintenance availabilities conducted at private shipyards, the sea service is adjusting its contracting strategies to group multiple surface ships into one contract. This will provide workload stability for the private shipyards. 

The Navy is also executing a “perform to plan” initiative that identifies performance gaps and barriers to execution so they can be addressed to improve performance. For submarine and aircraft carrier maintenance, that are generally done at one of the four shipyards, the Navy is executing a 20-year shipyard infrastructure optimization plan that coordinates required dry dock maintenance and modernization, optimizing workflow and replacing outmoded capital equipment. 

“Across the board, we need to improve how we execute ship maintenance, whether it’s done in a public or private shipyard,” said Vice Adm. Tom Moore, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command. “We need to work with our industrial partners to provide workload stability and, for the Naval shipyards, we need to provide our 21st-century workforce with 21st-century facilities and equipment.” 

“To win in an era of great power competition, we need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our public and private shipyards so we can deliver combat-ready ships to our Sailors and Marines,” Geurts added.

SAN DIEGO — Over the last year, the U.S. Marine Corps’ Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 (VMU-1) blazed a trail of firsts and was awarded the 2018 Marine Corps Aviation Association Unmanned Aircraft Squadron of the Year. 

A major component of the squadron’s accomplishments included use of the MQ-9A Reaper unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which to date has more than 4,800 flight hours of direct support reconnaissance over a 12-month period, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) said in a release. 

The multi-sensor reconnaissance equipped MQ-9A UAS produced by GA-ASI has provided crucial support to the Corps’ forward operations on the battlefield as well as serving as a proof of concept for the Deputy Commandant’s Marine Aviation Plan. Building the Corps’ Group 5 UAS community, this initiative will help inform the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) UAS Expeditionary (MUX) program while also meeting the 38th Commandant’s planning guidance to expand unmanned capabilities. 

VMU-1 utilized leased MQ-9A Reaper aircraft to fulfill a request for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) in Afghanistan since September 2018. 

“We congratulate the officers and Marines of VMU-1 for their superb performance this year, winning the John I. Hudson Award as the Marine Unmanned Aircraft Squadron of the Year,” said David R Alexander, president, GA-ASI. 

“GA-ASI looks forward to working with VMU-1 as the USMC transitions its Company Owned/Company Operated (COCO) MQ-9A contract to a Government Owned/Government Operated (GOGO) contract in the coming year.” 

The GOGO capability fulfills the commandant’s directive for Marine Corps Group 5 persistent ISR capability with strike and will achieve IOC in 2020. VMU-1 will be the test bed and incubator to provide crucial information, lessons learned, requirements and tactics, techniques, and procedures that will aid in Marine efforts for a successful acquisition and fielding of MUX. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — When the littoral combat ship (LCS) USS Montgomery (LCS 8) visited Davao City, a port on the Philippine island of Mindanao, earlier this summer, it was the first port call there of a U.S. Navy ship in who knows how long.   

Speaking to reporters Sept. 11 in a media roundtable teleconference, Cmdr. Edward A. Rosso, commanding officer of the ship’s Blue Crew, was making the point that the LCS, with its shallow draft, allows the Navy to make port calls in locations that would not accommodate larger vessels such as destroyers, cruisers and amphibious warfare ships. 

The draft of the aluminum trimaran-hull, Independence-variant Montgomery is 15.1 feet, compared with the 30.5-foot draft of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. 

“The U.S. Navy, along with our partners and allies, has long known the importance and value of working together, and from my perspective, that is exactly what Montgomery has done during this deployment,” Rosso said. “We began our time in theater with a historic port visit to Davao City in the Philippines. It perfectly suited to receive our shallow-hull littoral combat ship. This was the first visit by a U.S. warship to that location in recent memory.” 

“It was a great opportunity to build relationships, learn from one another, improve interoperability, and appreciate culture,” he added. “Overall, port visits like this allow us to demonstrate our commitment to maritime security in the region while strengthening relationships with our friends, partners and allies.”  

The Montgomery is the first rotational deployment to the Western Pacific of an LCS in 18 months and is the first of three LCSs the Navy plans to deploy this year. 

