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A new strategy for the surface force – released today – creates an outline for a navy that anticipates a return to high-end warfare it hasn’t known since the Cold War.

The document will fill in gaps for several pushes the surface establishment has announced over the last two years to create a cohesive path forward for the force.

“There was a picture that we were building, we just had to get that picture into focus. You want to be impatient, you want it into focus as rapidly as you can, but you may focus on the wrong picture,” Vice Adm. Tom Rowden told USNI News last week.
“This is our North Star, if you will. All the conversations we’ve had over the last three, four years, and starts to focus them in a single direction that will drive resources.”

For Rowden, that direction is sea control.

“Sea control does not mean command of all the seas, all the time. Rather, it is the capability and capacity to impose localized control of the sea when and where it is required to enable other objectives and to hold it as long as necessary to accomplish those objectives,” reads the strategy.

That flavor of sea control was the driving force of the Navy during the Cold War.

“Every time we got underway… we were in this shadowboxing match with the Soviet Navy over control of the sea. The way we operated… was to go toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union and wrest control of the sea,” Rowden said.
“That changed when the Cold War was lost by the Soviet Union and they virtually, in very short period of time, tied up their ships, and we woke one day and we had control of every square inch of ocean on the face of the earth.”

Instead of sea control, the emphasis for the surface navy post-Cold War – starting with the first Gulf War – was on power projection. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that direction included land attack and ballistic missile defense responsibilities.

High-end and high seas warfare against a near peer competitor were not front and center of the Navy’s consciousness. For example, the last Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyer to commission with a dedicated over-the-horizon anti-ship missile was USS Porter (DDG-78) in 1999.

“It seems to me that we’ve been focusing on something different. We have to return to thinking about this balance of power projection and sea control,” Rowden said.

But in early 2015, the surface forces announced a reemphasis on the higher-end fight – distributed lethality. The idea was to expand the offensive capability of the surface fleet through modification of existing weapons, changes in tactics and putting more firepower on more ships faster.

To that end, the strategy recommends four paths for investment – increase firepower of surface warships, support the Navy’s long-range shipbuilding plan and modernization strategy, improve battle space awareness, and improve learning in the surface forces.

“Part of my drive is to take a look at the weapons and weapon systems that we have and see what modification we can make to those to maximize their value, and how rapidly can we do it,” Rowden said.
“Prime example, Standard Missile 6, [was] originally designed to be a surface-to-air weapon. We’ve been able to modify that weapon to not only execute effectively as a surface-to-air weapon but also as a surface-to-surface weapon. “

The Navy is also developing a maritime version of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile and studying whether it could use the Lockheed Martin Long Range Anti-Surface Missile, Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile and a modified Boeing Harpoon to increase anti-surface offensive power.

In the realm of modernization and shipbuilding, the surface forces are evaluating existing platforms for modernization – like the remaining Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers.

“Even though they’re scheduled for decommissioning starting in the early ‘20s timeframe, the fact of the matter is we still have a very capable combat system even on our older cruisers. If the leadership decides that it’s a better idea to keep the force structure up for a modest investment we can continue to the life of those cruisers well into the 20s. That’s an option that we want to put on the table for leadership,” Rowden said.
“We’re doing a bunch of stuff like that. As more resources flow, here are more options, here is more ability to get the force structure up.”

The strategy also calls for the, “continued development of combat systems capabilities with improvements to mission planning software, battle management software for Warfare Commanders, and tools to manage unit and force level emissions. The efforts in this overarching objective are also intended to capitalize on advanced Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW) technologies, such as the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program.”

While equipment has been the focal point of the distributed lethality effort, the strategy also includes pushes in improving and honing personnel and tactics.

A major part of that effort is overseen by the

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(NSMWDC, pronounced: Smi-Dik).

“People like to focus on the flash to bang, but I’m also pleased in where we are in the supporting organizations necessary to move these thoughts and ideas on the tools forward as well,” Rowden said.

The new command that creates specialized surface warfare officers in the realms of mine, anti-submarine, amphibious and surface warfare is set to be the intellectual heart of the surface renaissance. Complex requirements and tactics problems that were difficult to staff are now given to SMWDC, Rowden said.
“Controlling the sea isn’t about surface ships and surface weapons, controlling the sea is about utilization of all of the different types of arrows in the quiver,” Rowden said.

