WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy may accelerate the training of the crew of the future USS John F. Kennedy on its predecessor, USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s top official said. 

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas J. Modly, speaking Jan. 29 at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank, said the Navy “might want to bring some crew from the Kennedy over to the Ford to help [the Ford] get up to speed more quickly.”  

Modly said he knew from personal experience during his Navy service that shipyard periods can be miserable for a ship’s crew and that some seagoing skills atrophy during long yard periods. 

By having some of the Kennedy’s crew train on the Ford, they could gain valuable training and experience while helping the Ford progress in its certifications and be more ready to take the Kennedy to sea when it is commissioned. In the past, some carriers in yard periods would send a few of their crew to another carrier operating in the area to gain experience. 

The John F. Kennedy was launched last month and is now being outfitted. The carrier is scheduled for delivery to the fleet in 2024. 

Modly took the opportunity to say that the Gerald R. Ford was “doing extremely well” of late. 

He said that probably seven of the ship’s Advanced Weapon Elevators — critical to the ship’s sortie generation rate — would be operational by the end of the year. Four already have been certified.  

The secretary said that one advantage of the far aft position of the island superstructure on the Ford is the decrease in airflow turbulence over the flight deck compared with the Nimitz-class carriers, as reported by the pilots who have been busy certifying the ship’s flight deck.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy’s top official was mum on details of the recently completed Integrated Force Structure Assessment (IFSA), but he said the Navy needs a more distributed fleet to counter peer competitors. 

“There are going to be a lot of new things in this that weren’t in the 2016 Force Structure Assessment,” said acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly, who answered questions from an audience at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank, speaking of the IFSA. “It is a spectacular step forward in thinking about what our force structure should look like.” 

“We’re going to have to build a fleet that is more distributed to support distributed maritime operations,” Modly added. “We’re going to have to build a fleet that has distributed sensor capability … that is less concentrated in its lethality … that per platform is less expansive than it is right now.”  

The acting secretary pointed out that the average cost of a new ship during the build-up to the 600-ship Navy in the 1980s was about $1 billion, whereas the average cost now is $2 billion in constant dollars.  

“It’s just not sustainable anymore,” he said. 

“We have to be in a lot of places at once, and we need to complicate the calculations of our adversaries in the [Pacific] region.” 

He said there are “some platforms that we need to invest in that we currently don’t have. We’ve got to get on with that, both from the research and development side of it, also, perhaps, expanding the size of the industrial base to produce those things.” 

He said the new guided-missile frigate — FFG(X) — “is a critical program for us” in that as a smaller platform it will enable to Navy to be more distributed. 

The Navy is expected to continue to push for new seagoing medium and large unmanned surface vessels, though these are not likely to be included in the Navy’s official count of ships in its battle force — an accounting Modly said he found to be irrelevant, in that counts of ships and unmanned vessels would total the same whether counted together or separately. 

The Navy is going as fast as it can with the funding that is being provided for unmanned ships, he said.  

Modly said the big question for the future fleet is the next aircraft carrier design. The Gerald R. Ford class of carriers currently under construction cost $13 billion per ship, and they are large targets for an adversary — a characteristic he cited as demonstrating the need for more distribution of the fleet, including smaller ships. 

He also pointed out that, by current planning, the Navy will not be able to reach a force level of 12 aircraft carriers until 2065, “[at which point] we will all be dead.” 

The build-up to a 355-ship Navy, as currently codified into federal law, as delineated in a 30-year shipbuilding plan, “needs not to be a 30-year plan, [but] something within the next decade,” he said. “It’s going to require some trades.” 

Modly stressed that the Navy, with its shipbuilding needs, does not want to short-change current readiness, saying, “We don’t want a hollow force.” 

Modly said the Navy’s intention is to continually update the IFSA, pulling in academic thinking and wargaming to validate the assessment.

BOSTON — U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca returned home to Boston on Jan. 28 after a 57-day deployment to the Caribbean Sea, the Coast Guard 1st District said. 

During the patrol, Seneca rescued 187 Haitian Migrants, conducted countless hours of training exercises with Coast Guard Air Stations Jacksonville and Clearwater and spent several weeks as a law enforcement presence in the southern Caribbean aided by Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron Jacksonville. 

In late December, the Seneca crew intercepted an overloaded Haitian sail freighter. Coordinating a joint response with the Turks and Cacaos Royal Police, the two agencies rescued all 187 Haitian nationals from the vessel. 

