ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy’s top officer has described what he sees the U.S. Fleet will look like in 2025, a benchmark which he says the Navy will have made investments so that the fleet will have made notable strides with fielding increased combat capability.

CNO Adm. Michael Gilday, speaking in a prerecorded webinar of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Prequel, listed some of the major platforms and weapons that will make the fleet more capable by 2025:

Under the sea:

• “All of our Block III and IV [Virginia-class attack submarines] should be delivered by 2025 with an undersea weapon that is more lethal and has greater range.”

On the sea:

• “We [will be] just on the cusp of delivering our first Constellation-class frigate.”
• “We will be delivering the [Arleigh Burke-class] Flight III DDGs in earnest.”
• “We are investing in a longer-range weapon, the Maritime Strike Tomahawk that gives us range and speed to reach out and touch an adversary.”
• “We believe that we will be delivering the Zumwalt-class destroyers with a hypersonic missile capability.”

In the air:

• “We’ll have half of our [carrier] air wings [with] a fourth- and fifth-generation mix [of strike fighters], which analysis has shown to be quite effective against our adversaries. Tied in with that is a longer-range air-to-surface missile that gives us greater reach and greater punch.”
• “Our P-8s [maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft] we are investing in with an upgrade.”

“All of that is coming into play by 2025,” the admiral noted. “So, we do have an investment strategy that incrementally gets us to a more capable, lethal fleet — not necessarily a bigger fleet — unless we saw a rise in the [budget] topline.”

CHANTILLY, Va., July 21, 2021 — VTG has been selected by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, to equip more ships in the U.S. fleet with an innovative laser designed to counter threats from unmanned aerial systems.

Under the prime, single-award contract, VTG will install and integrate the AN/SEQ-4 Optical Dazzler Interdictor, Navy (ODIN), a directed energy weapon, aboard five U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

“Our team is honored to support NSWC-PHD in integrating this innovative defensive technology into the fleet. The ODIN laser represents a significant advancement for the Navy in addressing asymmetric threats and protecting our sailors,” said John Hassoun, VTG president and CEO. “Delivering next-generation capabilities to our warfighters is something we’re passionate about. VTG’s depth of expertise with ODIN, together with our skilled fleet modernization team, cutting-edge manufacturing and prototyping capabilities, and long-term legacy of support to the Navy, makes us uniquely qualified to perform this mission critical work.”

In 2020, VTG successfully integrated the ODIN laser aboard the USS Stockdale (DDG 106) and USS Spruance (DDG 111) through a separate sole-source contract, completing both projects on time and on budget, and setting the standard for future directed energy weapon installations aboard U.S. Navy ships.

ODIN is used to counter adversary UAS-mounted intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. This laser for the optical dazzling of adversaries’ long-range and very long-range surveillance systems is being developed and built by the government at NSWC Dahlgren Division, and rapidly fielded to meet an urgent fleet need. The ODIN laser will be employed on surface combatants to counter asymmetric threats and to provide a scalable response for escalation of force.

Over the past decade, VTG has modernized 240 different surface ships, aircraft carriers and submarines. With a record of exceptional quality, uncompromising safety, and on-time and on-budget delivery, VTG ensures that our sailors have a competitive advantage over near-peer adversaries now and in the future. 

WASHINGTON — The Navy’s expansion to a larger fleet is hampered not only by the flat topline of the fiscal 2022 budget but also inflation in the costs and complexity of shipbuilding, a senior Navy admiral said.  

As the Navy works to tailor its battle fleet to meet the challenges of the era of great power competition and divest some platforms that are aging out or needed less in terms of priorities, it also faces costs exceeding inflation that put pressure on the shipbuilding budget.    

While the U.S. Navy proposes retirement of 15 battle force ships in fiscal 2022, it proposes to fund only eight battle force ships in that year, a setback in terms of growing the fleet to a congressionally mandated level of 355 ships.  

