BAE Systems received a contract worth up to $233 million to support the US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) with engineering services, production engineering, integration, testing, inspection, and installation of various C4ISR (command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems.

As part of the contract, BAE’s Electronics, Intelligence and Support division will provide information, operating system integration and related services at land-based facilities and on various platforms, such as ships, submarines, and ground vehicles.

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The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) awarded 6 small business qualifiers firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity multiple award contracts with a combined maximum value of $151.1 million to suppport and maintain US Navy barges.

The companies will provide management, administrative and production services, materials, tools, equipment, facilities and required support for depot level troubleshooting, repair, renewal, refurbishment, modernization, maintenance and testing of Navy living barges and their auxiliary systems (hull, mechanical and electrical), including the potential of periodic docking. Living barges have crew living quarters and galleys.

Four firms will service barges in the Norfolk, VA area, and 2 will service barges in Jacksonville, FL…

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LPD-17 cutaway
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LPD-17 San Antonio class amphibious assault support vessels are a new class of ship which is just entering service with the US Navy. Much like their predecessors, their mission is to embark, transport, land, and support elements of a US Marine Corps Landing Force. What changes are the capabilities and technologies incorporated to perform that mission. This new ship class includes significant internal technology and design upgrades, and is designed to operate accompanying platforms like the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle amphibious armored personnel carrier.

Between 10-11 scheduled ships of this class are slated to assume the functional duties of up to 41 previous ships, including the USA’s older LSD-36 USS Anchorage class dock landing ships (all decommissioned as of 2004, LSD-36 and LSD-38 transferred to Taiwan) and its LPD-4 USS Austin Class ships (12 built and serving, LPD 14 Trenton now India’s INS Jalashva). The San Antonio class ships may also replace 2 classes of ships currently mothballed and held in reserve status under the Amphibious Lift Enhancement Program (ALEP): the LST-1179 Newport class tank landing ships, and LKA-113 Charleston class amphibious cargo ships.

Welcome to Norfolk…
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Replacing that many existing ships is already a very tall order. While its design incorporates notable advances, the San Antonio Class has also had its share of teething problems. So, too, has the New Orleans shipyard to which most of this contract has been assigned. The number of serious issues encountered in this ship class have been much higher than usual, and more extensive. The initial ships have been criticized for sub-standard workmanship, and it took 2 1/2 years after the initial ship of class was delivered and accepted before any ship of class was sent on an operational cruise. Whereupon the USS San Antonio promptly found itself laid up Bahrain due to oil leaks. Meanwhile, costs are almost twice the originally promised amounts at over $1.7 billion per ship – 2 to 3 times as much as many foreign LPD classes, and more than 10 times as much as Singapore’s 6,600 ton Endeavour Class LPD.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record. This is DID’s FOCUS Article for the San Antonio Class, detailing the ships’ unique features and capabilities, its program innovations and issues, ship timelines, and related contracts throughout the program’s history. As has become DID custom, the most recent additions are highlighted in green type. The latest developments include a contract to Raytheon that could be worth over $175 million, and the imminent commissioning of the LPD 21 New York, which contains steel from the destroyed World Trade Center…

• LPD-17 San Antonio Class: Capabilities and Features
• LPD-17 San Antonio Class: Process & Issues
• LPD-17 San Antonio Class: Program, Budgets & Timelines [updated]
• LPD-17 San Antonio Class: Contracts and Events (1996-Present) [updated]
• Appendix A: Additional Readings & Sources – LPD-17 Ship Class
• Appendix B: Additional Readings & Sources – News and Views
  
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Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) received a task order from the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to provide the Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) with engineering support services. The order has a maximum value of $160 million if all options are exercised.

The PEO IWS manages surface ship and submarine combat technologies and systems, and coordinates Navy open architecture across ship platforms.

Under the task order, the SAIC team will provide enterprise services for systems engineering, ship integration and product development. The team will also help oversee the design, construction and maintenance of surface ships.

