NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – The Coast Guard plans to release its
fifth request for information (RFI) to industry in the coming months, as they
continue to gather information on how best to recapitalize their dated
waterways commerce cutter (WCC) fleet.

“This aging fleet, it is extremely important to our nation’s
economy,” Aileen Sedmak, manager of the WCC program, said during a floor
presentation at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition May 7.

The 35-ship fleet consists of three cutter types, an inland
construction tender, a river buoy tender and an inland buoy tender. They
primarily operate along the Mississippi River and Great Lakes region. The ships
average 50 years of age and are responsible to making sure $4.6 trillion for
the nation’s economy per year is able to move freely in the inland waters.

In February, the service released an RFI asking for industry
to gather information about the state of the market and current industrial
capabilities to support pile-driving systems for the WCC program.

Sedmark said the recapitalization program is currently in
the analyze-select phase, which includes collaborating with the Navy’s Naval
Sea Systems Command to analyze needs and requirements.

“We are doing our due diligence,” she said.

The acquisition program will cost over $1 billion, and the
exact number of cutters needed remains uncertain. Sedmark said they would like
to have initial operational capability in fiscal 2024 and full operational
capability by fiscal 2030.

“This is a very critical mission right now,” she said.

Issues with the cutters currently include additional
maintenance requirements and lost operational time because of it.

Industry representatives at the presentation asked a series
of questions on production timelines, how many cutters may be in the fleet and
additional requirements that may needed on the cutters. 

Sedmark said she was uncertain when a request for proposal
would be issued or how many exact ships would be requested.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Citing recent high-profile comments
by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson and Marine Corps
Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller on cybersecurity’s importance, panelists at a
May 7 event at Sea-Air-Space agreed that it is a top issue for their services,
regardless of external perceptions.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. David Dermanelian, assistant
commandant for C4IT and commander of Coast Guard Cyber Command, said his branch
is known for its drug interdictions and waterway management missions, but often
perception does not equate that work with cybersecurity.

“All those missions are directly linked to the cyber domain,”
he said. “And I would posit that even within the Coast Guard, we’re in contact
with bad actors, or the enemy, every day. The Coast Guard’s role is to defend
our maritime transportation, our cyber domain.”

Detailing how maritime commerce coming through U.S.
waterways is valued at $5.4 trillion and supports 31 million Americans,
Dermanelian quantified the importance of cybersecurity for fellow panelist,
Maritime Administration Director of the Office of Maritime Security Cameron
Naron. 

Naron said it’s critical MARAD has cyber systems, as well as
resilient measures, in place should anything under their purview be
compromised. With MARAD sitting at the crux of defense, homeland security and
commerce, his office is focusing on working with all its stakeholders to
maintain security.

“Our role is really to make sure that industry’s needs,
industry’s equities, are represented in federal policy formulations,” Naron
said.

Naron said commercial network monitoring and vulnerability
remediation options are out there today, and there are also great government
solutions, and those resources need to be in the hands of industry, not only
because it’s good for business, but because it’s good for national security. MARAD
also must ensure the security of the Ready Reserve Fleet, and Naron stressed
that cyber concerns also extend to areas such as precision navigation and GPS
vulnerability.

Gregg Kendrick, Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command executive
director, addressed his service’s complex network of cybersecurity operations
and how that information is critical to the Marines’ return to its roots.

“Just like the Coast Guard, we have a little of a unique
mission as well. … The commandant and the chief of naval operations are
exceedingly … bringing us out of the ground force and bringing us back to our
naval heritage,” Kendrick said. That makes the fidelity of the information the
Marines and Navy share when they go from sea and ashore critical so the
services can make that gap as seamless as possible, he said.

Kendrick also addressed how the Marines are staffing up
their cybersecurity teams, when industry hiring is so competitive. He said 40%
of the Corps’ cyber mission force is civilian, stating that Neller wanted to
use best business practices from people that work for companies like Google or
other software developers to ensure the Marines had cutting-edge tactics.

The moderator, Navy Vice Adm. Matthew Kohler, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare and director of naval intelligence, summed up the vastness of the challenge of keeping up with cybersecurity needs, and how it’s directly tied to the larger challenges the sea services face. “Technology is running at us at an unprecedented rate. … It’s not just the pace of the technology, it’s the race for how quickly we can adopt that technology … to how we fight and [it] gives us the ‘Great Power Competition’ that we find ourselves in today,” he said.

