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Wargames This Year To Inform Future Surface Combatant Requirements
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The Navy is already conducting wargames in preparation for the Future Surface Combatant family of systems acquisition process to begin later this year, several officials involved said last week.

The Future Surface Combatant – originally meant to look at how to replace cruisers, destroyers and ultimately the Littoral Combat Ship – now includes a large, small and unmanned surface combatant that will go through the acquisition process with each other and an “integrated combat system” to tie them together.

Capt. Chris Sweeney, deputy director of surface warfare for Aegis and Ballistic Missile Defense (OPNAV N96), told USNI News that “we’re not sure yet” whether the three ships would have a common hull design, and rigorous analysis and wargaming would ultimately dictate the requirements for the three – or more – surface ships.

“Do we use a current hull form, or do we go with a clean sheet and go to a new hull form? I don’t know. I think those top-level requirements need to be laid out, because then it’s all about SWAP-C, space, weight, power, cooling,” Sweeney said.
“So how big does the hull need to be? Do we need all the mission capability on one ship? We’ll see what the study says.”

A large integrated air and missile defense cruiser may have extensive warfighting capabilities whereas the small surface combatant may be limited to a lesser capability focused on self-defense, for example.

Sweeney said during a Feb. 15 panel presentation at the American Society of Naval Engineers’ Technologies, Systems and Ships conference that two capabilities-based assessments had been completed in October 2016 to look at operational and technological gaps in the fleet. Four common themes among the assessments’ findings were enhanced lethality, distribution of forces, human-machine teaming and integration of effects, he said.

Based on those assessments, as well as work leading up to the
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, the surface warfare community is now preparing for a big wargame in June to test out ideas for the FSC family of systems. Based on the outcome of the June wargame, officials should have a “surface force initial capabilities document” written by July to get FSC into the acquisition pipeline.

The conversation around the manned combatants may be similar to previous ones – such as when the surface community decided to replace the frigate, the patrol coastal ships (PCs) and the mine countermeasures ships (MCMs) with the single Littoral Combat Ship. The study may point to a single large surface combatant to replace both cruisers and destroyers, or a single hull design with multiple payload variants, or multiple different large surface combatants to meet fleet needs.

The unmanned piece of FSC is an even more complex conversation, though, due to the Navy admittedly having a long list of things they still need to better understand about unmanned systems and manned-unmanned integration.

Cmdr. Jason Fox, military deputy for Naval Sea Systems Command’s technology office (SEA 05T), said in a Feb. 16 panel at the same conference that the Navy needs to truly understand why it is integrating a manned and an unmanned platform before it can decide how to integrate them. If the unmanned vessel will be a sensor to extend the sight of the manned platform, the two can be more loosely integrated. However, if the unmanned vessel will be part of the fire control loop, where quality of data and speed of data transmission are paramount, that operational concept drives a much tighter integration.

“We’ve got to get these wargames right and understand how the future fleet is going to, or at least envisions, using [unmanned]” to determine the level of integration from the outset, Fox said.

Regardless of the level of integration, the manned hulls in the FSC family must be designed to host and operate unmanned surface, aerial or underwater vessels as technologies evolve.

During the same panel discussion on flexible ship designs to support unmanned platforms, Howard Berkof, unmanned systems deputy program manager in the Program Executive Office for Littoral Combat Ships, rattled off a long list of qualities that the unmanned component of FSC could have, pending Navy requirements, that may drive the discussion about what the surface community needs and how to cost-effectively buy the platforms.

“We are looking at a family of USVs of different sizes, different lengths, different payloads, different capabilities, different hull structures – whether you have a monohull or a SWATH (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull) hull like you see in the SeaHunter,” he said.
“We are looking at everything, and as we kick off the FSC studies and [analyses of alternatives], they’re going to inform the Navy what type of family of systems we’re looking for. What types of missions do they need to do? What kind of payloads do they need to carry? What kinds of payloads could be organic to these USVs and what kind of payloads could be modular to these USVs – in other words, does every USV carry [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and [electronic warfare] and deception capability, while the modularity comes in the different types of mission payloads they could carry such as fuel bladders or offensive capability or [anti-submarine warfare] or mine warfare?”

Sweeney, the requirements officer in the surface warfare directorate, said the surface community is partnering with the Office of Naval Research to work with the SeaHunter, which will transition into a Medium Displacement Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MDUSV). Navy leaders want to get that platform into the hands of sailors to start learning lessons now, and that hands-on experimentation may culminate with an “experimental squadron” of MDUSV, the Zumwalt-class destroyer (DDG-1000), Littoral Combat Ship and Arleigh Burke-class destroyer (DDG-51) standing up around 2019.

