NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO — The next ship to be commissioned and carry the Kansas City name arrived at its homeport in San Diego on May 24, the commander of Littoral Combat Ship Squadron 1 said in a release.  

The future USS Kansas City arrived for the first time at Naval Base San Diego, where the U.S. Navy will commission the Independence-variant littoral combat ship on June 20. 

See: USS Oakland Completes Acceptance Trials

“I am extremely proud of all the hard work the crew has done to complete the sail around and prepare us to officially join the fleet on commissioning day,” said Cmdr. RJ Zamberlan, Kansas City’s commanding officer. “We are honored and excited to represent the Navy, the nation and our namesake as well as to fulfill the ship’s motto, ‘United We Stand, Divided We Fall.’”  

Kansas City will be homeported in San Diego with sister ships USS Independence, USS Coronado, USS Jackson, USS Montgomery, USS Gabrielle Giffords, USS Omaha, USS Manchester, USS Tulsa, USS Charleston and USS Cincinnati. 

“The arrival of the Kansas City here today is exciting and the crew has worked incredibly hard to get to this point,” said Capt. Matthew McGonigle, commodore of Littoral Combat Ship Squadron 1. “We look forward to ‘bringing the ship to life’ next month on the day of commissioning.” 

Kansas City was built in Mobile, Alabama, by Austal USA in conjunction with General Dynamics. Prior to departing Mobile for San Diego, Kansas City’s crew conducted a 21-day restriction in movement in accordance with U.S. Navy pre-deployment guidelines because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Kansas City is the 21st LCS to be delivered to the Navy, and the 11th of the Independence-variant to join the fleet. The KC is the second ship to be named for the largest city in Missouri. The name was assigned to a heavy cruiser during World War II. However, construction was canceled after one month due to the end of the war.

The name Kansas City was also assigned to the Wichita-class replenishment oiler AOR 3 in 1967. This ship saw service during the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm and was decommissioned in 1994.

ARLINGTON, Va. — BAE Systems has expanded its capacity to manufacture its Riptide family of autonomous unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) a year after the company acquired Riptide Autonomous Systems. The company also has been integrating its sensor packages on the UUVs.  

BAE has built a new manufacturing facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a “multimillion dollar state-of-the-art prototype and production site … that greatly increases capacity for both vehicle development and personnel focused on the Riptide product line,” the company said in a release.   

The Riptide UUVs are used by the U.S. Navy and other government agencies, said Dr. John Hogan, director of the Sensor Processing and Exploitation group at BAE Systems, in an interview with Seapower. He was not at liberty to discuss the customers’ use in any detail.  

The Riptide family consists of three types of portable small UUVs, which the company said in a release “are sophisticated yet simple, efficient and highly flexible platforms that offer performance discriminators including being able to perform at greater depth, at longer range, with more endurance, and at greater speed.” 

The Riptide family includes a 25-pound, 4.875-inch-diameter Micro UUV; a 65 to 120-pound, 7.5-inch-diameter, one-man-portable (1MP) UUV; and a 120 to 240 pound, 9.375-inch-diameter two-man portable (2MP) UUV. The Micro UUV now features enhanced functionality. The prototypes of the 1MP and 2MP have been completed. 

“Additionally, we have developed the first prototype of our 6,000-meter-rated UUV,” Hogan said in the release. “This depth in a small UUV will allow unparalleled flexibility and cost efficiency by taking on missions unprecedented for the small class of UUVs, reducing the barriers to access the deep ocean.”  

Hogan told Seapower the Riptide UUVs have a “very efficient computing system” and have the lowest power usage rate in the industry. 

He told Seapower that the systems and sensors that can be employed in the UUVs include navigation, communications, electro-optical and electronic warfare. The UUVs use waypoints for navigation and a have an open architecture for integrating sensors. 

Hogan pointed to the the Navy’s ANTX-19 demonstration last year in which a Riptide UUV was used for signals intelligence collection. The UUV recorded radio transmissions and was able to transmit the data acoustically to a surface vessel.    

