We must do better
On 1 November 2017, the Navy released the report detailing the tragic events and actions that led to the collisions of the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and the merchant vessel ACX Crystal off the coast of Japan on 17 June, and the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) and merchant vessel Alnic MC on 21 August in the Singapore Strait. “Both of these accidents were preventable and the respective investigations found multiple failures by watch standers that contributed to the incidents,” Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral John Richardson underscored at a Defense Department press briefing in November 2017. “The causes for the collisions included a failure to plan for safety, failure to adhere to sound navigational practices, failure to execute basic watchstanding principles, failure to properly use available navigation tools, failure to respond deliberately and effectively when in extremist of collision, a loss of situational awareness and high-traffic density, failure to follow the international rules of the road, and for John S. McCain, insufficient knowledge and proficiency of the ship’s steering system.” Admiral Richardson also said we must do better.
The Navy’s report concluded that the Fitzgerald’s watch teams disregarded established norms of basic contact management and, more importantly, leadership failed to adhere to well-established protocols put in place to prevent collisions. In addition, the ship’s triad [commanding officer, executive officer and command master chief] was absent during an evolution where their experience, guidance and example would have greatly benefited the ship.”
A third incident, which included no fatalities, was the collision between the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain (CG-57) and Japanese fishing vessel Nam Yang 502, on 9 May in the Sea of Japan. The Navy’s 30 November report concluded yet again that the collision was unavoidable: “The Lake Champlain was ultimately unprepared for the situation in which they found themselves through a lack of preparation, ineffective command and control, and deficiencies in training.”
The January 2018 USNI News reported that Commander Bryce Benson, former commanding officer of the Fitzgerald, along with three Fitzgerald junior officers, faces a mix of charges that includes dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel, and negligent homicide related to the ship’s collision. Commander Alfredo J. Sanchez, former John S. McCain skipper, faces similar dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide charges for his ship’s collision.
The Navy also removed the following: Captain Jeffery Bennett, commodore of the Japan-based Destroyer Squadron 15 to which both ships belonged; the Japan-based task force commander, Rear Admiral Charles Williams; and the commander of U.S. Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin. U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott Swift announced his earlier-than-expected retirement; he had been expected to relieve Admiral Harry Harris as Commander, U.S. Pacific Command. And Vice Admiral Thomas Rowden, Commander Naval Surface Forces, said he had been allowed to retire early.
CNO Admiral Richardson explained that the Navy conducted independent investigations into the specific incidents and a “Comprehensive Review” to identify any systemic causal and contributing factors. Both of these efforts developed the actions needed to prevent them in future operations. For details, see both the “Comprehensive Review” and the “Strategic Review.”
In short, Admiral Richardson concluded, “We will spend every effort needed to correct these problems and be stronger than before.”
Relief Ops Begin at Home
As Hurricane Harvey continued to dump hundreds of thousands of gallons of water across southern Texas and parts of Louisiana in late August, the U.S. military was planning how best to commit resources to help with rescue efforts. The Virginian-Pilot reported that the Navy prepared the Norfolk-based USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) and USS Oak Hill (LSD-51) to assist ongoing humanitarian-assistance/disaster-relief (HADR) efforts in the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast.
“We are preparing and positioning them to get under way if requested,” Navy officials told USNI News. The Navy already sent six MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and four MH-53 Sea Dragon helicopters to Texas. Arriving in College Station, Texas, the Seahawk helos immediately conducted search-and-rescue (SAR) missions with the U.S. Coast Guard. The MH-53 heavy-lift helicopters were positioned in San Antonio in case they were required to carry supplies.
Defense Media described a trifecta of deadly and catastrophic hurricanes––Harvey, Irma, and Maria––that carved paths of destruction throughout the Caribbean and U.S. Gulf Coast well before the end of the 2017 hurricane season three months later.
The civilian agencies spearheading the Hurricane Harvey relief efforts held off making a formal request for support from the Navy, U.S. Fleet Forces Command spokesman told USNI News. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ultimately would be the organization to request Navy assistance to the Gulf Coast region. But with another powerful hurricane––Irma––approaching the United States, the possibility existed for the Kearsarge and the Oak Hill to be sent to assist recovery efforts elsewhere. With Irma’s path uncertain, and the potential for catastrophic damage in U.S. territories, southeastern states, and Caribbean nations, the U.S. amphibious warfare ships essentially were in a holding pattern.