That experimental squadron would not just help demonstrate the usefulness of an unmanned vessel in the FSC family of systems, but it would also help demonstrate how the three-ship Zumwalt-class might inform the large surface combatant piece.

Naval Sea Systems Command commander Vice Adm. Tom Moore said in a Feb. 15 speech that Zumwalt-class DDGs may end up like the Seawolf-class attack submarines – small in number, but capable ships that helped inform the next class’s design.

“I think what you’re going to see with DDG-1000 is, it’s going to be akin to the Seawolf program: we only built three of those and the submarine community, to their credit, rather than crying over spilt milk said, okay, we’re going to go learn from what we did on Seawolf and some of the technologies there, and we’re going to go build a better product going forward, which turned out to be the Virginia-class submarine,” Moore said.
“We’re going to learn about this ship, this platform. The combatant commanders are going to be glad to have it, and then we’re going to learn something about the new technologies we have on that and we’re going to roll that into the Future Surface Combatant going forward.”
I would've thought the USN had outfoxed itself enough with the LCS Project, but it seems the USN is going to outfox itself some more: by going unmanned!!
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
SSP’s Benedict: Time to Start Thinking About the Next SLBM

The Navy admiral responsible for developing and sustaining the Navy’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) said the service is beginning to envision the next generation of SLBMs.

“Now is the time to start thinking about the next missile,” Vice Adm. Terry Benedict, director, Strategic Systems Programs (SSP), told an audience at the American Society of Naval Engineers meeting Feb. 15. “What’s it going to be? We are moving now with the military concepts and capabilities.”

The UGM-133 Trident II D5 is the current SLBM in the Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN) fleet and has been in service for 27 years. Lockheed Martin built a total of 533 D5 missiles. The D5 is being modernized with new components under a life-extension program (D5LE), a program expected to be complete by 2023.

The D5LE also will be the missile carried for the first deployments of the new Columbia-class SSBN, scheduled to make its first patrol in 2031. The Columbia class is scheduled to serve until 2082, and therefore will need a new missile — Benedict used the term E6 for it — at some point in its service life.

Benedict said the reliability of the Trident D5 missile is 114 percent of the program’s goal and meets its accuracy goal by 240 percent.

The admiral listed his top concern and priority is the SSP’s future workforce, preserving the culture of professionalism, security, safety and exacting performance that has been the hallmark of the force since its inception 61 years ago.

He also expressed concern over the readiness of the SSBN fleet, noting that “we’re seeing aging characteristics and phenomenology that in some cases is new.”

Benedict voiced frustration about obtaining knowledge of the potential cyber threat the Navy’s strategic weapons systems.

“No one will actually talk to you about the threat unless you can find that magical person and you have the magical clearance where they’ll talk to you in detail,” he said. “That could be the requirement for us as developers and acquisitions [officials] on what we’re supposed to put in the architecture to address cyber. … What is the requirement that I am supposed to put in the Trident II strategic weapon system — which represents 70 percent of this nation’s strategic nuclear deterrent? What is the requirement that I have to address cyber proactively, rather than listening to all the stories that we have about cyber about how somebody invaded us, about how we found them and how we cleaned the system up?

“We need to thinking from an engineering sense about how architect systems to prevent cyber attacks,” he said. “In my opinion, we’re way behind the power curve on how to do that.

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OK since I read it, I post (of course I'm not convinced "... the Navy has this incredibly powerful [NIFC-CA] capability ..." right now, and I'm not "enthusiastic about inter-service battle networks merging" and so on) PACOM Commander Harris Wants the Army to Sink Ships, Expand Battle Networks
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The commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific called for tighter integration of joint forces, to include Army units tapping into Navy battle networks to help go after complex targets.

For starters, U.S. Pacific Command commander Adm. Harry Harris said he’d like the Army to develop a native anti-ship capability.

“Before I leave PACOM, I’d like to see the Army’s land forces conduct exercises to sink a ship in a complex environment where our joint and combined forces are operating in other domains,” Harris said during the West 2017 conference on Tuesday.
“Moving forward, all the services will have to exert influence in non-traditional and sometimes unfamiliar domains.”

Harris then called for his Navy and Army forces commanders – Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift and U.S. Army Pacific commander Gen. Bob Brown – to work out how to tie the Army’s land-based missile defense network into the Navy’s Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air architecture. NIFC-CA – based around the U.S. carrier strike group – creates a network of sensors and shooters to allow ships or aircraft to pass targeting information between several different weapon systems and platforms.

