ARLINGTON,
Va. — The Navy is installing a co-axial 7.62 mm machine gun on the mounts of
its Mk38 chain gun systems, a Northrop Grumman official said.

The Mk52 7.62
mm is gas-operated and uses recoil to eject spent cartridges and advance to the
next round. A misfired round is safely ejected forward of the barrel as well, Jarrod
Krull, communications manager for Northrop Grumman Armament Systems, said in an
interview with Seapower.

The Mk38 Mod
2 gun mount includes an 25mm M242 Bushmaster rapid-fire cannon that fires an
explosive round. The mount is automatic, gyro-stabilized and remotely operated,
but retains the optional manual firing of the Mk38 Mod 1. The system has day
and night sensors and a laser rangefinder.

The Mk52 7.62
mm is designed as a defense against small boats, aircraft and unmanned aerial
vehicles for most U.S. surface warships and as a general-purpose gun for the
Cyclone-class coastal patrol ships and Mk VI patrol boats.

Krull said
the addition of the co-axial Mk52 machine gun gives the gunner another
“right-sized” option for countering a small target, such as pirates or
terrorists on jet skis.

The Mk52 is
very durable, reliable and accurate,” according to a Navy briefing slide.

Northrop
Grumman is installing the Mk52 guns in the Mk38 under an indefinite
delivery/indefinite quantity contract.

The company
also is offering the Navy another upgrade of the Mk38 by switching out the M242
Bushmaster cannon for a larger caliber weapon, the Mk44 30mm cannon, the same
gun used as a close-in weapon on the San Antonio-class amphibious transport
dock ship, the littoral combat ship’s surface warfare module and the
Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer. Another option is the stretch version
of the Mk44, which would allow use of programmable ammunition, such has
air-burst ammunition.

Krull said
the Mk38 could even be up-gunned to a 40mm cannon.

The Chinese navy
already is larger than the U.S. Navy and is building ships four times as fast,
with a firm goal of achieving sea control by 2030 and naval superiority by
2039, a former Pacific Fleet director of intelligence warns.

“The biggest
challenge for U.S. national security leaders for the next 30 years is the speed
and sustainability of the [People’s Republic of China] national effort to
deploy a global navy,” retired Navy Capt. James Fanell said.

By 2220, the
People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will have more than 450 surface warships
and a submarine force approaching 110, Fanell told a May 14 Hudson Institute
forum. And in its rapid move from a force of small ships mainly engaged in
coastal operations into a large fleet capable of extended blue-water operations,
the PLAN now exceeds the U.S. Navy not just in numbers but in tonnage, Fanell
said.

The U.S. Navy has
289 ships in the active battle fleet, including 80 submarines and counting the
14 ballistic-missile subs and four guided-missile boats. Navy leaders have set
a goal of a 355-ship battle force, but the fleet would not reach that strength until
the 2030s at projected building rates.

In the last
decade, China has launched more ships that any other country in the world,
outbuilding the U.S. Navy four to one, Fanell said, displaying a slide showing the
United States building 22 ships to the PLAN’s 85 warships from 2015 to 2018. “I
expect the [PLAN] will continue to surpass the U.S. Navy in new ships in the
next decade.”

And the Chinese
have an even greater advantage in ship-based anti-ship missiles, Fanell added,
with more weapons and missiles that have longer range and are faster than what
the U.S. Navy fields. He noted that a new class of PLAN guided-missile
destroyers has 132 vertical-launch missile tubes.

Over the last
decade, the PLAN has gained valuable experience with task force deployments not
only in its regional waters but in the Eastern Pacific, the Indian Ocean and
recently into the Atlantic Ocean, Fanell said. He predicted there would be even
more operations closer to U.S. coastlines.

A career
intelligence officer who served most of his time in the Pacific with aviation
units, carrier strike groups and then with the Pacific Fleet staff, Fanell said
that, for most of his time in uniform, U.S. national security officials have
refused to acknowledge the growing threat from China and its determination to
supplant the United States as the dominate power in the western Pacific. He
said that changed with the new National Security and National Defense
Strategies released last year, which recognized China — and Russia — as
strategic rivals and acknowledged the return to “Great Power Competition.”