“I am exceptionally proud of this crew and their success and achievements,” said Cmdr. John Christensen, commanding officer of the Seneca. 

“Over the course of the last two months, they persevered through the challenges of conducting operations at sea, put aside their personal sacrifices, particularly throughout the holiday season, and displayed an unwavering commitment to serving the United States and our partner nations throughout the Caribbean Sea.” 

Coast Guard Cutter Seneca is a 270-foot medium-endurance cutter with a crew of 100. Seneca missions include counter-narcotics, migrant interdiction, search and rescue and living marine resource operations from the Gulf of Maine to the Pacific Ocean. The cutter was commissioned in 1987.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy MH-60S Seahawk helicopter lost in the Philippine Sea on Jan. 25 is the first loss of a Navy aircraft in calendar 2020 and possibly fiscal 2020 as well. 

The MH-60S, assigned to the command ship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) with a detachment from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 12, crashed into the Philippine Sea on while operating from the Blue Ridge. 

The five personnel on board were rescued by a UH-60 of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and another MH-60S from the Blue Ridge. The rescued personnel were evaluated as in stable condition, the U.S. 7th Fleet said.  

The loss is the first confirmed loss since July 31, according to an unofficial list, when an F/A-18E Super Hornet strike fighter collided with a canyon wall during a low-level flight over Nevada. 

An RQ-4A Global Hawk was damaged on Nov. 26 by a foreign object during a takeoff from an airfield in the Middle East, according the U.S. 5th Fleet. It is not yet known if the mishap resulted or will result in a write-off of the aircraft.

McLean, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC Pacific), in partnership with the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), has awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a $178 million contract to provide technical engineering services toward the modernization of advanced GPS systems, the company said in a release.  

The NIWC Pacific Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Division is the Navy’s principal research and development center for navigation sensors and systems. SMC is the center of technical excellence for developing, acquiring, fielding and sustaining resilient and affordable military space systems. 

By executing this contract, Booz Allen will continue to serve as a key mission partner for NIWC Pacific and SMC on the important endeavor of modernizing PNT systems for U.S. and allied warfighters. 

Booz Allen will provide a range of essential services, including system definition, requirements synchronization, capability improvement, cybersecurity engineering, platform integration and testing and acquisition program management. Specifically, Booz Allen’s work will aid in the development and modernization of GPS systems through major programs such as Military GPS User Equipment, GPS III and Next Generation Operational Control System. 

“Booz Allen’s robust track record of work in both systems engineering and cybersecurity continues to inspire trust from our clients,” Vice President Brian Zimmermann said. “Our deep bench of leaders and technical experts reassures our clients that no project is too big or too complex. It’s our privilege to help the Navy and Air Force modernize GPS systems that are so vital to the security of our nation.” 

TYSONS CORNER, Va. — With strategic adversaries like Russia
and China catching up technologically, the United States will need to rely on “intellectual
ability” to maintain a competitive military advantage, according to acting Navy
Secretary Thomas Modly.

The technological gap is only going to grow in the rising ‘great
power competition,’ Modly told a gathering of defense industry executives here.
“You all see this because your companies are getting ripped off by the Chinese
and others. They’re pulling that technology and they’re quickly putting it into
systems that will compete with us,” he said.

The best way to maintain “our enduring competitive advantage in an environment like that is going to be our intellectual ability — to think, to be agile thinkers,” Modly told the audience at a National Defense Industry Association-sponsored discussion hosted by government consultants LMI.

A growing need for Sailors, Marines and civilian workers who
could think strategically and adapt quickly was revealed by the Navy’s
Education for Seapower study, leading to the Navy decision to ramp up and
prioritize education as a strategic enabler.

Joining Modly on the panel, John Kroger, the department’s
first chief learning officer, enumerated changes to enhance and encourage
educational opportunities and more fully integrate the Navy and Marine Corps.
Kroger, a Yale-educated academic and Harvard-trained lawyer who enlisted in the
U.S. Marine Corps at age 17, said it would be “a transformational thing for our
force if we can get education right.”

The first job, he said, would be creating a Naval Community
College to provide technology education beyond traditional military and naval skills.
Kroger said the school will be based in Quantico, Virginia, close to the Marine
Corps base housing the Marine Corps University, Marine Corps War College and
numerous schools, including Command and Staff, Officer Candidate and Basic
schools.

Interviews to select the new school’s president and provost
are underway, Kroger said, adding that he hoped to have the first students
enrolled by June 2021. The curriculum would include both residential and online
classes. Kroger said he and his staff consulted with the U.S. Army and Air
Force, which have outpaced the Navy in developing new education programs.

