http://nextbigfuture.com/
February 02, 2016
The
US Navy (USN) is assessing how best to recapitalise its fleet of
Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers (CGs) and eventually Arleigh
Burke-class guided-missile destroyers (DDGs), the naval staff's
surface warfare head told IHS Jane's on 7 January that he is seeking
modular weapons and radar systems to provide long-range offensive punch,
as well as multilayered defensive capability.
Rear Admiral Peter J Fanta, director of surface warfare (N96), said that the USN's future surface combatant effort must glean lessons from ongoing warship programmes, and build upon new concepts and technologies being introduced on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and Zumwalt-class (DDG 1000) destroyer.
The US Navy is preparing to build Flight III destroyers, the latest version of the Arleigh Burke class that has been under construction since the 1980s, and just began at-sea tests of the first of the Zumwalt class stealth destroyer, a design conceived in the late 1990s. The US Navy is also planning for next generation surface warship designs, dubbed the Future Surface Combatant, currently scheduled to begin procurement in 2030.
Open Architecture and Modularity defined
Open architecture (as defined by Admiral Fanta) means the Navy owns the data rights and can hire somebody to go build a new system using those data rights. They know the interface points, they know how those machines talk to each other. They say “This is your spec, go write these specs” or go write this software into your code so it plugs into mine and they don’t have to spend a billion dollars changing your code every time they want to upgrade the ship.
Modularity (as defined by Admiral Fanta) means not necessarily plug-and-play modules but being able to upgrade when technology allows me to upgrade at a reasonable rate. They can describe the next set of weapons, sensors, engineering components, hull designs that all allow them to go build that next ship. That’s more what they are going for than a particular hull design. They are looking for a family of ships that can do more than one thing, because every time they build a single-mission ship it tends to get decommissioned before its life expectancy. That’s really what this capabilities-based assessment and analysis of alternatives and everything else the Navy doing is driving us to.
Rear Admiral Peter J Fanta, director of surface warfare (N96), said that the USN's future surface combatant effort must glean lessons from ongoing warship programmes, and build upon new concepts and technologies being introduced on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and Zumwalt-class (DDG 1000) destroyer.
The US Navy is preparing to build Flight III destroyers, the latest version of the Arleigh Burke class that has been under construction since the 1980s, and just began at-sea tests of the first of the Zumwalt class stealth destroyer, a design conceived in the late 1990s. The US Navy is also planning for next generation surface warship designs, dubbed the Future Surface Combatant, currently scheduled to begin procurement in 2030.
Open Architecture and Modularity defined
Open architecture (as defined by Admiral Fanta) means the Navy owns the data rights and can hire somebody to go build a new system using those data rights. They know the interface points, they know how those machines talk to each other. They say “This is your spec, go write these specs” or go write this software into your code so it plugs into mine and they don’t have to spend a billion dollars changing your code every time they want to upgrade the ship.
Modularity (as defined by Admiral Fanta) means not necessarily plug-and-play modules but being able to upgrade when technology allows me to upgrade at a reasonable rate. They can describe the next set of weapons, sensors, engineering components, hull designs that all allow them to go build that next ship. That’s more what they are going for than a particular hull design. They are looking for a family of ships that can do more than one thing, because every time they build a single-mission ship it tends to get decommissioned before its life expectancy. That’s really what this capabilities-based assessment and analysis of alternatives and everything else the Navy doing is driving us to.
Fanta wants an air defense commander ship with a radar capable of
handling threats with enough missile capacity — and what those missiles
are will be developed over the next 10-15 years, it doesn’t have to be
the current ones — to allow me to defend the sea base, whether that’s
with a carrier or an expeditionary strike group or group of oilers or
whatever. To defend the sea base and conduct counter-ballistic missile,
anti-shoot cruise missile and provide an offensive strike for that
carrier or by itself. But everything in that sentence is completely
within the capability of a slightly larger DDG 51, or
destroyer-cruiser-size hull.