“What we’ve seen over the last 10 or 11 years is essentially a flat budget, said Vice Adm. Randy Crites, deputy chief of naval operations for Integration of Capabilities and Resources, testifying July 21 during a hearing of the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We have not kept pace with inflation. Back in 2010 we had about 280 battle force ships. We declined as we went through sequestration down to 271 and we built our way out of that up to about 297 today. That occurred as a result of a number of reform efforts and divestitures that we did inside the service.  

“That challenge that we’re facing now is that the good ideas, the [divestiture of] things that we don’t need to bring to the future fight, we’re starting to run out of that,” Crites said. “So, we’re challenged as we see labor costs far exceeding inflation; the cost and complexity of the work we’re trying to do; and materials we’re trying to buy all outpacing inflation. Yet we need to balance within the program that we have.” 

Crites said the Navy’s current priorities have not changed.  

“The No.1 priority is to bring in Columbia [ballistic-missile submarine. No. 2 is to ensure that we have a ready force; No. 3 is to make sure that we’re bringing the capabilities that we need; and No. 4 has been capacity that we can afford,” he said. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) could be ratified by the U.S. Senate if a few objections were addressed, a naval analyst said.

Speaking 20 July in a webinar of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Prequel, Marine Corps Col. James McGinley, a retired naval aviator and a lawyer, said that the UNCLOS could be challenged on constitutional grounds that it could negate the right of the U.S Senate to provide “advice and consent.”

The UNCLOS, signed by 168 nations, governs a wide array of maritime issues including economic, military, commerce, mining interests. It has yet to be ratified by the Senate, where it last was given a hearing in 2012. 

“The United States was a huge part of the formation of UNCLOS back in the ‘80s,” he said. “The United States signed [in 1994] but did not ratify,” said retired Adm. Jonathan Greenert, former chief of naval operations, also speaking in the webinar.

Speaking of the example of Arctic energy exploration and seabed mining, retired Adm. Paul Zukunft, former commandant of the Coast Guard, said during the webinar, “We have a right to this, yet we haven’t signed onto the ground rules to lay claim what is rightfully ours.”

Zukunft also pointed to the absurdity of the Chinese “Nine-Dash Line,” which the Chinese Communist Party uses to claim most of the South China Sea as its territorial waters.

“If you use that same [justification], then Denmark and Leif Ericsson should probably claim the United States EEZ [Exclusive Economic Zone],” Zukunft said. “We don’t have a voice at that forum because we have not ratified the Law of the Sea convention. We’re trying to resolve this with Freedom of Navigation [FON] exercises but at the end of the day, the fact that we don’t have a voice at the table for this aspect of maritime governance, all we can do is sit back and watch, and try to counterbalance using economic or military leverage to correct that behavior.”

The admiral said the Coast Guard has 65 bilateral agreements with other nations “that allow us to board vessels of those signatory nations — whether it’s a fishing violation, [an] encounter [with] drug movement, or even the potential of a weapon of mass destruction in the maritime domain — [the Coast Guard is authorized to] stop, apprehend, search those vessels on behalf of those flag nations.” 

FON “doesn’t represent a policy,” Greenert said.  “It is nothing more than a statement by us concerning free passage in certain straits or waters of the world.

“What’s happening right now is China is showing some real mischief and it goes beyond some of the seabed issues and Nine Dash Line issues,” he said. “China is starting to reinterpret UNCLOS. They’re pushing things around within the convention. Frankly, in my view, they need to be confronting by another leader. For example, China is working to change the definition of ‘high sea’ to their advantage. China is working to put the [EEZs] per UNCLOS to be controlled by the littoral nation. They have 28 land-locked countries in the United Nations on board in this endeavor.”

Greenert said that if this provision were adopted, military operations would need permission of the littoral nation.

McGinley spoke about the legal logjam of UNCLOS in the U.S. Senate.

“As it exists today, there has been such consistent resistance to ratification,” he said. “We’re now pushing half century. A lot of the original thinking on this was in 1956. There are parts of [UNCLOS] that are extraordinarily helpful to the U.S. and to our interests, but I worry that the poison pills that are buried in this thing — over 208 pages — are enough to keep us from success.”

