Despite the current heavy focus on great power competition,
the Navy must retain and build its ability to engage in irregular maritime
conflict, which historically has always been a fundamental part of maintaining
maritime security, a panel of historians and naval security analysts said June
26.

Although the early Navy considered irregular actions, such
as raids on coastal cities and enemy commerce and antipiracy missions, as a
part of general maritime conflict, the current Navy thinks of itself as
blue-water force that must be prepared for the clash of battle fleets. But some
potential adversaries, including China and Iran, are engaging in “gray zone”
actions below the level of war and the Navy and Marine Corps must be able to
respond, the panel said at a Hudson Institute forum.

Benjamin Armstrong, a Naval Academy
professor and author of a history of 18^th and 19^th
century U.S. Navy, contrasted John Paul Jones’ raids on British ports and
merchant ships with the current Navy’s devotion to the clash of battle fleets
championed by Alfred Mahan, while Iran harasses U.S. warships with small boats
and China build artificial islands and employs its fishing fleet as an
auxiliary force to control the South China Sea.

“Today’s Navy and Marine
Corps are wrestling with how to balance great power conflict with gray zone
acts … the kind of maritime competition below the level of war,” Armstrong said.

Martin Murphy, a fellow at
the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies and author of a book on piracy
and maritime terrorism in the modern world, and Joshua Tallis, from the Center
for Naval Analysis and author of a similar history of irregular maritime
conflict, also said the current Navy’s strategy and self image does not account
for the broader dimension of maritime security and the challenges from
non-state actors.

Murphy said, “I do not believe
the United States is prepared” for the broader dimensions of maritime security,
because the importance of sea power has “lost all traction in U.S. foreign policy.”

Peter Haynes, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a former deputy with the Special Operations Command, said the Navy’s problem is that it “has defined the [maritime] competition very narrowly in the context of global conflict,” which reflects the Navy’s self-identity of “we only do blue-water operations.”

Linda Robinson, the senior
international/defense researcher at the RAND Corp., said that while the new
National Defense Strategy cited the return of great power competition, it also
said “irregular warfare was part of what the U.S. needs to be about,” because
small-state and non-state actors can employ a “broad range of powers.”

In response to a question,
several of the panelists said the Navy should be buying more smaller ships to
deal with the challenges from adversaries other than China and Russia,
including Iran’s threat of swarming attacks of small fast craft. “When
we see the Navy buying small ships, we’ll know the Navy has got it,” Murphy
said.

WASHINGTON —
Alaska’s junior senator, a member of the Armed Services Committee, is critical
of the Pentagon’s lack of support for a strategic Arctic port but is pleased
that the nation has a Secretary of the Navy who understands the need for the
Navy to have the infrastructure to sustain a presence in the Arctic region.

“The good
news is having a Secretary of the Navy who gets it and is an advocate,” said
Sen. Dan Sullivan, chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management
Support on the Senate Armed Services Committee, speaking June 26 on Arctic
defense issues to an audience at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, a Washington think tank, noting that Congress, not the Defense
Department, is usually driving the efforts to strengthen U.S. strategic presence
in the Arctic.

Sullivan,
also a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, said he was concerned about Russian
hegemony in the Arctic, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin said that
the Arctic is “the new Suez Canal that Russia will control,” and that Russia is
devoting four of six new brigade combat teams to the Arctic region.  

He noted that
Russia fields 40 icebreakers and is building 13 more, while the Coast Guard has
only one heavy icebreaker. He is pleased that the Congress has authorized six
icebreakers, including three polar security cutters (PSCs), and has funded the
first PSC and made a down payment of a second.

Sullivan said
the Navy will be sending one or two guided-missile destroyers along with Coast
Guard assets to the Arctic this summer and in September will be conducting
exercises from the former naval air station on Adak, an Aleutian island, as
well as operating P-8 maritime patrol aircraft from Adak for part of the year.

The Arm Corps
of Engineers is studying the challenges of building a strategic port at Nome,
Alaska, he said. 