“As joint all-domain operations become the Department of Defense’s (DoD) operational norm, there is increased need for undersea platforms capable of integrating key payload and autonomy technology,” Hogan said in the release. “In the time since the acquisition was announced, we have made tremendous technology and integration progress that positions us to serve our DoD customer base as well as commercial, research and development, and educational organizations to affordably and expertly explore under the sea. 

“Our Riptide family of autonomous undersea vehicles brings a sustainable and scalable solution for developers of autonomy and behaviors, power systems, subsea sensors, and new payloads,” Hogan said in the release. “Among the many commercial and military-based uses for our UUVs and sensor packages are seabed surveillance, harbor protection, intelligence collection, infrastructure surveillance, oil and gas survey, and mine countermeasures.” 

BAE Systems has set a commercial pricing model for the Riptide family to “streamline vehicle acquisition by employing standard, mission-focused system configurations that satisfy our broad customer base while continually enhancing vehicle quality, reliability and repeatability,” the release said. 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy released a request for proposals for the design, development, test and production of the Medium Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (MUUV) May 21, the Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC) said in a May 22 release. The solicitation will support the next generation of the PEO USC’s Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office’s Razorback Unmanned Underwater Vehicle and the Naval Sea Systems Command Expeditionary Missions Program Office’s Maritime Expeditionary Mine Countermeasures UUV (MEMUUV) system. 

The MUUV will be a modular, open-systems and open-architecture UUV. In the Razorback Torpedo Tube Launch & Recovery (TTL&R) configuration, it will provide submarine-based autonomous oceanographic sensing and data collection in support of intelligence preparation of the operational environment. In the MEMUUV configuration, it will provide persistent surface-launched-and-recovered mine countermeasures. 

The notional MUUV will contain a common baseline vehicle architecture, including sensors and components, for the submarine and expeditionary configurations. Launch-and-recovery systems will reflect each configuration’s unique requirements and missions.  

The MEMUUV is designed for launch from Navy and Marine Corps surface vessels, vessels of opportunity or land-based forward operating bases. The Razorback derives from the Navy’s submarine-launched Littoral Battlespace Sensing Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (Submarine) effort which has two deployment configurations: Dry Deck Shelter and TTL&R. Only TTL&R variants are included in the current solicitation. 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate confirmed retired admiral and current ambassador Kenneth J. Braithwaite to be the 77th Secretary of the Navy. Braithwaite’s nomination was approved on a voice vote May 21 before the Senate left for a weeklong Memorial Day break.

Braithwaite, who was nominated to the top civilian job in the Navy Department by President Donald Trump in November, is a retired Navy rear admiral and current U.S. ambassador to Norway. A 1984 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Braithwaite is a former P-3 naval aviator who became a public affairs officer. He left active duty in 1993, resuming service in the Navy Reserve until 2011. He worked in the private sector and government after leaving active duty. 

At his May 7 confirmation hearing before the Armed Services Committee, Braithwaite pledged to restore good order and discipline in the Navy, which he said was in “troubled waters” after being rocked in recent years by the “Fat Leonard” corruption scandal, fatal at-sea collisions in 2017, recent judicial missteps and the COVID-19 crisis aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. 

“It saddens me to say the Department of the Navy is in troubled waters due to many factors, primarily the failure of leadership,” Braithwaite told the panel. “Successful organizations have a strong culture, which always starts with leadership,” he said, adding that his No. 1 priority, if confirmed, would be ‘’to restore the appropriate culture in the United States Navy.” The Navy’s culture wasn’t broke, he noted, but “I think it’s been tarnished.”  

Trump tapped Braithwaite for the Navy job after Richard Spencer abruptly left last November following the president’s decision to intervene in the discipline of a Navy SEAL convicted in the military justice system of posing with the corpse of an ISIS fighter. Thomas Modly, who replaced Spencer, serving as acting Navy Secretary, resigned in the midst of the Roosevelt COVID-19 crisis, which grew into a political imbroglio after Modly relieved the aircraft carrier’s captain. Army Undersecretary James McPherson, a retired Navy admiral, was appointed acting Navy secretary until a permanent secretary could be confirmed. 

ARLINGTON, Va. – A lone gunman trying to crash security at the North Gate of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, was stopped by Naval Security Forces, the Navy said May 21.