The rapidly
growing PLAN “will increasingly challenge us,” and given its ship production
projections and its experience of operating farther from China, “we can assess
that the PLA Navy is on track to gain sea control by 2030 and superiority by
2039,” Fanell said. The only way to prevent that is by acknowledging the threat
and conducting a whole-of-government campaign to counter its power, which he
said the Trump administration has shown the willingness to do.

WASHINGTON
— The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the Navy’s premier science and
technology research squadron, Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS-1),
unveiled on May 11 the UV-18 “Twin Otter” as the newest addition to the
squadron’s fleet of aircraft research platforms.

The
UV-18 is the military equivalent of the DeHavilland DHC-6 — a high-wing, unpressurized
twin engine turbine powered aircraft with fixed tricycle landing gear.

“The
Twin Otter is a safe, highly maneuverable and extremely versatile aircraft,”
said Cmdr. Erik Thomas, commanding officer of VXS-1. “The fact that it is
unpressurized simplifies modifications and will accelerate our ability to get
projects airborne for the Naval Research Enterprise.”

The
aircraft compliments the VXS-1 “Warlocks” fleet by providing an affordable and
stable research platform with slow flight capabilities and an operational
payload of up to 3,000 pounds.

The
performance capabilities of the UV-18 aircraft offer customers a slow flight
speed of 85 mph, a maximum cruise speed of 190 mph, a nominal service ceiling
of 13,000 feet (higher with supplemental oxygen) and a six-hour flight duration,
depending on payload and flight configuration.

In
addition to the UV-18, VXS-1 operates a varying range of aircraft that include
three NP-3C and P-3C Orions, an RC-12 King Air and 12 TigerShark unmanned aircraft
systems.

The
fleet of squadron aircraft are operated and maintained by the men and women of
VXS-1 and contain an S&T framework to provide power, Ethernet and GPS feeds
as required for temporary project installations and to quickly conduct airborne
research. The squadron has a self-contained configuration and project shop to
assist prospective customers with rack designs, gear installations and flight
clearances.

“Using
our squadron’s aircraft, scientists and engineers can install and test the
latest technology they are developing in an operational environment anywhere in
the world. We truly turn their ideas into reality,” Thomas said.

Providing
proof of concept for the latest technology, VXS-1 enables operational fleet
commands to receive time pertinent technological advances to better execute
their missions and fill critical capability gaps in their theater.

Historically,
the squadron has supported a broad spectrum of research projects, which include
magnetic variation mapping, hydro-acoustic research, bathymetry, electronic
countermeasures, gravity mapping, electro-optical and radar research and remote
measuring of water contained in snow for NASA.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The first two fuselages for the Navy’s CMV-22B Osprey
carrier-onboard-delivery (COD) aircraft have been detailed for final assembly,
the aircraft’s program manager said.

“First
delivery is later this year,” said Marine Col. Matthew Kelly, joint program
manager for the V-22, speaking May 6 to reporters at the Navy League’s
Sea-Air-Space exposition in National Harbor, Md. “We’re really excited to get
it out there.”

The CMV-22B will
replace the C-2A Greyhound as the Navy’s COD aircraft. As a tiltrotor aircraft,
it will not need a tailhook for arrested landings. The CMV-22B adds new
features such as an HF radio, a public address system for the cabin and extra
fuel tankage. The Navy is procuring 42 CMV-22Bs.

Kelly said
that V-22 production is closing in on a potential end to the program unless
further orders develop. The Marine Corps has received 326 of 354 ordered out of
a program of 360 aircraft. The Air Force has received 52 of 54 ordered out of a
program of 56 aircraft. The Navy has 42 ordered of a program of 48 aircraft. Japan
has ordered 17 Ospreys.

The Ospreys
being built now are part of the Multi-Year Procurement-3 contract awarded in
2018. Kelly pointed out that December 2020 is that last opportunity for a
potential V-22 customer to order aircraft within the current contract at the
current prices.

With V-22
production for the Marine Corps approaching completion, a question for planners
is 360 Ospreys enough considering actual and reasonable attrition over the
service life of the inventory, or whether the Marine Corps V-22 program would
need to add to the program of record.

