Japan’s Fleet BMD: Upgrades & UORs

Jul 18, 2019 04:50 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Shipbuilding company Japan Marine United Corporation (JMU) launched the second Maya Class guided missile destroyer for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). The vessel is named "Haguro“. The destroyer, which will be the eighth JMSDF ship to be equipped with the Aegis Combat System, is 5m longer than the Atago Class destroyers operated by the JMSDF. Haguro will use the Aegis Baseline J7 supported by the Lockheed Martin/Raytheon AN/SPY-1D(V) phased array radar and the Northrop Grumman AN/SPQ-9B X-band high-resolution fire-control radar. DDG-180 Haguro is expected to be commissioned with the JMSDF in 2021. The first ship of the class, JS Maya, commenced her sea trials a month ago.

JS Kongou

The JMSDF (Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force) is working closely with the USA on missile defense activities. Air Force cooperation has also improved by leaps and bounds, allowing for much closer coordination with the USA in all aspects of operations – including missile tracking.

Japanese involvement includes modification and improvements to the SM-3 long-range anti-air/ABM missile. This weapon will form the outer layer of Japan’s ABM system, deployed from its current fleet of 4 Kongo Class AEGIS destroyers and their 2 larger Atago Class successors. The inner layer will consist of land-based Japan Self Defense Forces PAC-3 Patriot missiles, and together they will form the initial ballistic missile defense architecture for mainland Japan.

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AMRAAM: Deploying & Developing America’s Medium-Range Air-Air Missile

Jul 15, 2019 04:54 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Qatar awarded Raytheon two direct commercial sales contracts worth $2.2 billion for additional integrated air and missile defense capability. The awards are part of a larger agreement being pursued by Qatar with the US government. The deals include the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, final certification of the AMRAAM Extended Range missile, and an unspecified number of additional Patriot fire units. The NASAMS is a medium to long-range air defense system that can enhance the air defender’s ability to quickly identify, engage and destroy current and evolving enemy aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicle and emerging cruise missile threats. The AMRAAM Extend Range missile is a beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile able to operate in all weather day and night operations. Qatar is the first country to procure AMRAAM-ER. Qatar also becomes the 11th country to procure NASAMS, a medium-range air-defense solution manufactured by Raytheon and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace AS. NASAMS uses the Raytheon Sentinel radar, and fires multiple interceptors, including AMRAAM-ER.

AIM-120C from F-22A
(click for test missile zoom)

Raytheon’s AIM-120 Advanced, Medium-Range Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM) has become the world market leader for medium range air-to-air missiles, and is also beginning to make inroads within land-based defense systems. It was designed with the lessons of Vietnam in mind, and of local air combat exercises like ACEVAL and Red Flag. This DID FOCUS article covers successive generations of AMRAAM missiles, international contracts and key events from 2006 onward, and even some of its emerging competitors.

One of the key lessons learned from Vietnam was that a fighter would be likely to encounter multiple enemies, and would need to launch and guide several missiles at once in order to ensure its survival. This had not been possible with the AIM-7 Sparrow, a “semi-active radar homing” missile that required a constant radar lock on one target. To make matters worse, enemy fighters were capable of launching missiles of their own. Pilots who weren’t free to maneuver after launch would often be forced to “break lock,” or be killed – sometimes even by a short-range missile fired during the last phases of their enemy’s approach. Since fighters that could carry radar-guided missiles like the AIM-7 tended to be larger and more expensive, and the Soviets were known to have far more fighters overall, this was not a good trade.

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AGM-88E AARGM Missile: No Place To Hide Down There

Jul 12, 2019 04:58 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Raytheon won a $17.8 million firm-fixed-price contract for 114 High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile command launch computers to include two pre-production units, one first article test unit and 111 production units in support of the Navy. The system known as HARM’s primary mission is to suppress or destroy an enemy's surface-to-air missile radar and radar-directed air defense artillery systems. When it is airborne, the 800-pound missile can operate in preemptive, missile-as-sensor and self-protect modes. The AGM-88 HARM is a joint US Navy and Air Force program developed by the Navy and Raytheon. The company will perform work in Tucson, Arizona, and is scheduled to be finished in October 2021.