McGinley suggested two approaches to achieve ratification.

“One would be a hard pivot and talk to the key opposition folks in the Senate and say, ‘Here’s what we need. What works for you?’ and then start with a fresh piece of paper with regard to — not to the entire globe — but to the key maritime partners as well as some of the other maritime nations we think would be most important to success,” he said.

“A second would be to take a radically different approach in the Senate,” he continued. “Part of the problem is Articles 309 and 310. The Constitution’s Article 2 Section 2 gives us advice and consent for our Senate. Part of what happens under the RUDS [Reservations, Understandings and Declarations] in any treaty is the ability for our Senate to say, ‘When we look at these words, we understand to mean this. Here is a statement of what we agree to,’ or, ‘here are our reservations; we don’t agree to these particular articles, but we do agree to these other articles.’”

McGinley explained the poison pills in the treaty.  

“This is an odd treaty in that it purports to take away the constitutional right of the U.S. Senate to provide its advice and consent. … It is so significant that a ratification could actually face a successful constitutional challenge,” he said. “A fresh piece of paper would go beyond that, but if the Senate wanted to go forward with it, they ought to do it very publicly … that we are specifically rebuking 309 and 310, and then take a very tight look at Article 82 — which is a real significant transfer of the American families’ money — and also look at Article 144 — which is a straight-up transfer of technology. Almost all of this was negotiated at a time when we did not have the technological capability, so when those pills were put in, they were thought of as worthless and so far in the future it wouldn’t matter. Now those are real, and they are significant. They’re part of what makes this treaty harder to pass with each passing year.”

McGinley explained why the United States has been able to set a good example despite lack of ratification.

“My hat is off to the [U.S.] Navy, which I’ve watched out in the 5th Fleet with extraordinary seamanship,” he said. “It is that professionalism that has developed international customary law to the point that, even though we are not parties to this treaty, we actually exemplify — through our own conduct, and over time we have developed — norms.”

McGinley noted that in 2016 China said it would ignore binding arbitration from the verdicts from the court of arbitration about one of the islands in the South China Sea.  

“It’s as if they have never signed the treaty,” he said. “So, it comes down to non-parties behaving as if they were parties and parties behaving as if they had never signed it. … The U.S. Navy’s professionalism still sets the standard and is developing navigational norms and customary international law as a result of their professionalism.”

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Teledyne Technologies Inc.’s subsidiary, Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc., has been awarded an indefinite-quantity/indefinite-delivery contract with a maximum base value of $27.4 million from the U.S. Navy for the Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Glider (LBS-G) program, the company said in a July 19 release. 

The contract, awarded under full and open competition, includes a single five-year ordering period and five one-year option periods. The option periods, if exercised, have a ceiling value of $39.2 million. 

Teledyne Slocum gliders are long-endurance, buoyancy-driven autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that provide a highly persistent means to sample and characterize the ocean water column properties. They can do this at spatial and temporal resolutions not possible using other vessels or tactical units alone. The AUVs host a range of oceanographic sensors to support antisubmarine warfare, mine countermeasures and Naval Special Warfare mission areas. 

Teledyne Brown Engineering and sister company, Teledyne Webb Research, will perform the design, development, fabrication, production, test, and support of the LBS-G systems. Under a previous contract awarded in 2009, Teledyne delivered 203 gliders to the U.S. Navy. 

“We are pleased to announce the continuation of Teledyne’s successful partnership with the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command to deliver this capability,” stated Jan Hess, president of Teledyne’s Engineered System Segment and Teledyne Brown Engineering. “We look forward to supporting the Navy and assisting with its awareness and understanding of the ocean’s conditions.” 

Teledyne Slocum gliders provide the U.S. Navy the capability to conduct persistent sampling of large ocean areas for long periods of time. They also allow focused sampling to obtain extremely high-resolution data within a smaller, tactically significant operating area. The LBS-G System, part of the LBS Unmanned Undersea Vehicles program, is part of a solution to close critical capability gaps allowing the U.S. Navy to characterize adequately and persistently the physical ocean environment on tactical and strategic scales in a battlespace. 