NATIONAL HARBOR,
Md. — The Navy is on track to award a contract for its new training helicopter by
the end of this calendar year, and Leonardo Helicopters believes it is in a
great position to win that competition, Andrew Gappy, director of the firm’s
Navy and Marine Corps programs, said May 7.

Leonardo is
offering the TH-119, a modified version of its widely used commercial
helicopter, which is serving as a trainer for the Portuguese Air Force and
Israel, Gappy said. A former Marine helicopter pilot, Gappy said the 119 has
the advantage of being the only one of the three competitors that is made in America,
at Leonardo’s full-service plant in Philadelphia. It also has a rugged, nearly
all metal airframe that can take the rough handling commonly endured by
training aircraft and has a single engine, which will reduce the long-term
maintenance and operating cost, he said.

Also competing to
replace the Navy’s current TH-57, which is used to train helicopter pilots for
the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, are Airbus, with its twin-engine
H-235P3, and Bell Helicopters, with the 407 GXi, an updated version of the Bell
206, which was the basis for the TH-57.

Gappy said all
three firms have submitted their proposals, which are being evaluated by the
Navy. The contract required an in-service helicopter, a ground training system
and a long-term sustainment proposal with projected cost. The winner will
produce 130 aircraft in five years, with the first five due by the end of the
fiscal 2020.

Gappy said the
TH-119 proposal was crafted with input from a team of former military
helicopter pilots. It is the highest power-rated single-engine helo in the
U.S., meets all of the Navy’s requirement and offers a low sustainment cost.
“It’s not just what the airplane can do; it’s the affordability of the
airplane,” he said.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The addition of a third Virginia-class submarine to the fiscal 2020 budget proposal won’t cause significant disruption to the industrial base because the program has given enough lead time before the sub needs to be built, the program’s manager said May 7 at Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition.

Capt. Christopher Hanson, the U.S. Navy’s Virginia-class program manager, acknowledged that the decision years ago to increase procurement from one sub per year to two caused “some vendors [to] struggle,” but that the industry is able to handle a third sub because enough lead time has been built in. The addition won’t cause a shock in the production line, Hanson said.

By adding a third sub to the budget, the Navy sends a “very clear signal of what’s coming,” allowing vendors to adjust and prepare, he added.

“If they get a clear signal, they will invest,” Hanson said. “That clear signal is hard to measure, but you definitely see the results in the vendor base.”

This request will allow the Navy to immediately get orders out to the vendors so they can fill those orders. And it’s not anything they can’t handle, Hanson said, arguing that they are simply asking the industrial base to deliver 11 subs instead of 10 over the next five years.

The Navy is still striving to get construction time of Virginia-class subs down to 60 months, although it has recently stalled in the area of 66 to 68 months. Hanson said the goal is still 60 months, although he acknowledged it was not a guarantee. “Would I bet my life on 60 months? Probably not.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Zumwalt-class of destroyers is experiencing a series of milestones as its program continues to refine its role in the fleet, according to a May 7 briefing at Sea-Air-Space 2019. The third and final DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer was just christened in the last couple of weeks, setting it up for a 2020 delivery. The DDG-1002 was christened on April 27, Capt. Kevin Smith, DDG-1000 program manager, said. The program also conducted the first live missile firings using the Zumwalt Combat System on April 26.

The program is looking into implementing a maritime strike version of the Tomahawk missile, and they are also looking at the SM-6 Block 1A, the captain said.

The Navy expects the DDG-1000 to take on a different role in the fleet compared to how it was originally envisioned. It was slated as a ship that could operate in the littorals, but now the Navy is shifting it to a more blue-water focus, Smith said.

“We are now an offensive surface strike platform — more blue water,” he said. “The Navy made a decision to go that way.”

NATIONAL
HARBOR, Md. — The Navy’s admiral in charge of unmanned aviation said that the
Initial Operational Capability (IOC) of the MQ-25A aerial tanking unmanned
aerial vehicle is “as soon as possible.”