Early reports from the base on Twitter said Naval Security Forces responded to an active shooter at approximately 6:15 a.m. local time. That notice said the said shooter “has been neutralized.”

The latest information from the Navy Office of Information said, “The shooter no longer poses a threat.” One Sailor attached to Navy Security Forces at the air station sustained minor injuries and was released from a local hospital, according to the Navy statement.

The FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) are investigating with local law enforcement. FBI is the lead investigative agency.

The incident took place just three days after the Justice Department and FBI announced the Saudi gunman who killed three Sailors and wounded eight others at a NAS-Pensacola, Florida, last December had incriminating cell phone evidence linking him to an al-Qaida affiliate. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman, at a press briefing on an unrelated matter May 21, said that since the NAS-Pensacola shootings, the department had increased security at installations, but he did not know the exact measures taken at the Texas facility.

FBI officials are saying the incident at Corpus Christi was terrorism-related. Authorities previously said a shooter had been “neutralized,” but there may be a second person of interest still at large, FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Leah Greeves said during a short press briefing. The agent did not provide additional information but said the shooter is deceased.

The base, on the Gulf Coast of Texas, was on lockdown after the incident began, but the Navy said the installation was open with traffic flowing through the South Gate. The North Gate remained closed.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Northrop Grumman has manufactured and tested the first industry-built Very Lightweight Torpedo (VLWT) for the U.S. Navy, the company said in an article posted May 21 on its website.  

The prototype torpedo is based on the Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory’s (PSU-ARL) design that was distributed to defense industrial manufacturers in 2016. Northrop Grumman, which funded the research and development, will offer the design-for-affordability improvements to this VLWT as Northrop Grumman’s response for the Navy’s Compact Rapid Attack Weapon program. 

Northrop Grumman is the only company in full-rate production of Mk54 and Mk48 torpedo nose arrays and has delivered over 600 Mk54 arrays and over 70 Mk48 arrays to the U.S. Navy. 

Applying its engineering and manufacturing expertise, Northrop Grumman improved upon the VLWT baseline design to replace high-cost components and drive overall affordability, reproducibility and reliability. Those altered sections were built and tested using PSU-ARL’s own test equipment for confidence. 

“The successful testing of the torpedo nose on the first try is a testament to Northrop Grumman’s design-for-affordability approach, which will significantly reduce cost without sacrificing operational performance,” said David Portner, lead torpedo program manager, undersea systems, Northrop Grumman. 

Northrop Grumman assembled the prototype VLWT using a Stored Chemical Energy Propulsion System manufactured by teammate Barber-Nichols Inc. of Denver, Colorado. 

Northrop Grumman’s torpedo design and production legacy reaches back over 80 years to World War II through its Westinghouse acquisition. In 1943, Westinghouse won the Navy contract to reverse engineer a captured German electric torpedo and in 12 months began producing the Mk18 electric torpedo, which turned the tide of the undersea warfare in the Pacific. Northrop Grumman has been at the forefront of torpedo design and production ever since, to include the current MK48 Common Broadband Advanced Sonar System (CBASS) heavyweight torpedo and MK50 Lightweight Torpedo. 

“The nation needs advanced undersea warfare capabilities now more than ever,” said Alan Lytle, vice president, undersea systems, Northrop Grumman. “We are ready to support fielding the VLWT which will increase subsea lethality and enable innovative concepts of operations for multiple warfighting platforms.”  

Northrop Grumman’s manufacturing plan would span the country by building components in California, Utah, Minnesota, Colorado, West Virginia and Maryland. 

PACIFIC OCEAN — Sailors aboard USS Zumwalt, working with engineers and technicians from Navy surface warfare centers, executed a “structural test fire” of the Mark 46 Mod 2 Gun Weapon System (GWS) at the Naval Air Weapons Center Weapons Division Sea Test Range, Point Mugu, on May 16, according to a U.S. 3rd Fleet release. 

“The privilege of being a ‘first-in-class’ ship includes having the opportunity to systematically conduct testing across the breadth of systems installed onboard the ship,” said Capt. Andrew Carlson, Zumwalt’s commanding officer. “The real plus is conducting those tests, such as today’s live fire with the Mark 46 GWS, which provide tangible evidence of combat capability maturation.” 