AARGM Concept

The AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM) is a medium range, supersonic, air-launched tactical missile whose primary job is to attack and kill enemy radars. AARGM is a US Navy major acquisition program, with around 1,750 expected orders from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The Italian Air Force is expected to buy up to 250 of these successors to the AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, and Germany may also join.

So, why is AARGM a big deal? Perhaps the story of how a Serbian unit using an antiquated SA-3 battery managed to survive the 1999 NATO air campaign – and shoot down an F-117 Nighthawk stealth plane – will help put things into perspective. DID recounts those events, explains the new weapon, and offers updates on contracts and key milestones.

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Serious Dollars for AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)

Jul 03, 2019 04:58 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The US Navy tapped Lockheed Martin with a $7 million contract for Combat System Ship Integration and testing on the next generation of Guided Missile Frigate or FFG(X). The work includes integration engineering support and test planning as well as waterfront ship integration and testing, post-delivery engineering support to government test teams, engineering services for ship integration, and test and developing test program documents for FFG(X) ships. The FFG(X) Class of multimission guided-missile frigates for the Navy, are to be contracted from 2020, as a follow-on to the modular Littoral Combat Ship. The Pentagon is in the process of selecting the prime contractor for the new class of ships. Each ship would have at least 32 vertical launching system cells and an AEGIS-based combat system. On June 20, the Navy released a Request for Proposals for companies to bid on the design and construction of FFG(X). Lockheed had already said in May that it would not submit its own bid for the competition. Under the new contract Lockheed will perform at the FFG(X) ship builder location as well as Moorestown, New Jersey. Scheduled completion date is in June, 2025.

AEGIS-BMD: CG-70
launches SM-3

The AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense System seamlessly integrates the SPY-1 radar, the MK 41 Vertical Launching System for missiles, the SM-3 Standard missile, and the ship’s command and control system, in order to give ships the ability to defend against enemy ballistic missiles. Like its less-capable AEGIS counterpart, AEGIS BMD can also work with other radars on land and sea via Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC). That lets it receive cues from other platforms and provide information to them, in order to create a more detailed battle picture than any one radar could produce alone.

AEGIS has become a widely-deployed top-tier air defense system, with customers in the USA, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Norway, and Spain. In a dawning age of rogue states and proliferation of mass-destruction weapons, the US Navy is being pushed toward a “shield of the nation” role as the USA’s most flexible and most numerous option for missile defense. AEGIS BMD modifications are the keystone of that effort – in the USA, and beyond.

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LCS: The USA’s Littoral Combat Ships

Jul 03, 2019 04:52 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The USS Montgomery or LCS-8 arrived in the Philippines last Saturday as part of her deployment to the Pacific. The Navy has resumed overseas deployments of the Littoral Combat Ships after an 18-month long hiatus. Repeated technical problems on both classes, the Freedom and the Independence Class, led the Navy to stand down all LCS crews in August 2016 – the first-ever stand down for a full class of vessels at once. All LCS personnel with a role in engineering were retrained, and the first four ships procured - two from each class, worth a combined $1.6 billion - were permanently restricted to testing duty. The stand down was soon lifted, but it has been more than a year and a half since an LCS deployed. The visit to Davao was the first indicator of the resumption of the LCS deployments. The USS Montgomery is a Independence Class Ship.

Austal Team
Trimaran LCS Design
(click to enlarge)

Exploit simplicity, numbers, the pace of technology development in electronics and robotics, and fast reconfiguration. That was the US Navy’s idea for the low-end backbone of its future surface combatant fleet. Inspired by successful experiments like Denmark’s Standard Flex ships, the US Navy’s $35+ billion “Littoral Combat Ship” program was intended to create a new generation of affordable surface combatants that could operate in dangerous shallow and near-shore environments, while remaining affordable and capable throughout their lifetimes.

It hasn’t worked that way. In practice, the Navy hasn’t been able to reconcile what they wanted with the capabilities needed to perform primary naval missions, or with what could be delivered for the sums available. The LCS program has changed its fundamental acquisition plan 4 times since 2005, and canceled contracts with both competing teams during this period, without escaping any of its fundamental issues. Now, the program looks set to end early. This public-access FOCUS article offer a wealth of research material, alongside looks at the LCS program’s designs, industry teams procurement plans, military controversies, budgets and contracts.