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U.S. Defense Department explores Japan's commercial technology

TOKYO —The U.S. Defense Department held a seminar in Tokyo in November for Japanese companies to study whether their technologies could be used for U.S. military equipment, Japanese and U.S. officials said Sunday.

It was the second time the Pentagon held such a seminar in Japan. The first one was held in 2014 when Japan adopted new principles and guidelines on arms exports and reinterpreted the Constitution to enable the exercise of the right to collective self-defense.

The session took place in late November at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry which arranged it at the request of the Pentagon, attended by some 60 Japanese companies, the officials said without disclosing names of the companies.

The U.S. government has long explored Japanese technologies, providing funding to Japanese researchers at universities and other institutions...... to read more

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The US Navy has or is building 75 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, considered among the most powerful surface ships ever fielded. The service is banking that the 76 th ship – probably – is even more effective, incorporating a powerful new radar designed to deal with the threat from enemy ballistic missiles. The Navy is likely to spend more than $50 billion over the next decade to build 22 of the new ships, according to a government report.

But negotiations to build the version of the Arleigh Burke, dubbed Flight III, are proving tough. The Navy wants its preferred builder, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW), to agree to a fixed-price contract – a standard tactic to hold down cost growth and, along the way, please Congressional critics. The shipyard, which built the original Arleigh Burke in the late 1980s and remains the lead yard for the program, contends there are too many changes in the design to accurately predict the costs. And the Navy, turning the negotiating screws, is considering switching the ship to rival Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) – a move sure to displease Maine’s powerful Congressional delegation.

Complicating the picture is the situation at Bath’s Maine shipyard, where virtually every ship is behind schedule due to delays in the three-ship Zumwalt-class destroyer program and a series of management decisions on dealing with the delays. The shipyard picture is improving, company officials say, after reaching a nadir in 2015 when a disgruntled workforce chaffed under yard president Fred Harris’ handling of contract negotiations. A new labor agreement eventually was reached, but Bath’s shipbuilding schedule woes continued, and hopes for the future received a major blow in September when the company lost out on a construction program worth up to $2.4 billion as the US Coast Guard picked a Florida shipyard with no experience building ships for the government over the Maine shipbuilders.

The combination proved lethal to Harris’ career, and his retirement was announced in November. He’s been replaced by Dirk Lesko, formerly the company’s head of surface combatants.

In contrast to Bath, rival Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi has multiple shipbuilding projects well in hand. Both yards build Arleigh Burke destroyers, with Ingalls building all the Navy’s amphibious ships and large National Security Cutters for the Coast Guard. By many accounts, the Pascagoula shipbuilder has overcome most of the many problems from recent years, including poor workmanship, bad management decisions and, perhaps most famously, the devastation suffered in 2005 from Hurricane Katrina and the efforts under previous owners Northrop Grumman to get the Navy to pay for much of the repairs. Recently, Ingalls has been starting a new destroyer every nine months.

The Navy’s insistence on a fixed-price contract for what is officially called an engineering change proposal supports a government position that the new design is close enough to the previous version to accurately estimate the cost.

Three destroyer contracts funded in 2016 are in negotiation between the Navy and its shipbuilders – a repeat Flight IIA for Ingalls, the Flight III destroyer, and an extra “swap ship” Flight IIA added by Congress specifically for Bath as part of a complex agreement negotiated by the Navy more than a decade ago.

Declining comment on the negotiations, Navy acquisition directorate spokesperson Capt. Thurraya Kent would only confirm that “the Navy continues to negotiate the DDG 51 Flight III Fixed Price Incentive ECPs with both Bath Iron Works and Huntington Ingalls Industries in accordance with the acquisition strategy.”

But BIW feels the fixed-price requirement puts too much risk on the shipbuilder.

Sources said Bath’s bid for the Flight III was a “no-bid,” or a “non-compliant” bid – apparently indicating the company came back with a cost-plus contract proposal, a more typical construct for early ships in a class. Neither the Navy nor Bath’s parent General Dynamics would confirm the non-compliant bid, but sources said the Navy responded by asking Ingalls to bid on the ship, which they did.