Top officials from several allied navies said cooperation and collaboration is one key way to bolster their capability in tough budget times.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Francis D. Morley, director of the Navy International Programs Office, led a Sea-Air-Space 2021 Prequel virtual session in July with international heads of navy, including speakers from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain and Japan.

Vice Adm. Nick Hine, second Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, said where possible, allies should move beyond interoperability and embrace interchangeability.

That is “not about individual naval units working together operationally, indeed tactically, but a strategic conversation about how we consider our entire approach to collaboration. This is about using our collective resource better to be more productive and deliver better security outcomes,” Hine said. “We have started that journey, but to be truly interchangeable with our allies, we must align strategic visions, cohere our planning and resources, jointly plan and execute operationally and technically, not only acting together but acting as one.”

That could include common doctrines, systems architecture, supply chains, data sharing as well as “common platforms and weapon systems that can be jointly developed and delivered to sovereign units,” he said.

As an example, he cited the U.K.’s Carrier Strike Group 21, led by the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, that has U.S. Marine Corps, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force F-35 pilots “flying and fighting together,” as the recently did in strikes against Daesh, the terrorist group also known as ISIS.

Another example he cited is the London Tech Bridge, an incubator which highlights American and British technology and rapidly exploits it.

“Even if we are unable to achieved interchangeability in full, the ambition and the drive towards it will strengthen interoperability between allied navies,” Hine said.

Rear Adm. Ignacio Villanueva Serrano, force commander of the Spanish navy, said a medium-sized navy such as his own needs to enhance several capabilities to stay relevant, including leveraging space as an extension of the air and sea, new “connectors and vectors for seapower projection” and unmanned systems, all of which, “one way or another, will be required in the new security and defense environment.”

Serrano and Hine both noted that technology is becoming more widely available across the board, to large navies and small actors alike.

The current environment is “marked by a struggle for technological superiority and easy access by all to emerging and advanced technologies, where it can be difficult to gain advantage in direct confrontation,” Serrano said. “In this context, the use of hybrid strategies will prevail and opposing actors will try to act at the limit of international legality, covered by fake news to manipulate public opinion and provoking critical doubts on the use of all military forces and capability.”

Navies such as those of Spain and Sweden need to modernize and beef up their capabilities, said Serrano and Rear Adm. Ewa Skoog Haslum, chief of navy for the Swedish Navy, the first woman to lead a branch of the country’s armed forces.

“Interoperability requires us to find both technology solutions and the continued develop of sharing recognized maritime picture with our different partners,” she said. “Together, we are not only stronger, but better.”

She cited the recent Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) exercise, which celebrated its 50^th anniversary this year and included 16 NATO nations and two partner nations, including Sweden.

Sweden is embarking on a military buildup that will see mid-life updates on corvettes, including adding electronic warfare suites and air defense missiles, four new surface combatants, with two arriving by 2030, operationalizing a fifth new submarine and re-establishing a marine regiment on the country’s west coast, among other changes.

Next year will mark the 500^th birthday of the Royal Swedish Navy, she noted, and a new defense resolution gives a clear growth goal for 2025 and beyond, “and we are now eager to grow.”

Spain wants to lean in to new credible landing forces and littoral strike capabilities, Serrano said, using short takeoff and landing aircraft and small landing platforms, as well as underwater vehicles for mine detection and unmanned surface vehicles for force protection.

“In our navy, we are aiming for those systems and concepts,” he said.

In a pre-taped segment, Adm. Hiroshi Yamamura, chief of staff of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense, said the Indo-Pacific region is “vitally important for our security.” To that end, the Japanese defense ministry recently unveiled a “free and open Indo-Pacific vision” to enforce regional prosperity and security in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

It would do this through defense cooperation and exchange activities and through active engagement in the region in cooperation with partner countries, Yamamura said.

Yamamura noted the many challenges in the region, from more assertive and aggressive actions by China and Russia to ongoing tensions in the Middle East to a “still unpredictable” North Korea.