He pointed
out that the Navy currently does not have the capability to conduct freedom of
navigation operations in the Arctic, noting that submarines, being covert under
the ice, do not count as a ‘presence.’ 

Sullivan also
said the Navy needs to consider ice-hardening some future ships.  

“I’m very
supportive of a 355-ship Navy, but we need to look at the Navy and we’ve had
this in the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] for the Secretary of the
Navy to look, the ice-hardening capabilities of some of that new fleet that
we’re building, so we have a lot of work to do and we’re way behind with regard
to capabilities, particularly on the Navy side, the strategic Arctic port side,”
he said.

WASHINGTON – Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) released the Naval Power and Energy Systems Technology Development Roadmap, providing an evolutionary strategy to meet future weapon and sensor systems power requirements, June 26, the command said in a release of the same date.

Developed
by the Electric Ships Office within Program Executive Office (PEO) Ships, the
roadmap aligns electric power and energy system development with increasing
warfighter power needs, enabling the U.S. Navy to expand maritime superiority
over our adversaries. 

“The U.S.
Navy faces increasingly sophisticated threats,” said Vice Adm. Tom Moore,
commander, NAVSEA. “Our mandate is to maintain sea control by delivering a
decisive advantage to the warfighter. We do that by ensuring our platforms have
enough space, weight and power margin to adapt to future threats.”

As
existing U.S. Navy power and energy systems represent a century of combined
private and public partnership, the roadmap establishes priorities to guide
future research and development investments across the government, industry and
academic enterprises; leveraging the best in science and engineering; and
allowing the Navy to more efficiently field future capabilities.  

“Now is
the time to invest in future naval power systems and capabilities to influence
technology developments for tomorrow’s fleet,” said Stephen Markle, director,
Electric Ships Office. “As new technologies evolve, it’s imperative we lead the
innovation of power and energy architecture necessary for tomorrow’s sensors
and weapons and deliver the Chief of Naval Operations’ mandate of as much power
as we can afford to the warfighter.”

Power and
energy systems offer the potential to provide revolutionary warfighting
capability at an affordable cost. The Electric Ships Office’s efforts have
helped conceptualize and field the power generation, electrical distribution
and propulsion machinery on the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers; and power
generation and conversion systems on the DDG 51 Flight III. Future efforts
include development of the Energy Magazine to enable pulsed high-power weapons
and sensor systems for both back fit and forward fit applications, and
evolution of Integrated Power Systems found on DDG 1000 and Royal Navy Type 45-
and Queen Elizabeth-class ships by integrating energy storage and advanced
controls as the Integrated Power and Energy System.

WASHINGTON —
Sailors aboard Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Lassen (DDG 82), in
partnership with Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) 5.0,
Undersea Systems, successfully tested the Virtual Laboratory on Ship (VLOS), a
virtualized Undersea Warfare Combat System (AN/SQQ-89 A(V)15), during a recent
weeklong underway period, the PEO announced in a June 26 release. VLOS
represents another important step forward in the U.S. Navy’s efforts to speed
combat system element development and software upgrades. 

During the
past year, IWS 5.0 developed VLOS in close collaboration with Applied Research
Laboratory – University of Texas (ARL-UT) and Naval Undersea Warfare Center
(NUWC) Division Newport to meet the Department of the Navy’s demand to speed
the development of cutting-edge weapon systems with industry’s advancements in
software virtualization and virtual machine applications. VLOS is a virtualized
sonar sensor subset of the tactical AN/SQQ-89A(V)15 system and operates
alongside the ship’s AN/SQQ-89 system via passive receipt of acoustic and
navigation data from the tactical system. For rapid installation and removal
purposes, VLOS is packaged and installed as a roll-on/roll-off temporary change
to the ship it is installed aboard and incorporates the Naval Sea Systems
Command flexible technology demonstration processes.

The VLOS was
installed on board USS Lassen alongside the existing AN/SQQ-89A(V)15 tactical
system to evaluate new advanced sensor capabilities in an operationally
relevant environment against live submarine targets and weapons. During the
weeklong underway period, PEO IWS 5.0, ARL-UT and NUWC engineers demonstrated
the ability to transmit a software fix from a shore site to a ship at sea using
VLOS.  The successful transmission of
software supports the Navy’s initiatives to speed the delivery of new software
capabilities to combat systems at sea via the existing networks ships use to
send and receive data. 