GD spokesperson Lucy Ryan confirmed on Jan. 5 that, “last year, Bath Iron Works proposed a construct for the swap ship, including the Flight III upgrade, which the Navy declined to accept.”

Ryan noted that the “history of Navy shipbuilding has shown significant risk to cost and schedule in starting construction when the detail design of the ship and ship systems is largely incomplete. With the current status of the design, we can’t accurately estimate the cost of constructing the ship at this time.”

GD’s negotiating position is buttressed by a Government Accountability Office report issued in August detailing the many changes in the Flight III design, mostly driven by new SPY-6 Air Missile Defense Radars (AMDR) that will replace older SPY-1D phased-array radars built by Lockheed Martin as the primary sensor for the Aegis combat system.

GAO noted that the “Flight III ship design and construction will be complex — primarily due to changes needed to incorporate SPY-6 onto the ship.” GAO ticked off some of the more significant changes from the earlier Flight IIA design, including a new electrical system to provide increased power to the radars; new high-efficiency air conditioning plants; strengthened hull structure; a widened stern to increase buoyancy; more crew accommodation; Aegis system upgrades; superstructure modifications; and rearrangement of machinery.

“The Navy has not demonstrated sufficient acquisition and design knowledge regarding its Flight III procurement approach,” GAO said. “If the Navy procures the lead Flight III ship in fiscal year 2016 as planned, limited detail design knowledge will be available to inform the procurement.”

The service is planning to ask Congress for a new multi-year procurement authority to order a batch of Flight III ships at the same time – a proven method of keeping costs down and one used for earlier Flight IIA destroyers. The first Flight III ship is scheduled to be the 10 th, and last, ship of the current MYP plan, which covers ships authorized and appropriated from 2013 to 2017. The next MYP is to cover ships from 2018 through 2022, and authority for the plan is expected to be requested in the 2018 defense budget expected this spring.

GAO, however, noted that the Navy will be requesting MYP authority for the Flight III ships “before being able to meet the criteria to seek this authority,” observing that “detail design will not be complete and costs will not be informed by any Flight III construction history.”

Because negotiations are continuing, and because it’s not been decided which shipyard will build the first Flight III ship, it’s not even clear which hull will become the first AMDR ship. The Navy swapped hull numbers of six destroyers in 2015 to incorporate the swap ship added by Congress to the original nine-ship 2013-2016 MYP and to line up even-hull ships with Bath and odd numbers with Ingalls. By that reckoning, the Louis H. Wilson (DDG 126), last ship appropriated in 2016, would be the first Flight III. But if the ship is built in Mississippi, it could be the Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125). If the Navy delays ordering the ship – as recommended by GAO – it could become the yet-to-be-named DDG 127, first ship of the next MYP.

Meanwhile, Raytheon’s development of the AMDR continues unabated. According to Navy and industry sources, the program has met 13 of 13 milestones and is aiming for a Milestone C decision this spring, which would allow the start of low-rate initial production. The first radar set is scheduled to be sent to the shipyard in 2019.

One Pentagon source shook his head at the prospect of delays to build a ship in a particular yard.

“What’s more important, building in your district or building the fleet,” the source asked. “If we’re going to build 355 ships in an expeditious manner, you can’t have all these food fights.”

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Fleet of 12 Nuclear Submarines in Line for Pentagon Approval

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The program to build a new class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines for the US Navy passed a major procedural hurdle Jan. 4, the US Navy announced Monday, allowing engineers and designers to move to the detail design portion of the effort.

The Milestone B approval was granted by Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall for the Columbia-class program, previously known as the Ohio Class Replacement (ORP) and as SSBN(X).

The US plans to design and build 12 Columbia-class submarines for a total acquisition cost of $100 billion – as measured in 2017 dollars – or $128 billion, as measured in total year dollars through the program, which stretches into the mid-2030s.

In a statement, Columbia program director Capt. David Goggins declared “the Navy is committed to delivering Columbia on time and within budget while taking advantage of every opportunity to achieve further cost savings.”