As an “overreaching capability” to help counter these threats and defend Japan’s surrounding waters and territories, Yamamura said Japan will bolster its information warfare capability and its strategic communications.

“I am confident that the backbone of global security is to maintain the international maritime order of the world,” he said. “Cooperation and exchanges with neighbor partners are more effective that promoting efforts on our own.”

ARLINGTON, Va.—The U.S. Navy’s 2022 budget proposal to decommission seven guided-missile cruisers is not just based on the age and material condition of the ships. According to the chief of naval operations (CNO), the lethality of the cruisers’ combat system is lagging behind the developing threat capabilities.

CNO Adm. Michael Gilday, speaking in a prerecorded webinar of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Prequel, noted that the seven Ticonderoga-class cruisers are equipped with the SPY-1A or early SPY-1B radars, which are the oldest radars that are the main sensor of the Aegis Combat System. The SPY-1A is an analog system, increasingly anachronistic in the Digital Age.

The radars “are approaching obsolescence … and they have difficulty actually seeing the threat, based on the speed and the profiles that we see threat missiles flying at these days.”

Gilday said the cost to own and operate the seven CGs over the five-year Future Years Defense Plan would come to $5 billion.

“These ships on average right now are 32 years old,” he said. “We are seeing cracks. We are seeing challenges in the material condition of these ships that are, to a certain degree, unpredictable. So, they’re ‘unknown unknown.’ When we tried to deploy a ship most recently [USS Vella Gulf] and had to bring it back twice because of fuel tank cracks, is an example of something we just couldn’t predict that we have to react to, and it does have an impact on reliability. We need to be able to provide the secretary of defense reliable assets that they can count on to do the nation’s business.”

The CNO said the above factors “really came into play from a realistic standpoint in terms of making the argument for the best of those cruisers. The cost alone with respect to cruiser modernization is running tens of millions of dollars above what we had originally estimated, largely due to the unknowns that come into play with hulls that are over three decades old.”

The seven cruisers marked for decommissioning are USS San Jacinto (CG 56), USS Lake Champlain (CG 57), USS Monterey (CG 61), USS Hue City (CG 66), USS Anzio (CG 68), USS Vella Gulf (CG 72), and USS Port Royal (CG 73).

SEATTLE — The Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) departed Seattle on Saturday, July 10, for a months-long Arctic deployment and circumnavigation of North America, the Coast Guard Pacific Ares said in a July 16 release. 

The crew aboard Healy, a 420-foot medium icebreaker, will provide U.S. surface presence in the Arctic, conduct high latitude science and research missions, engage in exercises and professional exchanges with foreign navies and patrols, and conduct other operations as directed throughout the deployment. 

Healy is scheduled to circumnavigate North America via the Northwest Passage and the Panama Canal. Healy’s deployment supports the Coast Guard’s Arctic Strategy while providing critical training opportunities for polar sailors and future operations in the Arctic. 

The crew will promote U.S. interests along the U.S. and Russia maritime boundary line. 

“Healy’s deployment provides opportunities to deepen the Coast Guard’s cooperation and commitment with our Arctic allies and partners and to support scientific exploration to increase understanding of the changing Arctic environment and associated impacts,” said Coast Guard Pacific Area Commander Vice Adm. Michael McAllister. 

The Healy deploys annually to the Arctic to support multiple science missions and Operation Arctic Shield, the service’s annual operation to execute U.S. Coast Guard missions, enhance maritime domain awareness, strengthen partnerships, and build preparedness, prevention, and response capabilities across the Arctic domain. 

Commissioned in 1999, Healy is one of two active polar icebreakers in the Coast Guard’s fleet. The Seattle-based Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) is a heavy polar icebreaker commissioned in 1976. 

The U.S. Coast Guard is recapitalizing its polar icebreaker fleet to ensure continued access to the polar regions and to protect the country’s economic, commercial, environmental, and national security interests.  The Polar Security Cutter is still in the design phase, and Halter Marine is working toward completing the necessary work to begin construction on this incredibly complex, state-of-the-art icebreaker. The contract delivery date for the first Polar Security Cutter is 2024. 