Currently, the Community College of the Air Force is the
only degree-granting institution of higher learning in the world dedicated
exclusively to enlisted personnel. It offers enlisted airmen the opportunity to
earn a two-year associate in applied science degree.

Kroger said it would be prohibitively expensive to educate 40,000 to 50,000 students a year at a brick-and-mortar school. But the revolution in education — that includes distance learning and minimal in-person residency like executive education programs conducted at many university business schools — makes such a sweeping goal possible.

The Navy Department announced plans in December 2019 to add more than $300 million to its spending on education over the next five years, starting with $109 million shifted to learning initiatives in fiscal year 2020. The Education for Seapower initiative also calls for creating a new unifying Naval University System to strengthen existing Navy and Marine Corps educational institutions and align strategic needs and increase agility.

SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Coast Guard and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego launched the Blue Technology Center of Expertise on the Scripps Oceanography campus with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and expo on Jan. 24, the Coast Guard 11th District said in a release. 

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.); Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.); Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.); UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla; Port of San Diego Commissioner Marshall Merrifield; and Coast Guard Deputy Commandant for Mission Support Vice Adm. Michael F. McAllister spoke at the event to celebrate the partnership between Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Coast Guard.  

“The Blue Technology Center of Expertise will better connect the Coast Guard with the tremendous government, academic and industry innovation ecosystem in the San Diego area,” McAllister said. “It will create a unique pipeline for the rapid identification and implementation of new maritime technologies into critical Coast Guard operations around the globe.” 

Blue technology is any technology, system or platform designed for use above, on or below the surface of the ocean that can support or facilitate Coast Guard maritime domain awareness, search and rescue, emergency response, maritime law enforcement, marine inspections and investigations. The Coast Guard was authorized to establish the Blue Technology COE by the 2018 Save Our Seas Act. 

A COE is a group of people from different disciplines who work together to increase performance and efficiency in certain areas. The Blue Technology COE will enable sharing of information between the Coast Guard and the private sector, other federal agencies, academia and nonprofit organizations. 

Scripps Institution of Oceanography is a leading center for marine research and education, with an emphasis on innovation dating back to World War II. The institution is home to significant programs such as the Coastal Data Information Program, an extensive network for monitoring waves and beaches along the U.S. coastlines, and HF-Radar Network, a near real-time ocean surface current measurement network of shore-based radar systems.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations, with this initial deployment marking the achievement of early operational capability (EOC), the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a release. 

Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP) 19, the Navy’s first Triton UAS squadron, deployed two MQ-4Cs to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, by Jan. 26 “as part of an [EOC] to further develop the concept of operations and fleet learning associated with operating a high-altitude, long-endurance system in the maritime domain,” the Pacific Fleet release said. 

VUP-19 is headquartered at Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville, Florida, but its Tritons are based at NAS Point Mugu, California. While deployed to Guam the Tritons will be under operational control of commander, Task Force 72, which also controls the operations of the Navy’s P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and EP-3E Orion electronic reconnaissance aircraft in the western Pacific.  

The Triton eventually will achieve initial operational capability when a total of four MQ-4Cs are deployed to a single site to establish a 24/7 orbit over the western Pacific area of operations. 

“The introduction of MQ-4C Triton to the 7th Fleet area of operations expands the reach of the U.S. Navy’s maritime patrol and reconnaissance force in the Western Pacific,” Capt. Matt Rutherford, commander of CTF-72, said in the release. “Coupling the capabilities of the MQ-4C with the proven performance of P-8, P-3 and EP-3 will enable improved maritime domain awareness in support of regional and national security objectives.” 

“The Navy’s Persistent Maritime UAS program office at Patuxent River, managed by Capt. Dan Mackin, and industry partner Northrop Grumman, worked closely with VUP-19 in preparation for EOC,” the release said. 

“Prior to flying the aircraft to Guam, the team completed extensive operational test and unit level training. This significant milestone marks the culmination of years of hard work by the joint team to prepare Triton for overseas operations. The fielding of the Navy’s premier unmanned aircraft system and its additive, persistent, multi-sensor data collection and real-time dissemination capability will revolutionize the way maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance is performed.” 