In addition to these ships, the USNS John Lenthall (T-AO-189) and USNS William McLean (T-AKE-12), and several helicopter squadrons––including Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron HSC-7, HSC-21, HSC-23, HSC-28, and Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadrons HM-14 and HM-15––were on the scene to conduct SAR ops.
As the Navy turned over relief efforts to local Gulf Coast authorities, however, Hurricane Irma formed into a category 5 storm, cutting a path of destruction across the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. Some islands were left nearly uninhabitable and more than 40 people died. Irma then slammed into the Florida Keys on 10 September as a category 4 and continued northeast, causing extreme flooding along in the Keys and the Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville areas.
Fleet Forces redirected the Kearsarge, Oak Hill, and William McLean from their deployment to Texas, soon to be joined in the Caribbean by several other ships, including the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), Wasp (LHD-1), Iwo Jima (LHD-7), New York (LPD-21), San Jacinto (CG-56), and Farragut (DDG-99). The Wasp, the first Navy ship to arrive in the vicinity of the U.S. Virgin Islands, provided medium- and heavy-lift helicopters to transport people and supplies.
Sailors on board the Abraham Lincoln made fresh water to support Florida residents. The ship can make about 100,000 gallons of water a day. The carrier’s helicopters also flew supplies throughout south Florida. Aircrews conducted SAR missions and medical evacuations. The USNS Spearhead (T-EPF-1) later arrived in the Caribbean to support relief efforts on the devastated French-Dutch island of Saint Martin, providing bottles of water, meals-ready-to-eat, and fuel for reverse-osmosis water purification systems. Crews from the Iwo Jima and the New York worked from Marathon to Key West, clearing debris; distributing food, water, tarps, and blankets; and repairing generators and critical infrastructure such as water-pumping stations.
The Navy’s response to Irma continued as Hurricane Maria, another category 5 storm, made landfall on 18 September in Dominica and then moved on to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Navy and Marine Corps teams from the Kearsarge and Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, conducted SAR, damage assessment, and disaster-relief efforts throughout the region.
Shortly after their arrival off the coast of Florida, the Kearsarge and her crew received word of Hurricane Irma and were redirected to the Caribbean to be ready to immediately respond. As soon as the storm passed the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Kearsarge was on station to render aid. “The crew has been extremely adaptable,” said the Kearsarge’s Command Master Chief Jason Knupp. “You would think somewhere between less than two days in port, dodging and then following hurricanes, there would be a hiccup along the way. Between the crew and all the embarked units––Marines, Seabees, and squadrons––their work has been flawless. These guys took charge of the mission and got it done.”
Define “Red Line”
“Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians,” Trump said in a statement to the nation on 6 April 2017. “Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.” Early reports had 80 civilians killed and another 100 wounded, including women and children.
The President said, “It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.” Navy forces launched a cruise missile strike against the Syrian Air Force Shayrat Airfield. Two Aegis guided-missile destroyers, the USS Porter (DDG-78) and USS Ross (DDG-71), on what had been a routine patrol in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea near Crete, launched 59 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs), targeting aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars.
The DoD reported that: “Every precaution was taken to execute this strike with minimal risk to personnel at the airfield. . . . Shayrat Airfield was used to store chemical weapons and Syrian air forces.” The U.S. intelligence community assessed that aircraft from Shayrat conducted the chemical weapons attack on 4 April 2017. “The strike was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again.”
Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield. For example, no Russian aircraft were at the base when the first TLAM hit its target.
Initial assessments concluded that the strike severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment, reducing the Syrian government’s ability to deliver chemical weapons. A U.S. defense official called the strike a “one-off.” Nine civilians including four children were killed, the Syrian state news agency claimed, but civilians were not targeted.
According to TASS-Defense, Russian analysis of the strike indicated that only 23 of 59 (39 percent) of the TLAMs made it to Shayrat. In spite of the denial of the reports by Pentagon sources insisting that 58 out of 59 missiles (98 percent) hit their targets, the Russian military regarded the tactical effectiveness of the U.S. missile strike as low.
According to the New York Times, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the strike “deals a significant blow to relations between Russia and America, which are already in a poor state.” Then–Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson retorted Russia had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure Syrian chemical weapons, adding that Moscow was either complicit or incompetent in its ability to uphold that deal. Tillerson said the “U.S. had a high degree of confidence that sarin nerve gas had been used in [the] chemical attack in northern Syria,” and underscored that the United States “sought no approval from Moscow.”