CRESTVIEW, Fla. — Bell Textron Inc., a Textron Inc. company, has restarted UH-1Y Venom helicopter production for the first international operator. Crestview Aerospace has completed manufacturing the first of eight cabins at the Crestview Florida facility. The aircraft will complete final assembly at the Bell Amarillo Assembly Center.

The helicopters are part of the 2020 U.S. Department of Defense contract awarded to Bell for the production and delivery of eight UH-1Y and four AH-1Z helicopters for the government of the Czech Republic.  

“Crestview Aerospace is honored and grateful for the opportunity to team with Bell on the continued production of the UH-1Y cabin for the first international customer,” said Paul Kohlmeier, senior vice president, Strategy and Business Development, Crestview Aerospace. “Crestview continues to build in the same high quality and reliability into the international Venom helicopters that underpin the aircraft currently operated by the United States Marine Corps around the world.” 

Bell delivered the final UH-1Y for the U.S. Marine Corps program of record in April 2018 and has continued to produce and deliver the AH-1Z as part of the H-1 production contract for 349 H-1 aircraft, consisting of 160 UH-1Y and 189 AH-1Z.  

The UH-1Y shares 85 percent commonality of parts with the AH-1Z. The commonality between the aircraft enabled critical component supply chains to remain active during AH-1Z production for the USMC.  

“Time, logistics, and man-hours are all strategic resources,” said Mike Deslatte, vice president and H-1 program director, Bell. “Commonality helps ensure everything between the Viper and Venom, from manufacturing, maintenance, and upgrades, remains seamless while simultaneously providing lower program and life cycle costs. It’s a real tactical advantage on multiple levels.”  

The UH-1Y and AH-1Z share the same engines, integrated mission system and dynamic components, such as the four-bladed rotor system. Both aircraft are specifically designed and produced for expeditionary operations. Together, they provide a full spectrum of military operations, unlike any other helicopter duo. 

Bell anticipates production for the Marine Corps through early 2022, followed by continued production for foreign military customers. Bell has two signed Foreign Military Sales cases in production, Bahrain and the Czech Republic.  

NAVAL AIR STATION FALLON, Nev. — A Navy MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter crashed near Mt. Hogue, California, at approximately 5 p.m. on July 16, while conducting search and rescue (SAR) operations, the Navy said in a July 17 release. All four crewmembers survived the crash without injury and have been safely recovered. 

The aircraft, call sign Longhorn 02, was supporting Mono County search and rescue efforts to locate a lost hiker in the rugged high-altitude terrain in the National Forest south of Boundary Peak, 120 miles south of NAS Fallon. The aircrew consists of four personnel — a pilot, co-pilot, and two crewmen. 

The crash site is at 11,700 feet above sea level, in very rugged terrain. The crew were able to communicate following the impact, but a follow-on helicopter mission launched on the evening on July 16 from NAS Fallon was unable to retrieve them. An overnight kit was dropped to the survivors, who spent the night on mountain. 

On the morning of July 17, an additional MH-60S, Longhorn 01, launched from NAS Fallon, and provided on-scene coordination, but could not affect a rescue. A CH-47 Chinook from Mather Air Force Base was called in for its superior high-altitude performance characteristics. It dropped off a ground SAR team that met up with the survivors while the CH-47 returned to Mammoth Lakes for fuel. The Chinook returned to the scene, and at approximately 2 p.m., the crew of Longhorn 02 was safely recovered aboard the CH-47. 

All military support for civil mutual aid SAR missions are coordinated by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. Pursuant to the National SAR Plan of the United States, military aircraft may also be used for civil SAR/medevac needs to the fullest extent practicable on a non-interference basis with primary military duties according to applicable national directives, plans, guidelines and agreements. 

The cause of the crash is unknown. The Navy will conduct a mishap investigation, with support from the Naval Safety Center. Following the on-site investigation, the aircraft will be removed from its current position on U.S. Forest Service land.