Additionally,
VLOS operated the latest Advanced Capability Build (ACB) software, ACB 15,
while the ship’s AN/SQQ-89A(V)15 system operated its older certified software
build, ACB 9. The ship’s Sailors performed the undersea warfare exercise with
ACB 9 while the VLOS engineers were utilizing ACB 15, which allowed Sailors to
see what additional combat capability exists within ACB 15 while performing
high-end undersea warfare events.

“This
progression of virtualizing the SQQ-89 system represents the team’s efforts to
rapidly plan and execute demonstrations to take advantage of existing industry
technology and align it with Navy technology,” said PEO IWS 5.0 Major Program
Manager Capt. Jill Cesari. “These efforts will make a real difference in our
ability to deliver more capability faster.”

In 2018, PEO
IWS 5.0 tested VLOS on USS Nitze (DDG 94). During the Nitze trials, VLOS was
tested pier side and at sea over a two-week period. The test results
demonstrated satisfactory performance of a virtualized version of the tactical
AN/SQQ-89A(V)15 advanced capability build software, operating in a relevant
at-sea environment, and supported the decision to proceed with the most recent
underway period on USS Lassen.

The VLOS test
results will be used to evaluate advanced AN/SQQ-89A(V)15 sensor capabilities
prior to fielding, demonstrate the feasibility of transmitting large and
complex software upgrades and fixes for ships at sea, and support future
efforts to virtualize the tactical AN/SQQ-89A(V)15 system. Additionally, VLOS
efforts have assisted the progression of virtualized training systems at the
Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Training Center in San Diego, where the majority
of training occurs for shipboard officers and Sailors operating and maintaining
the AN/SQQ-89(A)V15 sonar suite.

MARINETTE,
Wis. — Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) 17, the future USS Indianapolis, completed acceptance
trials in Lake Michigan, Lockheed Martin said in a June 26 release. This is the
ship’s final significant milestone before the ship is delivered to the U.S.
Navy. LCS 17 is the ninth Freedom-variant LCS designed and built by the
Lockheed Martin-led industry team and is slated for delivery to the Navy this
year.

“LCS 17
is joining the second-largest class of ships in the U.S. Navy fleet, and we are
proud to get the newest Littoral Combat Ship one step closer to delivery,” said
Joe DePietro, Lockheed Martin vice president and general manager, Small
Combatants and Ship Systems. “This ship is lethal and flexible, and we are
confident that she will capably serve critical U.S. Navy missions today and in
future.”

Unique among
combat ships, LCS is designed to complete close-to-shore missions and is a
growing and relevant part of the Navy’s fleet.

•        It is flexible — with 40 percent of the
hull easily reconfigurable, LCS can be modified to integrate capabilities
including over-the-horizon missiles, advanced electronic warfare systems and
decoys.

•        It is fast — capable of speeds in excess
of 40 knots.

•        It is lethal — standard equipped with
Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM) and a Mark 110 gun, capable of firing 220
rounds per minute.

•        It is automated — with the most
efficient staffing of any combat ship.

The trials
included a full-power run, maneuverability testing, and surface and air
detect-to-engage demonstrations of the ship’s combat system. Major systems and
features were demonstrated, including aviation support, small boat launch
handling, and recovery and machinery control and automation.

“I am
extremely proud of our LCS team including our shipbuilders at Fincantieri
Marinette Marine,” said Jan Allman, Fincantieri Marinette Marine president
and CEO. “These are complex vessels, and it takes a strong team effort to
design, build and test these American warships.”

MOBILE, Ala. — Austal USA delivered its 10th
Independence-variant littoral combat ship to the U.S. Navy, the company
announced in a release, as the future USS Cincinnati(LCS 20) will be
the 18th LCS to enter the fleet.

