AGS fires LRLAP

Guns for DDG 1002. (Jan 31/12)

As costs rose and missions proliferated, it was easy to forget that the original rationale for the DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class centered around naval gunfire support for troops ashore. Heavily armored US battleships with massive 16-inch (406 mm) guns once performed extremely well in this role, as their volkswagen-weight shells gave enemies pause. While USS Iowa was brought back into service during the Reagan era, she was decommissioned again in 1990. That left America with a floating museum in Los Angeles, and a gap in its options.

While European manufacturers are fielding guided, long range adaptations of existing 127mm/54 and 76mm shells, the Zumwalt Class will be getting an entirely new Advanced Gun System that fires the same 155mm shells used by field artillery ashore. The goal was to combine the wide range of available 155mm shell options with extra-long range, GPS precision guidance, and rapid fire…

• The AGS/LRLAP System
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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The concept

Power system contracts to GA, BAE; 1,000th shot; CNR discusses the field; Significant article updates. (Dec 9/11)

Back in March 2006, BAE Systems received a contract for “design and production of the 32 MJ Laboratory Launcher for the U.S. Navy.” Some hint of what they are talking about can be gleaned from the name. The project is an electro-magnetic rail gun that accelerates a projectile to incredibly high speeds without using explosives.

The attraction of such systems is no mystery – they promise to fire their ammunition 10 or more times farther than conventional naval gun shells, while sharply reducing both the required size of each shell, and the amount of dangerous explosive material carried on board ship. Progress is being made, but there are still major technical challenges to overcome before a working rail gun becomes a serious naval option. This DID FOCUS article looks at the key technical challenges, the programs, and the history of key contracts and events…

• Rail Guns: Concept & Technology Developments [updated]
• Rail Guns: The US EMRG Program [updated]
• Rail Guns: Key Contracts & Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources [updated]
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• The Guardian in the UK has gathered and crunched more numbers on operations in Libya (see also past linkage to Libyan ops debriefing).

• The Pentagon is about to brief Lockheed Martin on how much F-35s should cost. Memos have also been flying back and forth between DoD and the Air Force on whether training should proceed before more test hours could be completed. Meanwhile the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute would like to hear “more forthright and more detailed rationales” to support the F-35 choice.

• FY13 Pentagon budget to reflect a shift to Asia/Pacific? November/December is when the DOD and the OMB jointly work on the next fiscal year’s budget, aiming for the President’s budget February deadline. In the meantime, it would be nice for Congress to actually pass a budget for the current fiscal year since we’re already 1 month into it.

• Earlier this year Shay D. Assad, Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy & Strategic Sourcing (DPAP – that’s within the US DoD’s acquisition office) released mandatory Source Selection Procedures [PDF] that apply to all negotiated, competitive DoD acquisitions under FAR Part 15, effective for RFPs issued since July 1, 2011. There is no template yet for the Source Selection Decision Document (SSDD) though. The Defense Acquisition University notes that the Army Source Selection Manual [PDF] from 2007 is as good as it gets, but some of the language it uses – such as the risk rating scheme – needs to be adapted to the new procedure.

• Speaking of the DoD’s acquisition online presence, it now has a whole section dedicated to Earned Value Management, or, in a mouthful, an “integrated management system that coordinates the work scope, schedule, and cost goals of a program or contract, and objectively measures progress toward these goals.”

• The Stimson Center released a report [PDF] last week providing a bird’s eye view of defense procurement FY01-FY10, and concluded that, despite very visible cancellations and cost overruns, the US military by and large successfully modernized its capabilities through the past decade.

• A paper by the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College on strategic minerals advises [PDF] to “restock, upgrade and adjust the objectives of the National Defense Stockpile [NDS], including new strategic and critical minerals such as REE [rare earth elements].” Related: this Reconfiguration of the National Defense Stockpile Report to Congress [DoD, 2009].

• In the 1st video below Rear Admiral Nevin Carr, Chief of US Naval Research, discusses directed energy and hypersonics. He notes that railguns can now shoot hundreds of times and are evolving towards more reasonable energy requirements. 33 megajoules (MJ) apparently amounts to the energy of a lot of Volkswagens compacted into a football flying at 100mph. The Navy’s railgun demo from December 2010 (2nd video below) shot a much lighter projectile… but at Mach 7. Anyway, you get the idea, 33MJ is researcher talk for “that’s gotta hurt.”
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HMS Sutherland

HMS Richmond refit; Article closed. (Oct 17/11)

Britain’s Type 23 Duke Class frigates were originally envisioned as pure anti-submarine vessels, to the extent of being planned with no other armament. The 1982 Falklands War quickly put paid to that idea, however, and the Type 23s would end up being commissioned from 1989-2001 and fitted with a main gun, Sea Wolf short range anti-air missiles, and Harpoon anti-ship missiles to accompany her torpedoes, decoys, et. al. These changes turned the frigates from specialized sub-hunters into versatile multi-role combatants that play a key role in the British fleet. The Royal Navy is set to continue shrinking in size (see esp. diagram) due to rising ship costs, and even though key platforms like aircraft carriers and amphibious ships may be more capable, the mid-tier combat role filled by frigates is not slated for new construction any time soon. As such, upgrading the Navy’s 13 remaining Type 23s to keep them in service is vitally important to Britain’s future force.