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Right now, in many American ships beyond the top-tier AEGIS destroyers and cruisers, the detect-to-engage sequence against anti-ship missiles requires a lot of manual steps, involving different ship systems that use different displays. When a Mach 3 missile gives you 45 seconds from appearance on ship’s radar to impact, however, seconds of delay can be fatal. Seconds of unnecessary delay are unacceptable.

Hence Raytheon’s Ship Self Defense System (SSDS), which uses software and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronics to turn incoming data from several systems (radar, radar warning receivers, combat identification, electro-optics) into a single picture of prioritized threats. SSDS will then recommend an engagement sequence for the ship’s crew, or (in automatic mode) fire some combination of jamming transmissions, chaff or decoys, and/or weapons against the oncoming threat. The entire ship’s combat system concept, including the sensors and weapons, is known as Quick Reaction Combat Capability (QRCC) – and SSDS is the key element that ties it all together.

Recent developments involve ongoing PEA contracts…

• SSDS: Current Versions
• Contracts & Key Events, 2008 – Present [updated]
  
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The Southwest Regional Maintenance Center in San Diego, CA awarded 6 firm-fixed-price multiple award 5-year term contracts to provide sheet metal repair and fabrication services – such as repairs to partitions, ductwork, and piping – onboard US Navy ships and other government vessels within a 50-mile radius of San Diego. The maximum ceiling value for all 6 contracts is $202 million.

The 6 small business qualifiers will compete for delivery orders under the terms and conditions of the contracts. Each contractor will provide all personnel, management, administrative and production services, material, tools, equipment, and required support to perform the work.

And the winners are…

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The Naval Sea Systems Command’s (NAVSEA) Naval Surface Warfare Center awarded 6 contracts worth up to $475 million to support the center’s Alterations Installation Team (AIT) in their work upgrading hull, mechanical, electrical, and electronic (HME&E) systems on ships and submarines.

The HME&E systems include a broad range of shipboard equipment, everything from transformers and heating/cooling/ventilation systems to C4ISR, radar, and navigation systems…

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Sachsen, sending SM-2
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ThyseenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) recently announced a “close strategic partnership” and Memorandum of Understanding with the Abu Dhabi MAR group in the United Arab Emirates, but the move is much closer to a sale of key assets. The MoU stipulates a 50/50 joint venture to build naval surface ships, with TKMS retaining a lead role and know-how in all projects with the German Navy and NATO partners. Similarly, Abu Dhabi MAR Group will be responsible for the Middle East and North Africa. At the same time, however, Abu Dhabi MAR is acquiring 80% of TKMS’ key surface ship firms: Blohm + Voss Shipyards, Blohm + Voss Repair, and Blohm + Voss Industries.

The proposed sale follows other recent purchases in Germany by Abu Dhabi MAR, and other recent shipyard sales by TKMS. The net effect is a restructuring of Germany’s naval shipbuilding industry…

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FS Latouche Treville
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DCNS recently announced a EUR 310 million (currently about $462 million) set of multi-year contracts to maintain 22 of the French Navy’s ships. The firm has been providing support to the French Navy for a long time, though it has operated as state-owned DCN for many of those deals. They are characterized as “through-life support” (TLS), even though they are periodic rather than continuing to the vessel’s out of service dates.

In October 2005, the French Navy’s maintenance contracts continued a shift toward performance-based logistics, via a pair of EUR 288.5 million contracts to DCN: a 3.5 year effort to support a variety of surface ships, plus another to support for one of France’s Triomphant class ballistic missile submarines.

The 2009 contracts are issued to DCN’s successor firm DCNS, which is still majority-owned by the French state. They cover a wider array of ships…

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US Coast Guard Cutter Healy
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The US Coast Guard awarded Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle, WA a $12.5 million modification to a previously awarded contract (HSCG85-05-C-625306) in support of repairs and alterations performed during the triennial Dry-Docking Planned Maintenance Availability (DPMA) of the icebreaker USCG Cutter Healy (WAGB-20).

The contract modification provides for repair and maintenance of the ship’s main propulsion system, auxiliary systems, and other structural, mechanical, and electrical features aboard the ship, including underwater hull inspection and renewal.

The USCG Cutter Healy is the USA’s largest icebreaker…

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