It’s the number of cells, the number of weapons. Not just hard-kill systems but also directed-energy weapons, whatever is coming down the road. Whether that’s lasers, particle beams, rail guns, whatever comes down the road 15 to 20 years from now is really what we’re going to have to satisfy. That means a power system that can handle it. It will have to be a hard kill, soft kill, directed-energy plus kinetic weapons blend. Enough power so when the power density gets there I can have directed energy for defensive purposes as well as the offensive long-range punch they’ll probably get off kinetics. As well as enough reserve power to handle jamming and electromagnetic warfare and everything else they do.
Fanta is not designing something that looks like a ship. He is designing something that looks like a box in the water and he is adding capability. Frankly whatever the naval and architects tell me that that hull shape should look like is what he is willing to go with. He is not stuck to a particular hull shape or tumblehome or traditional hull, square, round, fat, thin. He wants to know what it’s supposed to do, how much it should carry and what capabilities should it have in there. And then the naval architects will design around it.
Fanta wants a family of surface-to-surface missiles. He want them on everything he can bolt them onto. He wants a missile that goes over 100 miles a missile that goes over 200 miles, a missile that goes over 400 miles, a missile that goes over 700 miles. That’s his ultimate goal. They can be dual-purpose missiles, can attack surface targets and land targets.
SOURCES - Janes, Defense News
It’s the number of cells, the number of weapons. Not just hard-kill systems but also directed-energy weapons, whatever is coming down the road. Whether that’s lasers, particle beams, rail guns, whatever comes down the road 15 to 20 years from now is really what we’re going to have to satisfy. That means a power system that can handle it. It will have to be a hard kill, soft kill, directed-energy plus kinetic weapons blend. Enough power so when the power density gets there I can have directed energy for defensive purposes as well as the offensive long-range punch they’ll probably get off kinetics. As well as enough reserve power to handle jamming and electromagnetic warfare and everything else they do.
Fanta is not designing something that looks like a ship. He is designing something that looks like a box in the water and he is adding capability. Frankly whatever the naval and architects tell me that that hull shape should look like is what he is willing to go with. He is not stuck to a particular hull shape or tumblehome or traditional hull, square, round, fat, thin. He wants to know what it’s supposed to do, how much it should carry and what capabilities should it have in there. And then the naval architects will design around it.
Fanta wants a family of surface-to-surface missiles. He want them on everything he can bolt them onto. He wants a missile that goes over 100 miles a missile that goes over 200 miles, a missile that goes over 400 miles, a missile that goes over 700 miles. That’s his ultimate goal. They can be dual-purpose missiles, can attack surface targets and land targets.
SOURCES - Janes, Defense News
This U.S. missile is about to get a ship-killing upgrade
Launched from the USS John Paul Jones, a Standard Missile-6 demonstrated its ability to intercept ballistic missiles in their final seconds of flight during live fire tests July 28-Aug. 1, 2015. (Photo: Missile Defense Agency
The SM-6 is a vertically launched system fired from the deck of destroyers and cruisers. The missile was designed and fielded to intercept ballistic missiles in flight while they are passing through the upper atmosphere, but now, with Carter’s announcement, the SM-6 will be upgraded to defeat enemy ships.
“It makes the SM-6 basically a twofer,” said Carter to an audience of sailors in San Diego. “[It] can shoot down airborne threats. And now you can attack and destroy a ship at long range with the very same missile.”
The SM-6 is another step forward as the Pentagon moves to configure certain weapons systems to defeat enemy ships. In February 2015, the U.S. Navy showcased a video of a U.S. destroyer firing a Tomahawk cruise missile that hit a moving barge. Tomahawks are primarily used for hitting stationary land-based targets, so if they could be widely converted and used for anti-ship use it would give U.S. ships an additional, and much needed, long range anti-ship strike capability.
Carter admitted to secretly testing the SM-6 last month and added that the Pentagon’s upcoming budget sets aside $2.9 billion to purchase 600 of the missiles.
Currently, the U.S. Navy’s anti-ship missiles are the Harpoon variant, which have a range of only around 50 miles.
Writing in the national security journal War on the Rocks, the Hudson Institute’s Managing Director for American Sea Power, Bryan McGrath, summarized the advancements in the Navy’s anti-ship missile capabilities.