“This clearly indicates the President is willing to take decisive action when called for,” Tillerson told New York Times and other reporters last year. He said Trump had concluded after seeing the results of the chemical attack that the United States could no longer “turn away, turn a blind eye.”
And Syria’s suspected use of chemical weapons has continued into 2018, in the embattled rebel-held Damascus suburbs of eastern Ghouta, the Associated Press reported. French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated that the use of lethal chemical weapons, if proven, would lead to a strong response. As this review was prepared, on 7 April 2018, Syrian forces appeared to be complicit in a chemical weapons attack targeting the Damascus suburb of Douma, killing dozens.
That response came from France, Britain, and the United States in the early morning of 14 April 2018 (2100 on 13 April in Washington, D.C.), in the form of missiles launched from U.S and French warships on specific Syrian targets associated with chemical-weapons research, processing, and storage. U.S. missiles were fired from the USS Monterey (CG-61), Laboon (DDG-58), Higgins (DDG-76), and John Warner (SSN-785). The United States maintains that all missiles hit their targets with no successful countermeasures deployed from Syrian air defenses. (See USNI News for full details.)
FONOPS Is on Steroids
In addition to challenging excessive Chinese maritime claims in the South China Sea, the Navy conducted numerous freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPs) near features held by other South China Sea claimants, including Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and several other countries called out in the DoD Report to Congress Annual Freedom of Navigation Report FY 2017. That said, it has been China––and North Korea––that received greatest notice during the past year.
In May The Diplomat reported the USS Dewey (DDG-105) sailed within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese artificial island near Mischief Reef in the South China Sea. This “reef,” a Chinese possession, hosts one of Beijing’s seven artificial islands in the disputed Spratly Group. This transit marked the first FONOP by the Trump administration and the first such operation since the October 2016 passage in the Paracel group by the USS Decatur (DDG-73). It came just weeks after the New York Times reported that U.S. Pacific Command requests to carry out such operations had been denied by the White House, which presumably sought Chinese goodwill over the North Korean nuclear-testing issue. It also came after 214 days—the longest gap between two such transits since the Obama administration ordered the USS Lassen (DDG-82) to conduct the first FONOP near a Chinese artificial island.
In early July, the USS Stethem (DDG-63) sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, a China-held island in the disputed Paracel group, also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam. The United States previously conducted a FONOP near Triton Island in January 2016, when the USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG-54) challenged China’s prior notification requirements. The Paracel Islands present a different case from the Spratlys because China has long maintained illegal baselines around its features and has occupied the Paracels since the 1970s. Beijing’s occupation of features in the Spratlys is more recent, and its development of large-scale artificial islands began in late 2013.
In August, the John S. McCain sailed within 12 miles of Mischief Reef, U.S. officials told Reuters, according to The Diplomat. The Chinese Defense Ministry denounced the operation as a “provocation” and said it was “firmly opposed to such flaunting of force and promotion of militarization in the region by the U.S., which could easily trigger accidents at sea and in the air.” In virtually the same breath, CNN also reported, “Top U.S. and Chinese military commanders have signed a deal to improve communications between the two forces amid ongoing disputes in the South and East China seas. U.S. Marine General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his Chinese counterpart, General Fang Fenghui, signed the so-called joint staff dialogue mechanism Tuesday at the headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army in Beijing . . . the agreement will enable the two militaries “to communicate to reduce the risk of miscalculation.”
In October, the guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee (DDG-90) sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea. This generated anger in Beijing, even as U.S. President Donald Trump sought Chinese cooperation in reining in North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs. The operation was Trump’s fourth attempt since he took office to counter Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in strategic waters. Unlike in August, officials said the Chafee sailed close to but not within 12 nautical miles of the islands. They noted that the Chafee carried out normal operations that challenged “excessive maritime claims” near the Paracel Islands. China’s Defense Ministry said a warship, two fighter aircraft, and a helicopter scrambled to warn the U.S. ship away, adding that the Chafee had infringed on China’s sovereignty and security with its “provocation.”
In what must be the “mother of all FONOPS,” in November the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), USS Nimitz (CVN-68), and USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) carried out a carrier strike group (CSG) exercise in the Western Pacific, “coordinated operations in international waters in order to demonstrate the U.S. Navy’s unique capability to operate multiple carrier strike groups as a coordinated strike force effort,” according to U.S. Seventh Fleet. This was the first time that three CSGs operated together in the Western Pacific since exercises Valiant Shield 2006 and 2007 off the coast of Guam.