The Mark 46 GWS is a remotely operated naval gun system that uses a 30 mm high-velocity cannon, a forward-looking infrared sensor, a low-light TV camera and a laser rangefinder for shipboard self-defense against small, high speed surface targets. It is a program of record already successfully installed and operated on LPD-17- and LCS-class ships. The test firing aboard the Zumwalt was the first large caliber weapons firing event for the Zumwalt-class destroyer program and occurred only three weeks after the Navy officially accepted delivery of the combat system. 

Test fires assess structural and electrical components of the ship against shock and vibration of the weapon firing. They also measure potential hazards to personnel or degradations to adjacent equipment as a result of firing live ordnance. The tests are a coordinated effort between the Zumwalt Class Destroyer Program Office, the U.S. 3rd Fleet, Commander, Naval Surface Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, and the Naval Sea Systems Command surface warfare centers in Dahlgren, Virginia, Port Hueneme, California, and Indian Head, Maryland. 

“Today’s event is the first in a chapter of live-fire test events over the next year that will prove the lethal capability that these ships will bring to the fight,” said Lt. Cmdr. Tim Kubisak, the Zumwalt test officer for the Program Executive Office for integrated warfare systems, embarked aboard the Zumwalt. 

The Zumwalt-class destroyer is designed and built to execute multiple maritime missions, including deterrence and power projection. The ships’ stealth and ability to operate in both the open ocean and near-shore environments creates a new level of battlespace complexity for potential adversaries.  

The Zumwalt is 100 feet longer and 13 feet wider than the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, providing the space required to execute a wider array of surface, undersea and aviation missions.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has issued a formal notice that it is setting a standoff distance of 100 meters for other ships approaching its vessels — and the sea service is warning armed adversaries that it could consider crossing that line as a threat. 

In a May 20 “notice to mariners” broadcast to shipping, the Navy said that “due to recent events, in order to enhance safety, minimize ambiguity and reduce opportunities for miscalculation, all vessels are advised to maintain a safe distance of at least 100 meters from U.S. naval vessels in international waters/straits. 

“Armed vessels approaching within 100 meters of a U.S. naval vessel may be interpreted as a threat and subject to lawful defensive measures.” 

The maritime area affected by the notice includes the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.  

The formal notice was published following incidents near the Strait of Hormuz on April 15, when 11 Iranian navy (IRGCN) armed small craft “repeatedly conducted dangerous and harassing approaches of the USS Lewis B. Puller, USS Paul Hamilton, USS Firebolt, USS Sirocco, USCGC Wrangell and USCGC Maui while the U.S. vessels were conducting joint integration operations with U.S. Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters in the international waters of the North Arabian Gulf,” the U.S. 5th Fleet said in a release. 

“The IRGCN vessels repeatedly crossed the bows and sterns of the U.S. vessels at extremely close range and high speeds, including multiple crossings of the Puller with a 50-yard closest point of approach and within 10 yards of Maui’s bow,” the release added.  

“The U.S. crews issued multiple warnings via bridge-to-bridge radio, five short blasts from the ships’ horns and long-range acoustic noise maker devices but received no response from the IRGCN. After approximately one hour, the IRGCN vessels responded to the bridge-to-bridge radio queries, then maneuvered away from the U.S. ships and opened distance between them.”   

The Iranians occasionally have used their highly maneuverable boats in swarms to harass naval and merchant ships in the Persian Gulf and last year captured merchant ships flagged in the United Kingdom and other nations.  

Many U.S. ships are armed with Mk38 25 mm chain guns and M2 .50-caliber machine guns — in addition to larger-caliber guns on some ships — for countering fast attack craft, while many helicopters based on American ships are armed with Hellfire and Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System guided missiles that are effective against such craft.  

In January 2016, Iranian boats seized two U.S. Navy riverine command boats and detained the crews after the U.S. boats strayed into Iranian waters off Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf. The crews and boats later were released.  