Speaking May
6 to an audience at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition here, Rear Adm.
Brian Corey, program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike
weapons, said that the MQ-25A program does not have a set IOC date but that it
was to be before 2026 “if we can.”

The
Boeing-owned MQ-25 prototype was trucked earlier this week from the factory in
St. Louis to Mid-America airport in Illinois for more ground testing and,
eventually, flight testing.

Corey said
the first flight of the prototype would take place later this year.

He also said that four
aircraft carriers initially will be equipped to operate the MQ-25A, but he
declined to speculate which carrier, citing the flexibility of schedules.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – As international incidents increase,
and the U.S. military begins an uptick in training exercises on global
positioning service (GPS) jamming, military leaders are looking more toward
industry for answers on how to combat the growing issue.

Paul Zweers, vice president of the global Aerospace, Defense
and Government business units for Orolia, said a few recent occurances are
putting a spotlight on the issue — including an incident last February, where
Finland and Norway suspected and accused Russia of GPS signal jamming during a
NATO-led drill.

“Operating in [a] Global Navigation Satellite System-denied
environment and GPS jamming and spoofing are the buzzwords everybody is talking
about,” he said.

GPS jamming occurs when radio frequency transmitters are
used to intentionally block or interfere with communication devices, such as a
GPS, cell phones and Wi-Fi networks. GPS spoofing involves the practice of
using fake GPS signals to trick equipment and send false location signals. 

“We have more proof, beside incidental jamming, that there’s
active spoofing and jamming going on in certain parts of the world. Everybody
is painfully aware this exists, and they are asking how we can we overcome this
and what are the solutions,” Zweers said during an interview on the show floor of
the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space exposition.

Orolia currently provides support for cybersecurity and
interoperability for the Department of Defense, and it is working on expanding its
SecureSync platform, which combines multi-GNSS signal synchronization options
BroadShield GPS anti-jamming/spoofing protection and superior low phase noise
capability for military systems.

“We have quite a broad portfolio, and in the coming years we
will be looking to expand our PNT [position navigation time] mission set,” he
said.

NATIONAL HARBOR,
Md. — As head of expeditionary warfare at the Naval Information Warfare Center
Atlantic, Kevin Charlow constantly is on the lookout for ways to share good
results with as many potential users as possible. 

“We’re focused on
trying to deliver capability to the fleet faster — by leveraging our exercise
and prototype efforts,” Charlow said during a May 7 interview at Sea-Air-Space
2019. 

To that end,
Charlow pointed to a recent case involving a precision navigation unit developed
for a U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) combat craft. It turned out that
the Marine Corps had a need for a similar unit, for use in its Amphibious
Assault Vehicles (AAV). 

“We were able to
take that integrated navigation and control capability — one of our SOCOM
projects – and leverage that with the Marine Corps AAV,” Charlow said.
“Basically, one sponsor funded a solution we’re now sharing with another, and
we have a potential win for the warfighters.”

The Marines are testing
the system now in Charleston, South Carolina, harbor. 

“Pressing forward,
we want to deliver C4ISR [command, control, communications, computer,
intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance], and its system and engineering
services and solutions, to our major sponsors,” Charlow said.   

The Navy, Marine
Corps and SOCOM are primary benefactors, but the Naval Information Warfare center
has helped the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army as well. 

Besides
advances in development of C4ISR prototypes, the center has awarded some $9
million in funding for 20 innovation projects for fiscal year 2019, which began
Oct. 1. Its engineers also built and installed a more robust firewall in the
Marine Corps’ SIPR (secret internet protocol router) network. The center was
able to fulfill an urgent need for the Marines within 10 months.

NATIONAL
HARBOR, Md. — The Marine Corps and the Army are running an analysis of
alternatives (AOA) to see whether the two services can meet the same requirements
for Milestone A or B start in fiscal 2021, a Marine helicopter acquisition
official said. The AOA is expected to be complete in the “next couple of
months.”

Speaking May
6 to an audience at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor,
Maryland, Marine Col. David C. Walsh, program manager for Marine light attack
helicopters, said the Marine Corps has begun studies for its Attack Utility
Replacement Aircraft to succeed the UH-1Y Venom and AH-1Z Viper helicopters.