Rear Adm. Peter Garvin, commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, said in the release: “The inaugural deployment of Triton UAS brings enhanced capabilities and a broad increase in maritime domain awareness to our forward fleet commanders. VUP-19, the Navy’s first dedicated UAS squadron supported by an outstanding NAVAIR and industry team, is superbly trained and ready to provide the persistent ISR coverage the Navy needs.”

TYSONS CORNER, Va. — The Department of the Navy has a
security problem, and it’s embedded in the institutional culture, according to
the Navy’s top informational technology executive.

“We are losing the Department of Navy’s information every
day. And we’re losing it directly through our supply chain. Our adversaries are
literally screening our plans and using them against us every day. And it’s got
to stop,” Chief Information Officer Aaron Weiss told a meeting here of industry
and department leadership on Jan. 24.

“We have a culture of compliance when it comes to security,”
said Weiss, who became CIO in September. That culture leads people to say, ‘If
I do the checklist and I do all the right things and I wait a year, then
someone will give me a stamp that says I have authority to operate and I am
secure,’” Weiss said.

“Well, you might have been secure at that moment you filled
out the checklist, but time marched on,” he said. “The adversaries’ capability has
moved on. You’re no longer secure.”

Security has to become a “constant of state of readiness,”
Weiss maintained. Both the department and industry have to move “from security
by compliance to security as a state of being, and it has to be a part of
everything we do both inside the Department of the Navy and in our supply chain,”
said Weiss, who joined acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly and the Navy’s first chief
learning officer, John Kroger, for a breakfast meeting to discuss technology
and education with executives hosted by the National Defense Industry
Association.

Coming to the Navy after more than 30 years in the private
sector and a stint as senior advisor to the Defense Department’s CIO, Weiss said
he was shocked by the difference in the day-to-day technology available to the
Navy compared to the private sector.

“What we provide to Sailors, Marines and civilians is about
15 years behind where private industry is,” said Weiss, noting he faces a huge
task to bring the Navy Department’s infrastructure capability up to parity with
industry.

“We’re not doing that today. We’re providing data. Data without context is not usable information. We’re providing steams of data that we expect our Sailors and Marines to integrate, create context and make usable so that they can decide and act. But we’re not arming them with the information that they need.”

Weiss conceded that changing a culture would be a heavy lift, but coming back to security, he added “there’s very little value in a modernized infrastructure driving innovation if we’re letting the good stuff walk out the back door.”

As the last commanding officer of the USS Pittsburgh said
Jan. 17, “the old must be replaced by the new.” And with that salutation, the
crew of the Los Angeles fast-attack submarine, past commanding officers, Navy
League members and supporters bid farewell to the boat during its inactivation
ceremony at the U.S. Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington.

The USS Pittsburgh Relief Crew under the auspices of the
Pittsburgh Council has provided significant support to the submarine over its
35 years of active service. Though the boat, named for the city in
Pennsylvania, has been deactivated, a scholarship sponsored by the council for
current or past crew members and dependents of the sub will live indefinitely
at the Pittsburgh Foundation, a Pittsburgh metropolitan area philanthropy
organization.

The ceremony was the crew’s final event before their ship
is decommissioned and stored at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton,
Washington.

“The backbone of any crew, of any service member, is the
family that supports them at home,” said Jason Deichler, the 14th and final
commanding officer of the USS Pittsburgh, who himself is a Pittsburgh native.

“To the families of current and crewmembers here today,
thank you. The power of your faces, smiles, family grams, small tokens and love
enable the strength required for the impossible tasks we ask the crew to
perform. It is what sets us apart in many ways from the armed services of other
nations. We know the faces of our family, and we work to truly honor them.”

Carol H. Sawyer, a professor of organizational leadership
at University of La Verne, California, also spoke of what it’s meant for her to
have been the submarine’s sponsor and a part of the Pittsburgh family since the
ship’s commissioning in December 1984.

“It means that every day for 35 years, I have embodied
the gratitude of the American people. In my very person, in who I am, I have
literally lived our gratitude for the commitment, the service, the
professionalism, the sacrifice and the patriotism that I have witnessed,”
Sawyer said.

Rear Adm. Douglas Perry, commander of Submarine Group 9,
and a prior crew member aboard Pittsburgh, served as the ceremony’s guest
speaker.

Pittsburgh completed its
last deployment on Feb. 25, 2019. Then the boat and her crew made their first
arctic transit for a final homeport change from Groton, Connecticut, to
Bremerton, arriving on May 28 to begin the inactivation and decommissioning
process. Pittsburgh is the fourth U.S. Navy vessel to be named for the city of
Pittsburgh.