“It’s so exciting to deliver another great warship to the
U.S. Navy,” Austal USA President Craig Perciavalle said. “I’m so proud of our
incredible team here at Austal USA, our industry and Navy partners for achieving
this major milestone for the future USS Cincinnati.”

Five small surface combatants are presently under various
stages of construction at Austal’s Alabama shipyard. The future USS Kansas City
(LCS 22) is preparing for sea trials. Assembly is underway on the future USS
Oakland (LCS 24) and the future USS Mobile (LCS 26), and modules are under
construction for the future USS Savannah (LCS 28) and the future USS Canberra
(LCS 30) with four more under contract through LCS 38.

“The shipbuilding momentum here is second to none, led by
the most talented shipbuilding professionals I’ve ever worked with,”
Perciavalle said. “This momentum and efficiency continue to result in
incredible cost savings ship over ship, enabling us to provide highly capable
but very cost-effective solutions to our Navy.”

More than 700 suppliers in 40 states contribute to the
Independence-variant LCS program. This supplier base supports tens of thousands
of small business to large business jobs.

LCS is a highly maneuverable, lethal and adaptable ship
designed to support focused mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare and
surface warfare missions. The Independence-variant LCS integrates new
technology and capability to support current and future mission capability from
deep water to the littorals.

Austal is also under contract to build 14 Expeditionary
Fast Transport vessels (EPF) for the Navy. The company has delivered 10 EPFs
while an additional two are in various stages of construction.

WASHINGTON
— Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer has announced the newest towing, salvage
and rescue ship will be named Cherokee Nation in honor of the service and
contributions the Cherokee people have made to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps,
the secretary’s public affairs office said in a June 21 release.

“It is my
privilege to announce that the many Cherokee Nation citizens who’ve served
throughout the years will be remembered with the highest honor a secretary of
the Navy can bestow, the naming of a ship,” Spencer said.

This is
the fifth U.S. ship to be named in honor of the Cherokee people.

“The Cherokee Nation is extremely honored that the U.S. Navy is recognizing our tribal nation and the generations of Cherokee men and women who have bravely and humbly sacrificed for our freedom today,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker said.

“Our
Cherokee people have contributed in every major battle and war ever fought in
this country and continue to serve in the armed forces in some of the highest
rates per ethnicity. Cherokees are a strong, resilient people, and we are
privileged to have a U.S. ship at sea that reflects both our country and
tribe’s history and values.”

Gulf
Island Shipyards was awarded a $64.8 million contract option for the detail
design and construction of the new Ship, which will be based on existing
commercial towing offshore vessel designs and will replace the current T-ATF
166 and T-ARS 50 class ships in service with the U.S. Military Sealift Command.
The Cherokee Nation is the second ship in the new class of towing, salvage and rescue
ships and will be designated T-ATS 7.

The contract
includes options for potentially six additional vessels, and each additional
ship will be named in honor of prominent Native Americans or Native American
tribes.

The T-ATS
will serve as open ocean towing vessels and will additionally support salvage operations and submarine rescue missions. The ship will be
built at the company’s shipyard in Houma, Louisiana, and is expected to be
completed in July 2021.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy RQ-4A Block 10 Global Hawk
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) shot down June 19 by Iranian forces was destroyed
by a surface-to-air missile of indigenous Iranian design and manufacture.

The Global Hawk was downed by a missile system the
Iranians call the Third of Khordad, which was
first unveiled in Iran in 2014. The system’s missile has a range of 75
kilometers and can intercept targets at an altitude of up to 81,000 feet,
higher than the 60,000-foot ceiling of the Global Hawk.

One
former Navy electronic countermeasures officer described the Third of Khordad
as a knock-off of the Russian-designed BUK-M1 (NATO code name SA-11 Gadfly) missile
system.

In a June 20 release, U.S. Central Command spokesman
Cmdr. Bill Urban said the RQ-4A was shot down “while operating in international airspace over the Strait of
Hormuz at approximately 11:35 p.m. GMT on June 19, 2019. Iranian reports that
the aircraft was over Iran are false. This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S.
surveillance asset in international airspace.”

Iran claimed the UAV had violated Iranian airspace.