As part of those operational upgrade efforts, the Type 23 frigates will receive: Sonar 2087 towed sonars, the Royal Navy’s latest and most sophisticated submarine hunting system (Thales UK, GBP 166 million for machines that go ‘ping!’); Upgraded vertical-launch Sea Wolf Block 2 air defense missiles to help counter supersonic anti-ship missiles (BAE Systems Insyte with MBDA, GBP 300 million); an improved 114mm Vickers Mk 8 Mod 1 main gun, capable of firing long-range ammunition; and a reshaped stern to cut fuel use. Upgrades are also being performed during maintenance periods, some of which are significant to the ship’s overall capabilities. This article covers a number of upgrade efforts, from 2005-2011.

PB-301, Umm Qasr

6th ship delivered. (Sept 29/11)

Swiftships’ 35-meter coastal patrol boat (CPB) contracts are part of a larger program that’s also delivering spare parts, guns, ammunition, training, naval simulators and infrastructure to the Umm Qasr Naval Base in southern Iraq. That total program for the Iraqi Navy was the country’s 3rd largest foreign military sale case, according to the Pensacola Council of the Navy League’s Bullhorn newsletter. That’s probably an appropriate priority level, as Iraq seeks to monitor and protect its southern oil export infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the US Army Corps of Engineers is partnering with Iraq by managing a $53 million pier and seawall project. This set of projects in southern Iraq will provide the Iraqi Navy with new port facilities as it continues to expand its military naval capabilities – but in the end, it all comes down to boats on the water, manned by well trained crews. The Swiftships are currently the medium tier of those capabilities…

• Iraq’s Swiftships
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

• Russia to invest $2.6 billion in ballistic missile systems with the goal of doubling production from 2013, says Prime Minister Putin.

• Aviation Week offers an overview of Russia’s planned military helicopter buys over the next few years, and notes an issue with Brazil’s November 2008 attack helicopter buy of Mi-35Ms.

• With the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyers ended at just 3 ships, BAE is proposing a 155mm “AGS-Lite” turret swap for their 5”/62 caliber Mk.45 MOD4 gun that now equips DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers. It has no stealth, half the weight of the AGS turret, and less rocket-boosted, GPS-guided 155mm LRLAP ammunition in the magazine. It is offered as an option if the US Navy wants to begin reversing their huge decline in naval fire support capabilities. Meanwhile, Finmeccanica’s Oto Melara offers “Vulcano” [PDF] ultra-long range 127mm/54 caliber rounds with IIR or GPS guidance, compatibility with older 5”/54 caliber Mk.45 MOD2s on ships under DDG 80, and a parent firm subsidiary in the USA’s DRS.

• UK MoD shakes up management at its Defense Equipment and Support organization.

• Ukraine to field Stugna-P laser-guided anti-tank missile systems capable of destroying low-altitude aerial targets as well.

• Pentagon posts documents detailing security measures for a new annex building online.

• Northrop Grumman snags $99 million USAF contract to perform base security operations at overseas US air bases, and a $77.9 million US Army contract to development software for air and missile defense workstations.

• Up to $189.4 million to Booz Allen Hamilton to provide cyberspace technology integration for the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific.

• Virtual Corp. gets $49 million contract from DoD to provide disaster recovery software and services.

• Bell Helicopter flies its privately-developed “OH-58 Block II”, a testbed for technologies that could go into their Armed Aerial Scout competition entry – or circumvent AAS entirely via the Army’s proposed “OH-58F” reset & upgrade program.

• DCNS mates the fore and aft halves of its 1st Gowind Offshore Patrol Vessel, finishing the hull. The OPV is being built under a private development contract, followed by a service agreement with the French Navy for 3 years of operations. The goal? Endorsement and operational success, to boost export sales for the scalable OPV/ Corvette family.

• Booz & Co.’s strategy + business magazine on “Crafting Best-in-Class Business Intelligence.”

• Manufacturing Institute releases their “Roadmap for Education Reform for Manufacturing” – download full report here [PDF].

• Sen. Shaheen [D-NH] unveils Inspiration School Grant Program initiative to close the US robotics gap with Asian nations.

• US Army 2nd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment provides lessons learned from Afghanistan [PDF].

• US-supplied W76-1 arming device would make Britain’s Trident SLBMs more accurate, Sandia National Lab test shows.

• BAE Systems to repair and maintain 6 Ticonderga-class (CG-47) guided missile cruisers under a US Navy MSMO dry dock contract.

• In addition, BAE snags US Navy contract, worth up to $165 million, to supply 40 Mk 38 Mod 2 25mm close defense gun mounts in 2011 and 2012.