“The Army has a tremendous air defense capability and the Navy has this incredibly powerful [NIFC-CA] capability. These two systems ought to be talking to each other so they can be complementary and work in order to give us superiority on the battlefield,” he told reporters following his keynote.
“I want them to deliver a missile on target, and I want them to do it interchangeably… so the E-2D [Advanced Hawkeye] and the Aegis destroyer and the Army counter-air are integrated together. I think that’s the way of the future.”

The goal is to further integrate the PACOM forces and create more options and capabilities for commanders.

“We must be able to execute joint operations across far more domains than planners accounted for in the past. We need a degree of ‘jointness’ where no domain has a fixed boundary,” he said.
“A combatant commander must be able to create effects from any single domain to targets in every other domain.”

While Harris, was enthusiastic about inter-service battle networks merging, he stopped short of calling for a NIFC-CA level of connection with Japanese and South Korean forces.

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and aircraft capable of bolting on to the U.S. Navy’s NIFC-CA construct and expanding its reach. When asked by USNI News, Harris declined to say if he wants to link the capabilities of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the South Korean military directly to the U.S. NIFC-CA network.

He did, however, praise a new intelligence-sharing agreement signed in November between the Japan and Korea –
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. The two countries have attempted to overcome historical differences to pass the measure since 2012, with no success until late November. While still controversial in both countries, the advancements in North Korea’s ballistic missile technology prompted action from leaders in Tokyo and Seoul.

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agreement between Japan, South Korea and the U.S. in the past and praised recent BMD exercises between the three countries.

“We have made big inroads into the ballistic missile defense piece. We’ve had some very successful trilateral BMD exercises of late,” Harris told reporters.
“The fact that Japan and Korea are working together better now than they have in past is key to this.”

Harris’ calls for U.S. interoperability and international cooperation came during a speech in which he outlined what he saw were the chief challenges in his area of responsibility– namely, a nuclear-armed North Korea, plus Chinese and Russian governments that violate international laws and norms.

“They can choose to disregard the rules-based security order that has served all nations – including them – so well for decades, or they can contribute to it as responsible stakeholders,” he said.
“I hope for the latter, but must be prepared for the former.”
 
then I moved to
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“These two systems ought to be talking to each other,” Harris said. “I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not a technical guy, so I don’t know how to make it work…How they do it, that’s my challenge to my components, to Adm. Swift (
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, commander of Pacific Fleet) and to Gen. Brown (
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, commander of US Army Pacific).”
... “My wallet really is small. The
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don’t buy stuff except in specialized areas,” he told AFCEA. ...

so now I see Admiral Harris described his dream
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source:
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some time ago
Jan 12, 2015
latest on CANES:
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(what's CANES? :)
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now SPAWAR Chief: CANES Installation Time Cut in Half
Three years into its plan to modernize fleet tactical networks, the Navy has sliced by more than half the time it’s taking to install the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise System on aircraft carriers and other ships and submarines.

“CANES is going great,” Rear Adm. David H. Lewis, who commands the San Diego-based Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, told a Tuesday audience at WEST 2017 conference.
“We are putting it on two LCCs,” with completion of the installation on the command ship Blue Ridge (LCC-19) expected this spring and the full install aboard command ship Mount Whitney (LCC-20) expected to be finished sometime this fall.

“That’s a bigger install than on a carrier. More racks, more equipment, more capability,” he said of work on the fleet command ships. “That’s one of our biggest and most challenging installations.”

It’s a massive undertaking updating five older shipboard legacy systems into a more secure, adaptable, integrated platform for command, control, communication, computer and intelligence (C4I). The Navy is seeing some progress as it refines and fine tunes the process of updating afloat I.T. infrastructure, complex and physical work to remove older wiring, cables, servers, workstations and other electronics on ships and replace with the more secure and capable system.

The Navy saw initial CANES installation on aircraft carriers that stretched 18 months shrink to nine months by 2015. The
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(CVN-74). ()

By 2016, Lewis said, that installation time shrunk further to 7 months. In 2017, “we’re going to take that same process and expand it out to the rest of the fleet. DDGs, LPDs, LSDs, big-deck amphibs,” Lewis said. “So you’ll see what we learned in that process of accelerating CVN CANES installations promulgated throughout the fleet.”

Already,
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,” he said.
Lewis told the audience that continued improvements in testing and upgrades to test laboratories go a long way to reduce costs down the line for systems like CANES, before the infrastructure is installed on a ship, “so we know that what goes out works,” he said.