“We’re
continuing to look as to whether or not that would be the call,” Kelly said.
Right now, it does seem to be adequate.”

The Corps has
begun to induct fleet MV-22Bs into the CC-RAM (Common Configuration-Readiness
and Modernization) program, designed to standardize the different configurations
of Ospreys from 70 to five. The program involves 50 engineering change
proposals.

The Corps now
has four MV-22Bs inducted, with a fifth set for induction this summer. The
first CC-RAM completed aircraft is scheduled to roll out by the end of the
summer. The Corps plans to put 129 Block B MV-22Bs through the program.

WASHINGTON
— Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer named a future Arleigh Burke-class
guided-missile destroyer, DDG 133, in honor of former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, who
represented Georgia from 1972 to 1997, the secretary’s public affairs office
said in a release.

“Senator
Nunn’s impact on the Navy and Marine Corps team cannot be overstated,” Spencer
said. “His leadership in the Senate, specifically as the long-serving chairman
of the Senate Armed Services Committee, helped streamline the military chain of
command and strengthen our Navy and Marine Corps team. I am pleased that
Senator Nunn’s legacy of service to our nation will continue in the future USS
Sam Nunn.”

Nunn
served in the U.S. Coast Guard 1959 to 1960 and remained in the Coast Guard
Reserve until 1968. A Democrat, he was elected to the Georgia House of
Representatives in 1968 and in 1972 was first elected to the U.S. Senate.
During his tenure as a senator, Nunn served as chairman of the Senate Committee
on Armed Services and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He helped
draft the Department of Defense Reorganization Act and the Nunn-Lugar
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which helped Russia and the former Soviet
republics to secure and destroy their excess nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons.

Arleigh
Burke-class destroyers conduct a variety of operations, from peacetime presence
and crisis response to sea control and power projection. USS Sam Nunn will be
capable of fighting air, surface and subsurface battles simultaneously, with
offensive and defensive weapons systems designed to support maritime warfare,
including integrated air and missile defense and vertical launch capabilities.

USS Sam
Nunn will be constructed by Huntington Ingalls Industries in Pascagoula,
Mississippi. The ship will be 509 feet long, have a beam of 59 feet and be
capable of traveling in excess of 30 knots.

ARLINGTON,
Va.— Raytheon Missile Co. will build a new block upgrade of the Tomahawk cruise
missile for the U.S. Navy even as the company takes older missiles into a recertification
program to return them to service.

“Tomahawk has
returned to production [after a one-year gap],” said Chris Daily, Raytheon’s
Tomahawk program manager, speaking to reporters May 7 at the Sea-Air-Space Expo
in National Harbor, Md. “All production beginning in fiscal ’20 will be Block 5.”

He said the
fiscal 2020-2021 production — 90 missiles per year — will emerge as Block 5
versions.

The Block 5
version is an upgrade of the Block 4 Tomahawk, with upgrades such as navigation
and communications improvements.

A subversion,
Block 5A, will be the Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST), equipped with a multimode
seeker that retains a land-attack capability.

“The MST is
going to be a great addition to the fleet,” Daily said.

Another, the
Block 5B, will be a Block V armed with the Joint Multiple Effects Warhead and
will be fielded in 2024-2025.

Daily said
the Block 4 Tomahawks being recertified after 15 years in service also will
emerge as Block 5 versions. The first deliveries will occur in 2020.

“Tomahawk will be in the
fleet until the 2050s,” Daily said.

It will be a busy 2019 for the Littoral Combat Ships, with
six vessels set to be commissioned by the end of the year, a program official
said at Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium on Wednesday.

Three of the commissionings — for LCSs 13, 16 and 18 — have already occurred
this year, with the commissionings of LCSs 15, 17 and 20 to follow in the
coming months, said Neal White, deputy program manager, Littoral Combat Ships.

In addition, LCSs 9 and 12 are set to transition to sustainment this year, and
there will be three keel layings: LCSs 25, 27 and 28.

The Navy is winding down the LCS program and plans to build a total of 33 ships
over the life of the program before transitioning to building the
next-generation frigate.