U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott Swift said, “Multiple carrier strike force operations are very complex, and this exercise in the Western Pacific is a strong testament to the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s unique ability and ironclad commitment to the continued security and stability of the region.”
Unmanned Is a Leap Ahead
While critics have long argued that the Navy should be moving faster to embrace the military advantages offered by unmanned systems, the service has made a series of impressive decisions in the past year that collectively are accelerating the pace of unmanned development service wide. These decisions have not been confined to a single mission area.
“In addition to unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned surface and subsurface vessels will play a major role in the battlespace and battle force of the future,” Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said in a February 2018 speech at the Institute for Defense Analyses. “I cannot emphasize enough my belief that these types of platforms will be a meaningful force multiplier.”
The undersea domain for unmanned systems has exploded during the past year. This surge in interest in unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) is multifaceted, including the number of specific programs and research efforts under way, support from senior leaders and strong operational demand signals from the fleet that UUVs urgently are required to meet emerging mission needs today, as well as tomorrow. The new “family of systems” approach for UUVs, also rolled out in 2017, was another critical step in furthering understanding of how the Navy’s seemingly disparate collection of unmanned systems all fit cohesively together. Of particular note was the establishment in September 2017 of a UUV Squadron (UUVRon), based at Keyport, WA, to jumpstart fleet knowledge and experience in handling and operating large UUVs.
In testimony to the House Seapower Subcommittee in March 2018, new Navy Acquisition chief James Geurts emphasized the growing importance of UUVs in future operations. “The Navy is using a family of systems strategy to develop and employ unmanned undersea vehicles to conduct undersea missions that complement and relieve stress on the manned force. The family leverages small and medium-sized commercial vehicles and is developing large and extra- large vehicles,” Geurts said.
In the UUV world, the major efforts that significantly advanced include the Snakehead Large Diameter UUV, the ORCA Extra Large UUV, the Knifefish mine countermeasures system, and the Undertaker portion of the “Ghost Fleet” effort that is being driven and funded by the Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) but executed by the Navy.
Each of these programs achieved major milestones in 2017, which “was a banner year” for Navy UUV efforts, Captain Jonathan Rucker, Unmanned Systems (PMS 406) program manager, told the Surface Navy Association’s annual gathering in January 2018. Rucker’s program office, part of the Navy’s new Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC), is responsible for the acquisition of the majority of the Navy’s UUVs and unmanned surface vehicles. PEO Littoral Combat Ship was renamed PEO USC by Geurts in a 13 March memo to better reflect the office’s expanding portfolio of ships and systems. Using a combination of innovation-contracting authorities, provided by Congress in recent budgets, and new acquisition approaches, PMS 406 has been instrumental in kick-starting Navy UUV portfolio developments.
After being named an Accelerated Acquisition effort by the Navy’s Maritime Advanced Capabilities Office, Snakehead LDUUV is using an innovative approach where the government, in this case the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport, RI, serves as the program’s design agent with industry in a supporting role. This approach is intended to speed up development. The UUV portion of SCO’s Ghost Fleet called Undertaker already is awarded to Boeing with the company’s Ocean Voyager UUV conducting demonstrations and technology assessments.
In late 2017, the Navy formed a new Executive Steering Council (ESC) that brings together the leaders of Surface Warfare, the Office of Naval Research, and several program executive offices to help guide the development of an optionally manned or unmanned variant of the Navy’s Future Surface Combatant (FSC USV). An FSC USV is expected to begin development in the mid-2020s. The ESC is focused on managing the transition of DARPA’s large Sea Hunter USV to PMS 406 where it will serve as a testing-and-demonstration platform for the technologies and systems being assessed for FSC USV. The Ghost Fleet’s USV component, called Overlord, seeks to un-man an already existing surface ship and outfit it with weapons to demonstrate the potential of armed USVs. At the end of the Overlord demonstration the ships will become experimental assets for the Navy to aid in the development of FSC USV requirements. The Navy intended to announce initial awards this month.