The last LCS to deploy, USS Coronado (LCS 4), returned from the western Pacific on Dec. 5, 2017. It had been preceded by the USS Freedom (LCS 1) and its Freedom-class sister ship, USS Fort Worth (LCS 3), in 2015 and 2016, respectively. 

During the deployment, Montgomery participated in the 25th annual CARAT (Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training) exercise and the ASEAN-US Maritime Exercise (AUMX). 

“Co-led by the U.S. and Royal Thai navies, AUMX consisted of pre-sail activities in Thailand, Singapore and Brunei, followed by a sea phase in international waters of Southeast Asia, including the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea,” a Navy release said. “It concluded in Singapore. Participating nations included Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, United States and Vietnam. AUMX included eight warships and four aircraft from seven countries, and more than one thousand personnel representing all ten ASEAN member states and the United States.”  

The Montgomery deployed with the Surface Warfare Mission Package, including an MH-60S helicopter and an MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicle. 

Rosso praised the value of the LCS Maintenance Support Team deployed to Singapore to support LCS deployments to the area. The team can stage to various ports in the region to rapidly respond to maintenance needs of a deployed LCS. In one such response, the team made a major repair at Sattahip, Thailand. 

He also praised his crew, of which he said, “The things on this ship wouldn’t have happened without my crew,” whom he called “100 people of excellence.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The commodore of a Navy explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) group has praised the performance of the unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) that were used in a recent exercise in the Bering Sea off the Aleutian island chain.  

“The technology that is being incorporated in the Mk18 Mod 1 and 2 and also in our smaller next-generation UUVs [is] incredible,” said Capt. Oscar E. Rojas, commander of EOD Group One and commodore of Combined Task Force 35, speaking Sept. 11 to reporters in a media roundtable teleconference. “The resolution of the images that we are getting back from the topography of the seabed is so amazingly clear that it makes our job in IDing so much easier. That’s why when we say a lane is clear of explosive hazards, we have an almost 100% confidence factor that is a fact because of this technology that has been introduced. It is a true game-changer. 

“The future of warfighting is unmanned systems,” Rojas said. 

The Mk 18 Mod 1 Swordfish, Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish and other smaller UUVs were deployed to Adak, an island halfway along the Aleutian chain from the Alaskan mainland, for the Arctic Expeditionary Capabilities Exercise (AECE), the first exercise of its kind. Adak is the site of a former naval air station and deep-water port that were active during the Cold War.  

Rojas stressed that this exercise was the first time that the Navy EOD community had exercised its expeditionary mine countermeasures (MCM) capabilities is such a high latitude. He also noted that after 18 years of becoming experts in clearing improvised explosive devices on land in Afghanistan and Iraq, the EOD expertise is being turned toward maritime mine countermeasures in an era of great power competition, although he declined to identify no specific competitor. 

The scenario of the exercise was the employment of MCM capabilities to prepare the landing zone for amphibious forces of a Marine Corps Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force. 

He said the exercise was intended to increase agility in places where EOD forces have not deployed in a very long time and to test the EOD and MCM technology in cold water. One of the goals was to see how the cold water affected the life of lithium batteries in the UUVs and tethered remotely operated vehicles. Another was to see how the UUVs performed in areas of strong rip currents and widely varying tidal changes, and the effect of 40-knot winds on UUV-deploying boats and communications systems. 

“It is important for us to operate in these conditions,” Rojas said. “The environment [in future conflict] is going to be very much like the one we’re training in now.”  

He said that the exercise was an opportunity to operate unmanned systems that were designed for “a more benign environment” and to see if the systems were “going to break or going to function as designed.”  

The commodore also noted that many of the hydrographic charts of the Aleutian are were outdated, with several shipwrecks found that were not marked on the charts. 

Rojas said he tested five different communications systems and exercised the command-and-control systems in a satellite communications-denied environment, also using High-Frequency radios for communications. 

The EOD group also exercised its scalable units of action. In this exercise, approximately 150 personnel from the EOD forces were involved. The EOD group can deploy in three C-17 transport aircraft or with just a few equipment cases on a commercial airliner. 