“Half of the CANES installation time is testing, so if we can pretest it before it gets to the ship, then we’ve saved time on the back side,” he noted. “It’s a lot cheaper to test it here in San Diego or in Norfolk than it is onboard the Blue Ridge in Yokosuka, Japan, or in USS Truman in Norfolk.”
source:
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Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
now I read
Wargames This Year To Inform Future Surface Combatant Requirements
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I would've thought the USN had outfoxed itself enough with the LCS Project, but it seems the USN is going to outfox itself some more: by going unmanned!!

No doubt true, but will likely end up with "super scary weapons" to use on the bad guys!
 
now I read
NIFC-CA Advances Could Allow The Navy To Use Cheaper ‘Dumb’ Weapons
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An expanded fire control network could help the Navy leverage lower-cost “dumb” weapons instead of sophisticated missiles that can help find their own targets, several officials said today.

The Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) architecture is currently changing itself – as engineers find ways to bring in new airplanes, new data links and new weapons to work with the Aegis Combat System – but at a certain point a strong enough NIFC-CA network could allow the Navy to begin changing what weapons it buys, they said during a panel presentation at the WEST 2017 conference.

Though there are many challenges associated with integrated new systems into NIFC-CA, director for integration and interoperability at the warfare integration directorate (OPNAV N9I) Cmdr. David Snee said that if the ability to see over the horizon and share information quickly and accurately were to be achieved, “then I have a world where I could have a very sophisticated high-tech weapon, or not.”

“Right now we’re in a world where if I can’t see beyond the horizon then I need to build in that sort of sensing and high-tech effort into the weapon itself,” said Snee, who also serves as the deputy for the Chief of Naval Operations’ Task Force Netted Navy.
“But in a world where I can see beyond the horizon and I can target, then I don’t need to spend a billion dollars on a weapon that doesn’t need to have all that information; I just need to be able to give the data to the weapon at the appropriate time.”

The Navy has long acknowledged it is on the wrong side of the cost curve for many engagements, where a relatively inexpensive target from an adversary would force the Navy to respond with a very expensive smart weapon. Under the scenario Snee described, the weapon would need a guidance system and the ability to receive targeting data from a ship or aircraft, but not the sensors to seek out a target on its own.

Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) principal assistant program manager for Aegis development Cmdr. Andrew Thomson added, “it should be noted that every time you fire a weapon, it goes and blows up somewhere. So that’s always going to be a huge sunk cost. If you put the smarts and the sensors and the networks on the back end, those things tend to come back and are reusable and repurpose-able and everything else. But if you shoot a missile, it goes away and it’s going to blow up somewhere.”

Thomson warned not to underestimate the challenges of engineering this type of network: for every new sensor or weapon the Navy wants to add in, it takes a lengthy process of testing and measuring and testing some more to understand “what is the sensor, what’s the quality of the data that it’s giving me, what are its biases, how quickly can I get that information, what is the latency associated with it. Then, does that meet what the weapon can do, or do I need to change anything to make it work? That just takes a little bit of time and they have to do it incrementally with each” new addition to NIFC-CA.

Still, he said, if the Navy could expand NIFC-CA to be long-range enough and reliable enough, it could keep the “smarts” in the aircraft and ships in the network and save money on the actual munitions.

During the panel discussion, PEO IWS major program manager for future combat systems Anant Patel said the Navy had had success integrating the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, F-35B Joint Strike Fighter and the Army’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) into NIFC-CA and that PEO IWS would look to integrate the F-35C, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler in the future.

As NIFC-CA inevitably grows and evolves, Snee said the Navy wants to see it grow in a way that supports fighting in other domains.

“The last part of NIFC-CA is counter air, so it’s very limited in that domain,” he said.
“I think back in the [Pentagon] we’re broadening that aperture to look at naval integrated fires in all the domains. And so kind of addressing the problem from that aspect is what we’re doing going forward. This is the first chapter of [NIFC-CA]. … One of the things we’re really tackling back in D.C. is really to come up with an integration campaign plan for the Navy of how we’re going to stitch this together” and use the NIFC-CA concept to eventually go after surface or subsurface threats, for example.

I repeat my comment from Jan 17, 2017
Navy: Most Offensive, Defensive Upgrades Surface Force Will Be Fielded by 2023
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“If we have this missile out there and we can afford to do so, we will try to put it as many places as we can. Again, distributed lethality, the more shooters we have out there,” he said
he
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Rear Admiral Ronald A. Boxall
Director, Surface Warfare

hope you will have enough SPOTTERS, MID-COURSE CORRECTORS for your concept, then
 
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