Gerald R. Ford Is Here
The commissioning of the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) nuclear-powered aircraft carrier on 22 July 2017 represents the Navy’s first new carrier class in more than 40 years, when the Nimitz was commissioned in 1975. In addition to the Gerald R. Ford, her sister carriers, the Kennedy (CVN-79) and Enterprise (CVN-80), are also under construction, with the Kennedy expected to enter the fleet in 2022 and the Enterprise later in the next decade. The Navy is seeking to secure approval to procure CVN-80 and CVN-81 in a combined block buy strategy, a process the service maintains will save from $1.5 billion to $2 billion.
Under development and construction for more than 15 years, the Gerald R. Ford class brings a host of new technologies to the fleet, including a new nuclear reactor design, the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launching System (EMALS), Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG), a Dual-Band Radar (DBR), Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWE), and a new power-distribution system. In total, this carrier has 23 new or upgraded systems compared to the Navy’s legacy Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.
But integrating and managing that extensive list of new systems and upgrades onto a single aircraft carrier did not come without significant technological pain. Not all of the technologies, especially EMALS and AWE, matured simultaneously with the ship’s construction schedule. Funding fluctuations from year to year proved problematic to control and costs climbed to such an extent that Congress imposed a rigid $12.9 billion cost cap on this ship. But the Navy has learned invaluable lessons from this program experience and is unlikely to force so many new technologies and systems onto one hull in the future.
Following its commissioning, the Gerald R. Ford immediately entered a vigorous testing and underway phase, where the ship was expected to be under way for much of the year, wringing out the performance from the host of new capabilities. For example, only a week after commissioning, the Gerald R. Ford successfully launched and recovered the first naval aircraft from its flight deck while under way off the Virginia coast (see the September 2017 Proceedings cover). The test not only marked the first successful aircraft launch and recovery but also the first at-sea test of both the AAG and the EMALS.
From late September into early October, VX-23, naval aviation’s test-and-evaluation squadron, conducted the first round of aircraft compatibility testing on board the carrier. In addition to further testing of both AAG and EMALS, these tests also are designed to gather real-world data on the “burble,” or air wake, that is created by the different configuration of the Gerald R. Ford’s flight deck and the island superstructure compared to Nimitz-class carriers. During this testing, 83 catapult launches and 83 arrested landings were conducted to test AAG and EMALS, while another 230 approach landings were undertaken to gather burble data.
In December, the Gerald R. Ford successfully conducted and completed the ship’s first underway replenishment, with the USNS William McLean (T-AKE 12) transferring 16,000 gallons of aviation jet fuel to the aircraft carrier. Since commissioning, the Gerald R. Ford has conducted 747 aircraft landings and catapults.
Running Silent Isn’t Enough
The budgetary and operational challenges confronting the Navy’s submarine force clearly were evident in the past year. The silent service simultaneously must rebuild and modernize its inventory of attack (SSN) and strategic-deterrent ballistic-missile (SSBN) submarines while squeezing all of the service life available from today’s submarine force to meet growing worldwide demands for undersea assets. This will be a daunting challenge fraught with little margin for error.
The Navy’s most recent Force Structure Assessment in 2016 projected a requirement for 66 SSNs (and 12 SSBNs), while the service has just 51 attacks boats in mid-2018. The Navy’s February 2018 Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels projects the service will not reach its goal for attack submarines until 2048. That inventory objective potentially could be reached sooner “with increased investment,” according to the Navy report.
In programmatic terms, during the next decade or so the Navy seeks to maximize the number of Virginia (SSN-774)-class attack submarines it can fund each year (currently at two), complete development and production of the new 12-sub Columbia-class SSBN program, continue adding improved Virginia Payload Modules (VPMs) to the fleet, and carefully husband the service lives of the legacy Los Angeles–Improved (SSN-688I)-class attack submarines.
Navy Secretary Richard Spencer laid bare the funding challenge posed by the Columbia program in a roundtable event with the Army and Air Force secretaries at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in March 2018. The cost of the 12-sub Columbia program will reach the “eye-watering” level of $100 billion, Popular Mechanics quoted Spencer as saying. “Columbia will be a $100 billion program for its lifetime. We have to do it. I think we have to have big discussions about it,” Spencer said.
The principal “big discussion” is about how to fit the Columbia’s cost into the Navy’s annual shipbuilding budget while still retaining sufficient funding to procure additional rest-of-the-Navy warships and support ships. To account for Columbia’s construction, beginning in 2021, the Navy’s annual shipbuilding budget for fiscal years 2019–23 needs to increase from an average of $19.7 billion per year to $25 billion annually to continue stable production and maintenance/upgrade schedules for all ship programs.