• DARPA awards $2.7 million contract to Lockheed Martin to develop resilient command and control (RC2) for the US military.

• American Small Business League sues [PDF] the Department of Defense for refusing to release subcontracting reports on contracts awarded to Raytheon to ensure compliance with small business contracting rules.

• Fresh from its success in Gaza while mounted on a Merkava main battle tank, RAFAEL’s ASPRO-A/ Trophy active protection system against incoming shells, rockets and missiles (see video) has now finished tests in the USA, mounted on a Stryker/ LAV-III wheeled APC. The need for Trophy was one of the lessons learned from the 2006 Syrian-Iranian-Israeli war in Lebanon.

• In blast-resistant MRAP vehicles, ammunition is from MARS. Which solved a perplexing problem.

• “We can’t afford to stay fat, dumb and happy.” US Air Force Global Strike Command’s A9 directorate is working to apply critical self-assessment, and lessons learned.

• HMS Albion, HMS Sutherland and RFA Cardigan Bay, together with elements of 40 Commando Royal Marines, set sail as lead element of the UK’s Cougar 11 deployment to the Mediterranean and Middle East. RFA Cardigan Bay is a sister ship to Largs Bay, which was just sold off to Australia.

• Lesson learned from Libya: don’t expect to fly Swedish JAS-39C/D Gripens on JP-5 naval aviation fuel. JP-5 is less likely to catch fire on board a carrier, but not so good for planes that need Jet A1 (similar to the USAF’s JP-8).

• South Korean Navy conducts anti-submarine warfare drills off west coast as tensions run high over North Korea’s sinking of ROKS Cheonan (PCC-772), a Pohang-class patrol combat corvette. South Korean ambassador to the US ponders the aftermath. [PDF]

• University of Pittsburgh gets $12 million contract to develop regenerative medical procedures for injured US military personnel.

• Rust never sleeps. As the F-22A fighter fleet found out recently.

• Northrop Grumman sets integrated circuit speed record – at a frequency that could double the bandwidth of military communications networks – as part of DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program.

• CSIS analysts skeptical of costs savings from 2009 Weapon System Acquisition Reform Act.

• BAE delivers 2nd dome set to Spain’s S-80 submarine project.

• BAE and GD-ATP deliver 1st production element of the DDG-1000 “destroyer’s” 155mm Advanced Gun System.

• First flight of ScanEagle SECC, which could be launched from submarines or aircraft.

• Harris snags $27 million order to supply additional JTRS-approved Falcon III AN/PRC-152-C multiband handheld radios and AN/VRC-110 vehicle amplifier adapters for M-ATVs.

• Who’s your tailor? US Marine Corps chooses new tailor for recruits and military personnel at Parris Island, SC.

Naval AS90

Medium caliber naval guns confront naval planners with a divergence of opinions: mount large caliber, slower-firing 5”/127mm guns used mostly for naval fire support, or smaller caliber 100-57mm guns with far more rapid rates of fire that can be used against smaller boats, UAVs, missiles et. al. as well? In recent years, a 3rd option has entered the scene: 155mm guns adapted from Army platforms. Key advantages include potential commonality of ammunition stocks, greater destructive power, and better leveraging of R&D into long range and specialized variants with some land/sea commonality. Hence projects like the American AGS system for its Zumwalt Class destroyers, and Germany’s aborted MONARC that would have mounted a turret from their PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzer on the new F125 expeditionary frigates.

AGS is rather large, however, which leaves the question of what to do with ships smaller than the DDG-1000 Zumwalt’s Graf Spee sized 14,500t. The Royal Navy has become the latest navy to jump into this fray, undertaking a relatively low cost research program that looks at the AS90 Braveheart howitzer’s potential for future warships, and for refits to the existing fleet.

They’ll have a number of significant challenges to overcome before they can declare success, but a recent release says the project is moving on to Phase 3 now…

LCS diorama

The Navy announces that it is moving forward with development of the Littoral Combat Ship’s Surface Warfare (SUW) Mission Package, which it describes as “designed to combat small, fast boat terrorist threats to the fleet.” The Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren division is the technical direction agent for the SUW mission package, with NSWC Port Hueneme division providing integrated logistics and testing support. US NAVSEA’s release lists the components as:

”...electro-optical/infrared sensors mounted on a vertical take off unmanned air vehicle [the MQ-8B Fire Scout] to provide over-the-horizon detection; 30mm guns to kill close-in targets; four [4] non-line-of-sight launching system [NLOS-LS/ “NetFires”]... container launch units, with each system containing 15 offensive missiles; and the MH-60R armed helicopter for surveillance and attack missions. The SUW mission package has software that interfaces with the LCS command and control system to maintain and share situational awareness and tactical control in a coordinated SUW environment…. The first two [2] SUW mission packages assembled for developmental and operational testing use the Mark 46 30mm gun made by General Dynamics Amphibious Systems.”

The $400-500 million question is, will this be enough?...