“What this means is that in the space of a year, the Navy’s surface force, which many…had believed was becoming ‘outsticked’ by adversary surface forces, has gone from 50 ships capable of firing missiles out to 75 miles, to 90 ships capable of firing a subsonic anti-ship missile to nearly a thousand miles,” McGrath wrote. “Add to this the Navy’s plan to ‘upgun’ the Littoral Combat Ship with medium-range surface-to-surface missiles, and we see that the promise of distributed lethality…is beginning to be realized.”
Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a staff writer and a former Marine infantryman.
Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources told USNI News Wednesday that surface ships would receive the upgraded missiles first, followed by submarines. The move follows the Navy’s upcoming $434 million budget request that would modify a portion of the current stock of Tomahawks with the ability to strike maritime targets.
[This U.S. missile is about to get a ship-killing upgrade]
Tomahawks, or TLAMs, were first introduced in the 1980s and an early variant was actually designed to strike enemy ships but was withdrawn from service because of issues with the missile’s accuracy. In 2015, however, the Navy demonstrated that current versions of the missile could be modified to accurately hit moving naval targets.
According to the Navy’s 2017 budget, the modified Tomahawks will start testing in 2021 before being distributed to surface ships such as guided missile destroyers and cruisers as well guided missile submarines.
[These are the surface-to-air missiles China apparently just deployed into the South China Sea]
Both the news of the SM-6’s newfound abilities as well as the upcoming changes to the Tomahawk are in keeping with the Navy’s now year-old concept of “distributed lethality,” which basically entails making the Navy’s current vessels more lethal within the confines of a restrained budget environment.
The combination of the SM-6 and the modified Tomahawks would help give the Navy a leg-up on China, a country that is rapidly upgrading its naval capabilities.
Navy ships and submarines to carry new anti-ship Tomahawk missile, report says
The
guided-missile frigate USS Taylor (FFG 50) departs Naval Station
Mayport for a seven-month deployment to the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas
of responsibility. T (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist
2nd Class Marcus L. Stanley/Released)
In the next
decade, U.S. ships and submarines capable of firing Tomahawk cruise
missiles will likely be fitted with a variant specifically designed to
hit enemy ships up to 1,000 miles away, according to a report published in the U.S. Naval Institute News.Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources told USNI News Wednesday that surface ships would receive the upgraded missiles first, followed by submarines. The move follows the Navy’s upcoming $434 million budget request that would modify a portion of the current stock of Tomahawks with the ability to strike maritime targets.
[This U.S. missile is about to get a ship-killing upgrade]
Tomahawks, or TLAMs, were first introduced in the 1980s and an early variant was actually designed to strike enemy ships but was withdrawn from service because of issues with the missile’s accuracy. In 2015, however, the Navy demonstrated that current versions of the missile could be modified to accurately hit moving naval targets.
According to the Navy’s 2017 budget, the modified Tomahawks will start testing in 2021 before being distributed to surface ships such as guided missile destroyers and cruisers as well guided missile submarines.
The
destroyer USS Mustin launched a Tomahawk missile Sept. 17 in the
Pacific Ocean during a simulated strike that was part of Exercise
Valiant Shield 2014. The United States launched Tomahawk missiles to
target Islamic State militants in Syria, the Pentagon announced Monday
night. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class
Declan Barnes/Released)
Mulloy’s comments come after
Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter announced earlier this month that
the SM-6 missile, a weapon designed specifically to intercept enemy
warheads, would be upgraded to also attack enemy ships.[These are the surface-to-air missiles China apparently just deployed into the South China Sea]
Both the news of the SM-6’s newfound abilities as well as the upcoming changes to the Tomahawk are in keeping with the Navy’s now year-old concept of “distributed lethality,” which basically entails making the Navy’s current vessels more lethal within the confines of a restrained budget environment.
The combination of the SM-6 and the modified Tomahawks would help give the Navy a leg-up on China, a country that is rapidly upgrading its naval capabilities.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a staff writer and a former Marine infantryman.
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