Dubbed the FFG(X), it was announced in Department of Defense request for
information in 2017, and the Navy has chosen five shipbuilders to submit
designs for a fleet of approximately 20 guided-missile frigates. The first ship
would be purchased as early as 2020, meaning that the current LCS design may be
modified to fit the new platform.

Lockheed Martin builds the Freedom variant of the ships (odd-numbered ships)
and Austal USA builds the Independence variant (even-numbered ships).

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Rear Adm. Danelle Barrett began her May 8 presentation at Sea-Air-Space 2019 with a cost comparison. A Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier costs some $13 billion, she said. A troublemaker can build a capable hacking device that could disrupt systems on a Ford carrier and potentially every other U.S. Navy platform, for about $9.97.

Given that Navy
computers rely on the same off-the-shelf providers as industry and the bad guys,
Barrett described how she is doing what she can to ensure that data gets
delivered safely and quickly to who needs it, without fear of being encumbered
by attackers.

Navy ships have
“about 50 different systems” funneling data to commanding officers, Barrett
said, who in turn have a limited amount of random access memory “to figure out
what to do with all that.”

The Navy needs the
right infrastructure, with machines capable of using artificial intelligence
(AI) to sift through the stream of data and provide the most important facts.

As an example,
Barrett cited the considerations the carrier Abraham Lincoln’s commander and
crew would face when planning a trip through the Straits of Hormuz.

“Things are tense
with the Iranians. We want a safe transit,” Barrett said.

Every key player
on the Lincoln wants to know specifics relative to his or her own job, she
said.

“The navigator
needs to know, can I navigate safely through at [a given] course and speed. The
chief engineer wants … data on problems I might have with the plant. The
communications officer wants to make sure I don’t drive out of my satellite
footprint. The intel folks, those on tactical watch and battle watch, need it,
too. The last time [a carrier] went through, about 20 nautical miles away, Iranian
UAVs came over to harass the ship,” Barrett said.

The Navy does not
have this capability — to provide data and ensure security to the lowest
possible element later — today, Barrett said. She also pointed out that
mischief likely would not manifest itself as some bold and splashy operation.

Rather, “They
would mess with the data just a little bit … just enough to make you make a
really bad calculation,” Barrett said. “It’s not going to be noticeable if it’s
coming from a very sophisticated adversary.”

Barrett is
spearheading a course that would have the right systems in place as quickly as
possible. Stove-piping of approval for new systems, or delivery of data, will
not work for her. The process will use “stuff that industry is doing,
leveraging the exact same products,” and will provide interoperability. The
Navy must be able to get its hands on the next fastest thing, get it installed
and have it functioning — before enemies upgrade their own capabilities.

“The environment
to the left of the boom is going to get more complicated,” she said.

Already, ships are
inundated with data from scores of sensors in and under the surface and in the
air, she said. Soon, thousands of such devices are going to be funneling such
information. Managing the data, Barrett said, will require ensuring that its
quality is as good as it can be. Commanders should be able to get what they
need within, say, a two-hour window of their next major milestone.

“If I could do that today, I’d have a huge
operational advantage,” Barrett said. “It’s a tall order. But we’ll get there.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Artificial intelligence in all its forms, from machine learning algorithms to unmanned systems, is a sure thing for the sea services and its partners, but there is still much to determine in terms of the technological and operational challenges it presents for warfighting.

In a panel discussion on May 8 at Sea-Air-Space, U.S. Coast
Guard Rear Adm. David Dermanelian, assistant commandant for C4IT and commander
of Coast Guard Cyber Command, framed the conversation as a relevant, real-world
issue for the sea services.

“This is not the art of the future. It’s happening today,” Dermanelian
said.

U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Christian Wortman, vice chief
of naval research, said the Corps has an expansive approach to AI and is
seeking to embed it into everything the service does, including machine
learning to make war more efficient and help make more informed decisions. But
he stressed that users “can’t look at this in isolation,” and the Marines also
need enhanced network capabilities and to use the cloud so algorithms can take
advantage of the data that is harvested.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Casey Morton, who was on day three of
his job as program executive officer of Unmanned and Small Combatants, said his
service is “firmly” moving in the direction of adding more unmanned elements to
its assets, from unmanned surface vehicles to unmanned underwater vehicles and
beyond.