The official tally for the acquisition cost has been baselined at $100 billion, pegged to the year of the Milestone B review.

With that approval, the Columbia class moves to the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the program. The first ship is scheduled to be ordered in 2021.

“Milestone B enables the program to move into the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase where we will focus our attention on achieving an 83 percent design maturity prior to construction start in 2021,” Goggins said in the statement, adding that the next phase will be a production readiness review.

General Dynamics Electric Boat is the Columbia program’s prime contractor. The shipbuilder, with shipyards at Quonset Point, Rhode Island and Groton, Connecticut, is expected to grow its workforce from 14,000 to 18,000 employees to build the Columbias while continuing to build Virginia-class attack submarines.

Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding, GD’s 50-50 partner in building the Virginia class, will built roughly a third of each Columbia.

The Columbia’s name was officially announced Dec. 14 and will carry hull designation SSBN 826. Follow-on ships of the class will be designated SSBN 827 through 837.

US ballistic missile submarines carry the Trident D5 weapon with nuclear warheads. The Lockheed Martin-built missile will also arm Britain’s new Successor-class submarines, now known as the Dreadnought-class after the name of the first ship.

The Navy expects the Columbia to carry out its first deterrent patrol during fiscal 2031.

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Even as the future of the

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hangs in the balance, nearly two dozen Warthogs recently received upgrades to enhance their combat search and rescue capabilities, a need described as "urgent" by one

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official, according to an Air Force statement.

A new recovery system has been installed on 19 A-10C Thunderbolts assigned to

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in the United States in the past three months, the Air Force said in a statement Friday.

Called the LARS V-12, the system is designed to allow A-10 pilots to better communicate with downed pilots, pararescuemen and joint terminal attack controllers. It provides pilots with ground personnels' GPS coordinates and enables them to communicate by voice or text, the Air Force said.

"This urgent operational need arose in August (2016)," Timothy Gray, acting director of the 309th Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan, was quoted as saying.

Gray said that Air Combat Command and the A-10 Program Office asked whether Gray's unit could outfit 16 aircraft with the upgrade by mid-December of 2016.

The Air Force did not say whether additional A-10s would be outfitted with the new system.

Earmarked by the Air Force several years ago for the chopping block to make way for the multirole

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, the A-10 -- which entered service four decades ago -- has seen its stock rise in the U.S. fight against the Islamic State.

More than 700 A-10s of all models were built. Since the end of the Cold War, large numbers of Warthogs have been mothballed or transferred to Air Guard and Reserve units.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in February that the Air Force would defer the A-10's retirement until 2022, saying the aircraft "has been devastating to ISIL from the air."

The Defense Department has said it will replace the A-10 with F-35 Joint Strike Fighters on a squadron-by-squadron basis. But the plan could be in jeopardy under the new administration, as President-elect Donald Trump recently criticized the F-35's cost.

The A-10 is particularly adept at close-air support, able to fly low and slow while attacking ground targets with precision. The plane, which carries a nose-mounted General Electric GAU-8 30 mm cannon that has proven devastatingly effective against ground targets, flies regular combat missions against Islamic State forces in both Syria and Iraq.

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Interview: Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, Commander, US Naval Forces

From his perch in San Diego, COMSURFOR – the commander of US Naval Forces – oversees the preparation and training of all the US Navy’s surface warships – cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, amphibious ships and mine warfare ships. Tom Rowden has had a major hand in the force’s development over the past five years, first as the director of the Surface Warfare Division N96 at the Pentagon, then as the service’s top surface warfare officer in San Diego. He’s championed the concept of distributed lethality and the reinvigoration of combat power in the surface forces. Now, in a new Surface Force Strategy released Jan. 9, he’s harkening back to another classic naval concept.

You’ve succeeded in introducing the concept of distributed lethality into the Navy, and now you’re rolling into the larger concept of sea control – a term of art that was in vogue during the Cold War. Why now sea control?

In five years of focusing all my efforts on the surface warfare community and the surface ship contribution to the Naval team and the joint combined team, I put that against the backdrop of what’s happening globally with respect to nuclear competitors, non-government actors, some of the more destructive governments out there, I go back a conversation I had when I was a midshipman with then-Rear Adm. Hank Mustin. He pointed out that the reason the United States of America has a Navy is to control the sea.