The Corps
hopes to field the Future Vertical Lift Capabilities Set 3 by the late 2020s or
early 2030s, Walsh said.

A key
requirement for the Marine Corps is an aircraft that can keep up with or even
exceed the speed of an MV-22B Osprey, 310 knots.

Bell
Helicopter delivered the last of 160 UH-1Ys in April 2018 and has delivered 111
of 189 AH-1Zs to date. The last AH-1Z deliveries are scheduled for 2022.
Bahrain and Pakistan also have purchased AH-1Zs, while Turkey and Taiwan have
procured the older AH-1W.

Walsh said
that there is considerable foreign military sales potential for the UH-1Y and
AH-1Z. He listed potential for 88 AH-1Zs and 29 UH-1Ys in Europe, 129 AH-1Zs in
the Asia-Pacific region, and 44 AH-1Zs and 24 UH-1Ys in the Middle East and
North Africa.

Walsh also
said his office is working on capability upgrades to the Corps’ H-1 fleet,
including Link 16, full-motion video, the Joint Air-Ground Missile, and the
AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile, as well as some navigational upgrades.

NATIONAL HARBOR,
Md. — As the naval services tackle the overlapping challenges of trying to
restore their readiness while preparing for a new era of “Great Power Competition,”
perhaps their biggest concerns are receiving adequate funding and recruiting
and retaining the talented personnel they need in the midst of a robust
national economy with low unemployment.

While the money
concerns are high for the U.S. Navy and the Marine Corps, after several years
of constrained budgets, the problem is more acute for the U.S. Coast Guard and
the U.S. Maritime Administration, which have not benefited as much from the
last two years of increased funding, officials from those services said in a May
7 session at Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition.

The Navy’s biggest
challenge is “maintaining stable and predictable budgets,” said Rear Adm. John
Nowell, director of military personnel plans and policy on the Navy staff.

Compared to low
readiness the Navy endured in 2017 after several lean years, “with the money
Congress has provided since then, we have been able to get at” the readiness low
with higher operating hours, more maintenance and beginning to fill the manning
gaps at sea, he said.

Brig. Gen.
Christian Wortman, commander of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, said
the Corps was challenged in maintaining the high personnel readiness it needed
because of the intense deployment rate of its small force, but was “seeing the
results” in better equipment readiness due to the budget gains in fiscal years
2018 and 2019.

But sustained
funding improvement was needed to support the modernization that would provide
future readiness required to face the Great Power Competition, he said.

“I wish I had the
budget environment you described,” said Rear Adm. Linda Fagan, commander of the
Coast Guard Pacific Region. Because the Coast Guard is part of the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, it hasn’t enjoyed the budget boost the branches
under the Defense Department received the last two years, Fagan noted.

She cited a $1.7 billion
backlog in facility repairs as a readiness issue and the “erosion of buying
power every year” from constrained funding. “It is absolutely critical to stop
the erosion of readiness we see today,” Fagan said.0

Shashi Kumar,
deputy administrator of the Maritime Administration, noted the badly aged fleet
of sealift ships that would be essential to supporting any major crisis
deployment of U.S. forces, a shrinking number of commercial vessels MARAD
leases and the growing shortage of qualified civilian mariners to operate those
ships. He also worried about the rising cost of maintaining the ancient ships
with limited funding.

All of the officials
expressed personnel concerns — which for the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard
primarily involve attracting young Americans with the intelligence and
technical skills needed for the new era of high-tech warfare when the small
numbers of those who can qualify for military service are in high demand in the
private sector.

Fagan said the
Coast Guard can recruit the talented and diverse personnel it needs but has
trouble retaining its female workforce. Nowell said the Navy still needs to
fill 6,000 billets at sea, less than half its shortfall two years ago. Wortman
said the Marines Corps has been able to sign up the 38,000 recruits it needs
each year but is challenged to retain those with the unique skills — such as
cyber — because of the higher pay that private industry can offer.

Kumar said MARAD’s problems
in finding and keeping qualified civilian mariners is aggravated by the
shrinking American-flagged commercial fleet and the fact that much of the
government fleet was on standby most of the time, limiting the trained
personnel’s ability to stay current.