“They are going to be a part of our team,” Morton said. “It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when and how fast and how can we get there.”

Right now, he believes the Navy is not yet at human-machine
teaming but is working toward that future where Sailors and machines work
closely together. He cautioned that there are still a lot of unanswered
questions about AI, like what infrastructure it will need, where it will be
based in the fleet, how it will be supported, if it will be forward-deployed
and other policy issues.

“We are at the early stages of this still,” Morton said. “There
are a lot of questions here that are still unanswered.”

The U.S. Maritime Administration’s Christopher Walher, who
focuses on the education programs of MARAD’s six state maritime academies, sees
AI as a pedagogical challenge, since sometimes subject matter experts are too
advanced to be excellent teachers, often skipping over critical points that, to
them, appear obvious.

He prefers a “crawl, walk, run” approach to the training
pipeline, where MARAD leverages a training process so AI can manage what it
excels at and humans can focus on their strengths, much like the current relationship
between smartphones and users.

Key for MARAD going forward will be working with other organizations, including a meeting the agency has next month with AI experts so they can share information, versus starting from ground zero on research and development.

“As we talk about crawl, walk, run in the Maritime
Administration, we are the little ship that could,” he said. “We don’t have a
lot of money for R&D.”

Steven Escaravage, senior vice president for the Strategic
Innovation Group at Booz Allen Hamilton, briefly went over his company’s 60
current programs that involve machine learning and robotics, including areas
like sensor data processing, electronic warfare, predictive maintenance and
optimized planning.

Escaravage said the field of AI in the last six to 12 months
has focused on taking what has been written about and researched in the lab and
tried to operationalize those concepts so they can be used in real-world
environments. He said while AI has suffered from being overhyped, there are
some rich capabilities for it today.

“Although today’s capabilities are probably over-extended
and somewhat brittle, what’s going to happen in a matter of months is going to
be real capability that changes pretty much everything we do.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — U.S and Canadian sea service officers
and industry leaders looked forward to more seamless coordination and better
times for shipbuilding, which one U.S. Navy vice admiral said was just recently
emerging from a “readiness divot.”

“We’d flirted dangerously, we had been shrinking the Navy
for 40-plus years,” said Vice. Adm. William Merz, a panelist in “The Future of
Shipbuilding” program here at Sea-Air-Space on May 7.

Fellow speaker Rear Adm. Casper Donovan of the Royal
Canadian Navy brought insight into Canada’s 20-year shipbuilding program. “It’s
a great time to be in shipbuilding. For the first time, we have a long-term
shipbuilding strategy,” Donovan remarked of Canada’s approach.

Could Canada be setting an example for its neighbors to the
south in the U.S. sea services, who are still dealing with the effects of automatic
spending cuts under budget sequestration? That word — sequestration — came up a
lot during the hour-long discussion.

But fiscal years 2019 and 2020 seem to be helping the U.S.
Navy turn the corner, Merz said. The 2020 shipbuilding plan that is “now on the
streets” stresses adaptability, efficiency and agility and includes funding for
the Navy’s purchase of two Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, CVNs 80 and
81, and funding for the Columbia class of nuclear submarines, among several
programs.

“We will pay for
Columbia class, a very expensive ship,” Merz added.

The shipbuilding news is also better for the U.S. Coast
Guard, of course, with its 6/3/1 cutter construction strategy well underway,
which fits under the National Defense Strategy, said another panelist, Coast
Guard Rear Adm. Douglas Schofield.

“We’re finally recapitalizing a good portion of the Coast
Guard fleet,” Schofield told the audience for the panel discussion, which was
moderated by Matt Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America, and
included Steve Eckberg of General Dynamics NASSCO.

The Coast Guard’s Schofield highlighted the construction of new station boats, the new fast-response cutters, the delivery of the eighth national security cutter, the start of construction on the first Heritage-class offshore patrol cutter and the new contract to build three new polar security cutters for the Arctic, an area of renewed focus for the Coast Guard.

“The partnership with industry is now more important than
ever,” he said.

All panelists agreed that the “boom/bust” cycle hurts
shipyards and private industry, because when the yards stand down from military
ship construction, it’s very hard to engage them again. They go out of business
or move on the construction of civilian-sector vessels.