Now in the 21 st century, this is a maritime century we’re driving in to, I see some of our nuclear competitors and their reactions to our complete dominance of the maritime domain. They seek to challenge that control of the sea that we’ve had. Surface ships play a significant role in sea control, and when we had complete and unfettered sea control we had the opportunity to, I guess, not concentrate as heavily on the contribution of surface ships. Well, the times have changed.

As we formulated the Surface Force Strategy I saw a lot of parallels from when we were challenged from the sea control perspective in the Cold War and some of the challenges we’re seeing now, and I concentrated on that conversation I had back with Mustin back in the ’81 timeframe where the Navy exists to control the sea for the prosperity of our country and to the benefit of our allied partners and friends.

When people talk about sea control the discussion often leads straight to aircraft carriers and submarines. What do surface ships bring to the picture?

One is quantity has a quality all its own. Surface forces bring big numbers or have the potential to bring big numbers -- 62 destroyers and 22 cruisers in commission today, and a growing number of littoral combat ships coming into the force. From the numbers perspective we comprise the bulk of the United States Navy. However, I think it’s important that we concentrate on a strategy not just on ships or numbers or specific weapons, but a complete package of talent, tactics, training, and tools needed to maximize the value of surface ships in the sea control fight. And it’s been said to me on numerous occasions that, from the historical perspective, when you get into a sea control fight the first thing you run out of is ships.

You mentioned Littoral Combat Ships. One LCS, the Coronado, is deployed and operating from Singapore, but you’re in the process of revamping the crewing and support structures and singling up on mission packages. What’s in the near future for LCS? Is that the only deployment scheduled for 2017?

That is correct.

You don’t have another LCS deployment scheduled for 2017?

No, I don’t think so.

You have eight LCSs in commission now, and another four should enter service in 2017. What are those ships doing for the balance of 2017 into 2018?

We’re in the process of implementing the review, recommendations, forming the first division, and getting the crews squared away, and we’re building the processes and infrastructure necessary to make sure we get those ships out on deployment. I’d like to say, yeah, I could snap my fingers and make it all happen immediately, but the reality of it is there’s a lot of moving parts in getting those combat ships out. On top of it, we formed the first two divisions, anti-surface warfare divisions. I am looking to deploy in earnest in ’18. Obviously, we’ve got work to do. But certainly for the first division, East and West Coast, that’s when we’re looking to start deploying those ships.

In 2016 the Chinese Navy commissioned a 4,000-ton frigate in late February and sent it on a 7-month deployment six weeks later. It often takes a year or more for the US Navy to deploy a new destroyer. What are the Chinese doing that the US Navy does not? What does the US Navy do that the Chinese don’t?

Two gray ships riding on the sea go by. They’ve got a bunch of flags flying and a bunch of sailors up on deck. One of them couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag and the other one will rock anything that it comes up against. Could we commission a guided-missile destroyer and steam it out of the harbor and take it on a world cruise? Yeah, I could. But in that situation I would not be taking care of what I refer to as the center of the universe. I want those men and women on that ship to be 100 percent confident in the ship and confident in the execution of any mission leadership may give them. So what are the Chinese thinking? I don’t know anything about it. I would tell you that I find it kind of interesting they feel they have to do that. To what end? I don’t know.

As commander of Surface Forces you prepare your ships to go out and meet operational demands, focusing on enhanced combat power, tactics, talent, tools, and training. Do you have the resources now to effectively carry out all those requirements or do you need more and where do you need more?

In the strategy I specifically didn’t say, “Hey, these are the resources that we need,” because, I mean, it’s not only discussions within the United States Navy, but obviously within the larger, broader DoD and the government. Are there timelines associated with what we’d like to do with the surface force? Yes. Are there resources required associated with what we’d like to do with the surface force? Yes. The requirement for the United States Navy is to go ahead and execute sea control. We can accelerate when resources are added.

Absolutely, we could use more resources, but I think that it also provides us a framework for the resources that lays out priorities and starts to drive those in the direction that allows maximum utilization and maximum benefit of whatever the resources are.

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