The notice also said that “mariners are reminded to operate in accordance within international law and with due regard for the safe navigation of other vessels. All vessels operating in the vicinity of U.S. naval vessels are advised to clearly communicate intentions, respond to queries concerning course and speed, exercise principles of prudent seamanship required under international and remain at maximum distance from U.S. naval forces.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — Draper is leveraging its work on the U.S. Navy’s unmanned underwater vehicles toward building systems for the service’s future family of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), a company official said. The company’s experience in navigation, autonomy, sensors and control systems will enable it to provide a strong proposal for some systems for the USVs. 

Draper is one of 40 companies the Navy chose to develop technology for the various systems in six functional areas for the Navy’s USVs under a five-year, $982 million, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multi-award contract. Each company has chosen to develop certain systems within the program. Draper is working on development of payloads, non-payload sensors, and autonomy and vehicle control systems.   

Draper will provide capabilities for Navy platforms that include the existing Sea Hunter USV, the medium and large USVs, and the mine countermeasures USV, Draper said in a release. “The company will deliver sensor and actuator technologies, computing technologies, design methods and tools and modeling and simulation technologies, among others.”  

Bill Borgia, director of mission systems for Draper — formally known as the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts — told Seapower that his company has been supporting the Navy for more than 60 years in guidance and control systems, most notably those in the service’s submarine-launched ballistic-missile systems since the days of the Polaris program.   

Borgia said that Draper is an independent, not-for-profit, developer of technology that focuses on developing “first-of-their-kind systems and putting them in the field, ready for production.” 

He said Draper developed the guidance system for the Apollo spacecraft, the first fly-by-wire aircraft, the first swim-by-wire submarine — the Navy’s Seawolf-class attack submarine. His division focuses on precision navigation and timing systems and guidance, navigation and control systems. 

Borgia said that Draper has deployed on vehicles of various sizes the Maritime Open Architecture Autonomy (MOAA), a “Navy standard autonomy package that can be applied to unmanned systems — surface or subsurface.”  

Under the new contract, Draper will deliver the hardware and software for the autonomy controller for inclusion on USVs. 

Draper has been delivering alternatives to GPS navigation over many years such as celestial, vision-aided, magnetic and other navigation techniques to provide assured navigation to the Navy. Draper is under a separate contract to provide ship-board celestial navigation systems to the Navy. 

Borgia said the “holy grail” of autonomy is to be able to “task an unmanned system to similarly to how you would task a Sailor, a human subordinate,” with sensors and actuators. 

“What is more challenging is, tell me exactly what those sensors are seeing,” he said. “Instead of seeing a radar blip, tell me what that radar blip is. As you go to higher and higher levels of control, you’re trying to understand the world more like a human would understand it.”     

SAN DIEGO — Naval Air Systems Command has awarded General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems a contract for engineering and logistics sustainment of Gerald R. Ford-class Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems (EMALS) and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) systems, the company announced May 18. 

General Atomics will provide engineering, technical, configuration management and program support for EMALS and AAG systems installed aboard Ford-class aircraft carriers. 

“We are proud to continue our working relationship with the Navy and extend our support for these critical technologies as the program advances into a new phase,” said Scott Forney, president of General Atomics. 

“This contract signals the program is now moving from the design and development phase and into concurrent production and sustainment phase, providing sustaining engineering, material and maintenance support for all Ford-class aircraft carriers. Our in-depth knowledge, expertise and commitment to providing a full range of lifecycle support services will ensure these systems meet or exceed mission requirements for as long as these first-of-kind launch and recovery systems remain in service to the fleet.” 

At-sea test periods are ongoing for the first carrier of the class, the USS Gerald R. Ford. In February, EMALS and AAG were cleared for shipboard launch and recovery of all currently deployed naval aircraft types aboard the Ford. 

More than 2,300 successful day and night aircraft launches and recoveries using EMALS and AAG onboard have been completed. In addition, the Ford has finished flight-deck certification, aircraft compatibility testing and fleet replacement squadron training exercises for pilots to earn their qualifications on specific aircraft. EMALS and AAG continue to perform and execute according to specifications with the objective of reaching the sortie generation rates required for combat readiness. 

General Atomics is delivering EMALS and AAG for the future USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise. Significant cost savings are being realized through multiple ship production contracts, which minimize gaps in production while maximizing planning, scheduling and delivery to support all three Ford-class carriers.