NORFOLK, Virginia – An E-2D Advanced Hawkeye capable of aerial refueling landed at Naval Station Norfolk Sept. 9, officially marking the arrival of this upgraded aircraft to the fleet, Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic Public Affairs said in a Sept. 12 release.     

“This is an important day for naval aviation as we continue to increase our capabilities and maintain our competitive edge in the skies,” said Rear Adm. Roy Kelley, commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, “This capability will extend the endurance of Hawkeyes, increasing the Navy’s battlespace awareness and integrated fire control – both from the air and the sea.” 

The aerial-refueling-capable E-2D joined the “Greyhawks” of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 120. 

“Aerial refueling capability is a game-changer for the E-2D community and future operations in the high-end fight,” said Cmdr. Scott Wastak, VAW-120 commanding officer. “We will now begin to train instructor pilots and refuel with several different Navy and Air Force tanker aircraft, including F/A-18s.” 

VAW-120 is only the first step in rolling out this new capability. The Navy will transition two operational fleet squadrons to aerial refueling capable E-2Ds by 2020. 

VAW-120 is a Fleet Replacement Squadron attached to Airborne Command & Control and Logistics Wing commanded by Capt. Matthew Duffy. Its mission it to train naval aviators, naval flight officers, Navy aircrewmen and qualified maintainers to safely and effectively operate E-2 and C-2 aircraft. 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Heriberto Hernandez (WPC-1114) repatriated 18 migrants to a Dominican Republic Navy vessel just off the Dominican Republic Sept.11 following the interdiction of two illegal migrant voyages Sept. 8 in the Mona Passage. 

Four men, among the interdicted migrants, remain in Puerto Rico to face possible federal prosecution on charges of violating 8 USC 1326, which carries a potential maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years and a fine of up to $250,000. 

The interdictions were a result of ongoing efforts in support of Operation Unified Resolve, Operation Caribbean Guard and the Caribbean Border Interagency Group (CBIG). Since October 2018, the Coast Guard and CBIG federal and state partner agencies have interdicted over 2,026 migrants at sea near Puerto Rico. 

“Migrants risk their lives when they attempt to cross the Mona Passage aboard makeshift vessels with little or no lifesaving equipment,” said Capt. Eric King, Commander of Coast Guard Sector San Juan. “What many of them do not realize is that they potentially risk going to prison when they attempt to enter the country illegally.” 

“The seas around Puerto are unpredictable and unforgiving,” said Lt. Andrew Russo, commanding officer of the cutter Heriberto Hernandez. “These two cases highlight the inherent and explicit danger each illegal venture poses.  I am proud of my crew and thankful for the support from our partner agencies as we work to ensure the safety of all lives at sea.” 

While on patrol in the Mona Passage Sept. 8, the crew of a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations DHC-8 marine patrol aircraft crew sighted a migrant boat just off Mona Island, Puerto Rico. Cutter Heriberto Hernandez diverted to the scene and interdicted the 18-foot boat with 13 migrants aboard. The cutter crew safely embarked 12 men and a woman, who claimed Dominican Republic nationality. 

In a separate case shortly thereafter, two Puerto Rico Police Joint Forces of Rapid Action marine units interdicted a second 18-foot migrant boat Sept.8Sunday night just off the coast of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Coast Guard watchstanders at Sector San Juan diverted cutter Heriberto Hernandez to the scene, where the crew safely embarked seven men and two women, who claimed Dominican Republic nationality.  

Ramey Sector Border Patrol agents in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico received custody of the four migrants awaiting federal prosecution. 

Once aboard a Coast Guard cutter, all migrants receive food, water, shelter and basic medical attention.

SAN DIEGO — General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) has been awarded a contract from Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division (NSWCCD), to fabricate and deliver two large bearing support structures for Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines, the company said in a release.  

“This contract leverages our extensive manufacturing competencies to ensure these critical structures are delivered to NSWCCD as the first new Columbia-class submarine begins construction in October 2020,” said Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS.   

GA-EMS will manufacture the two bearing support structures at their facilities in Tupelo, Mississippi. The Navy intends to build 12 Columbia-class submarines over the next 20 years.