The incident occurred a few days after Iranian forces
fired a missile at a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper UAV near the Strait of Hormuz and damaged
two oil tankers with limpet mines. Last month, four tankers were damaged by
explosives believed to be limpet mines.

The Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Block 10 Global Hawk
high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAV also is known as the BAMS-D (Broad-Area
Maritime Surveillance-Demonstration) system. Urban said the RQ-4A “provides
real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions over vast
ocean and coastal regions.”

The Navy has deployed the RQ-4A to Southwest Asia since 2009 as a
component of the Broad-Area Maritime Surveillance-Demonstration (BAMS-D)
program. Five RQ-4As were acquired from the U.S. Air Force and were based at
Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, and operated by a detachment of
Patrol Reconnaissance Wing 11. The detachment keeps at least one RQ-4A in the
rotation to a base in the Persian Gulf region. One was lost in a mishap in
Maryland in June 2012.

The Navy and Northrop Grumman have been developing a
Global Hawk derivative, the MQ-4C Triton, to meet the Navy’s HALE requirements.
Unmanned Patrol Squadron 19 is scheduled to send a two-aircraft detachment to
Guam this year for the Triton’s Early Operational Capability deployment. The
deployment had been delayed a year following the gear-up landing of one of the
squadron’s MQ-4Cs in September 2018.

According to news reports, one MQ-4C recently had been
deployed to Southwest Asia as part of the U.S. buildup of forces in response to
Iranian hostile acts. The deployment initially led to some erroneous reports
that the downed UAV was an MQ-4C.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The U.S Navy will christen its newest Arleigh Burke-class guided missile
destroyer, the future USS Daniel Inouye (DDG 118), during a 10 a.m. ceremony June
22, in Bath, Maine, the Defense Department announced.

The future
USS Daniel Inouye is named in honor of Daniel Inouye, who served as a United
States senator for Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012.

Inouye
received the Medal of Honor June 21, 2000, for his extraordinary heroism in
action while serving with the 442nd Infantry Regiment Combat Team in Italy
during World War II. During an assault on April 21, 1945, an exploding grenade
shattered his right arm; despite the intense pain, he refused evacuation. He
remained at the head of his platoon until they broke the enemy resistance and
his men deployed in defensive positions, continuing to fight until the
regiment’s position was secured.

U.S. Sen.
Mazie Hirono of Hawaii will deliver the christening ceremony’s principal
address. Irene Hirano Inouye, the late senator’s wife, will serve as the ship’s
sponsor. In a time-honored Navy tradition, Irene Inouye will christen the ship
by breaking a bottle of sparkling wine across her bow.

“The
future USS Daniel Inouye will serve for decades as a reminder of Senator
Inouye’s service to our nation and his unwavering support of a strong Navy and
Marine Corps team,” Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer said. “This
ship honors not only his service but the service of our shipbuilders who help
make ours the greatest Navy and Marine Corps team in the world.”

The future
USS Daniel Inouye will be the 68th Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and is one of
21 ships under contract for the DDG 51 program. The ship is configured as a
Flight IIA destroyer, which enables power projection and delivers quick
reaction time, high firepower, and increased electronic countermeasures
capability for anti-air warfare. The USS Daniel Inouye will be 509.5 feet long
and 59 feet wide, with a displacement of 9,496 tons. She will be homeported in
Pearl Harbor.

PARIS — The
U.S. Navy successfully completed a series of guided flight tests for Raytheon
Co.’s Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) Block 2A short-range, surface-to-air
missile, the company said in a release.

Testing
occurred at Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California, and from the
Navy’s self-defense test ship off the coast of Southern California.

RAM is the world’s
most modern ship self-defense weapon and protects ships of all sizes. It is
deployed on more than 165 ships in 11 countries, ranging from 500-ton fast
attack craft to 95,000-ton aircraft carriers. The latest software upgrade
enhances guidance and the missile’s capability to defeat threats.

Raytheon
expects to deliver the RAM Block 2A missile to the Navy by the end of the year.

RAM is an international
cooperative program between the United States and Germany. Raytheon and the
German company RAMSYS share development, production and maintenance costs.