So far the Navy’s leaders successfully are managing to navigate these budgetary waters by ensuring that the Columbia’s design is fully mature, the industrial base is well-primed and ready to execute, and to drive as much known technical and engineering risk as possible out of the program during its early developmental phase. The Navy awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat Division a $5.1 billion contract in September 2017 for the detailed design work on the Columbia, following the program’s successful Milestone B acquisition decision in January 2017.
Congress has been instrumental in assisting the Navy in this area by approving advanced procurement for the first boat and granting special contracting authorities to allow the combined purchase of large-diameter tubes for the Columbia, the Virginia, and the United Kingdom’s future Dreadnought-class SSBNs. The Navy is seeking another $3 billion in advanced procurement in the fiscal year 2019 budget, with actual construction to start in October 2020. The Columbia must deploy by 2031 to meet Strategic Command nuclear-deterrence requirements.
Rear Admiral Michael Jabaley, PEO Submarines, told USNI News last December that a combination of innovative contracting techniques, advanced procurement and leveraging ongoing production in missile tubes, the Columbia program has been able to slash estimated unit costs to $7.2 billion per submarine, about $800 million below the $8 billion affordability cap. Jabaley said a “stretch goal” is to get the cost down to $7 billion per sub.
On the Virginia-class attack submarine program the Navy is entering a new multiyear procurement contract for the production of ten or more Block V submarines at the stable production rate of two per year. The Block V features enhanced acoustic superiority measures and the installation of extra VPM tubes that will boost the number of missiles each SSN can carry from 12 to 40, a significant increase in firepower.
If the Columbia stays on schedule and on cost there is an opportunity to buy additional Virginia-class attack subs within the Block V multiyear procurement contract. Recognizing this opportunity, Congress authorized in the fiscal year 2018 budget a provision to buy up to 13 attack boats instead of 10 using the existing legislation. The Navy’s shipbuilding plan indicates the subs could be added in 2022 and 2023.
Anticipating a steep decline in attack submarine force levels as the Navy retires Los Angeles–class submarines at a rate of four to five a year, the Navy announced in March that it is now assessing extending the service lives of these boats. The Navy will evaluate the extension on a single SSN-688 sub as a test case before extending the refueling process to four additional subs if proven successful. Funding for this test is included in the service’s FY 2019 budget.
Let Fat Leonard End
Two U.S. Navy officers admitted they accepted the services of prostitutes and gifts as part of the “Fat Leonard” corruption-and-sex scandal that has spanned a decade and involved dozens of Navy officials, according to the Virginian-Pilot. Appearing in separate courtrooms at Naval Station Norfolk on 6 March 2018, Captain John F. Steinberger pleaded guilty to willful dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman; Commander Jason Starmer pleaded guilty to willful dereliction of duty, patronizing a prostitute and adultery. Both will be administratively separated from the service as part of pre-trial agreements.
More than 20 people have pleaded guilty so far in connection with Fat Leonard, the Navy Times reported. This refers to the portly Leonard Glenn Francis, a Singapore-based naval and maritime entrepreneur, whose company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, figured in more than a decade of corruption, bribery, and prostitutes involving dozens of Navy officials.
At this writing, Steinberger was the most senior officer yet to be charged by the Navy for misconduct linked to Fat Leonard. Steinberger is a surface warfare officer assigned to the Navy’s Undersea Warfare Development Center Detachment in San Diego and the former commanding officer of the guided-missile destroyer Decatur (DDG-74). At the time of the offenses, Steinberger was the commander of Destroyer Squadron 1, embarked on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). The Navy alleged he conspired with Francis “and others” between January 2011 and April 2012 to “bribe other Navy officials” in an attempt to influence what ports U.S. Navy ships visited. Starmer was head of operations for the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group, Thailand.
Navy says it has cleared more than half of those personnel, but has substantiated misconduct by about 50 people so far. It is keeping most of their names a secret.”
Admiral William Moran, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, on 7 February 2018 told a House Armed Services Committee subpanel: “We’re hopefully getting to the very end of this now. When it is done and all the files are turned over to us, we will do that. There is a process in place to make sure we evaluate every single case that comes to the Navy, whether they are handled by the Department of Justice or not, they come to us for final resolution.”
Mr. Holzer is Senior National Security Manager at Gryphon Technologies; Dr. Truver directs Gryphon’s Nation Security Program and is a Senior Advisor at the Center for Naval Analyses.