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Australia’s Hazard(ous) Frigate Upgrades: Done at Last

Jun 19, 2019 04:48 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The Royal Australian Navy’s Anzac Class frigate HMAS Arunta (II) has reportedly rejoined the fleet after having undergone a 20-month-long Anzac Mid-Life Capability Assurance Program upgrade at the Australian Marine Complex in Henderson, Western Australia. The Arunta is the first of eight ships of the class to have completed the extensive upgrade. She returned in early June to its home port of Fleet Base West where she rejoined the fleet. The 118 meter-long ship, which was commissioned in December 1998, will soon start to conduct work-ups and testing the new equipment on board.

HMAS Adelaide

The FFG-7 Oliver Hazard Perry Class frigates make for a fascinating defense procurement case study. To this day, the ships are widely touted as a successful example of cost containment and avoidance of requirements creep – both of which have been major weaknesses in US Navy acquisition. On the other hand, compromises made to meet short-term cost targets resulted in short service lives and decisions to retire, sell, or downgrade the ships instead of upgrading them.

Australia’s 6 ships of this class have served alongside the RAN’s more modern ANZAC Class frigates, which are undergoing upgrades of their own to help them handle the reality of modern anti-ship missiles. With the SEA 4000 Hobart Class air warfare frigates still just a gleam in an admiral’s eye, the government looked for a way to upgrade their FFG-7 “Adelaide Class” to keep them in service until 2020 or so. The SEA 1390 project wasn’t what you’d call a success… but Australia accepted their last frigate in 2010, and the 4 remaining ships will serve until 2020.

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Raytheon’s Standard Missile Naval Defense Family (SM-1 to SM-6)

May 29, 2019 04:56 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Raytheon’s Standard Missile-3, Standard Missile-2 and evolved SeaSparrow Missile played a part in a NATO exercise called Formidable Shield 2019. The two-week exercise took place at the UK defense ministry’s Hebrides Range located on the Western Isles of Scotland. The Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO conducted the exercise on behalf of the US 6th Fleet. The SM-3 was fired at a simulated target, the SM-2 and the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile engaged targets simulating anti-ship cruise missiles. The SM-3 interceptor is a defensive weapon used to destroy short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The SM-2 provides superior anti-air warfare and limited anti-surface warfare capability against advanced anti-ship missiles and aircraft out to 90 nautical miles. The Evolved SeaSparrow Missile provides self-defense battlespace and firepower against high-speed, highly maneuverable anti-ship missiles in the naval environment.

SM-2 Launch, DDG-77
(click to view larger)

Variants of the SM-2 Standard missile are the USA’s primary fleet defense anti-air weapon, and serve with 13 navies worldwide. The most common variant is the RIM-66K-L/ SM-2 Standard Block IIIB, which entered service in 1998. The Standard family extends far beyond the SM-2 missile, however; several nations still use the SM-1, the SM-3 is rising to international prominence as a missile defense weapon, and the SM-6 program is on track to supplement the SM-2. These missiles are designed to be paired with the AEGIS radar and combat system, but can be employed independently by ships with older or newer radar systems.

This article covers each variant in the Standard missile family, plus several years worth of American and Foreign Military Sales requests and contracts and key events; and offers the budgetary, technical, and geopolitical background that can help put all that in context.

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DDG Type 45: Britain’s Shrinking Air Defense Fleet

May 23, 2019 04:54 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The British Royal Navy’s Type 45 Destroyer HMS Duncan carried out anti-submarine and air defense training in an exercise with eight other countries and 57 ships, helicopters and aircraft. The HMS Duncan is the sixth Type 45 Destroyer and was deployed in 2018 as the Flagship of NATO Task Group SNMG2, returning in July. The Type 45 Destroyers built for the Royal Navy are primarily designed for anti-aircraft and anti-missile warfare. For the exercise, dubbed Mare Aperto, the ship spent two weeks off the coast of Italy, where it provided air and surface defenses as the exercise moved through the Messina Straits which divide Sicily and mainland Italy. The exercise is focused on training and testing the abilities of the Commanders and Staff of the Naval Squadron, in conducting operations in areas of international crisis. Through the reproduction of a scenario characterized by a multidimensional threat and with increasing difficulty, ships and crews practice the main activities of fighting on the sea and from the sea such as anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-ship activities, fighting illicit trafficking, crisis management in environments with conventional and asymmetric threat.

Daring Class

The 5,200t Type 42 Sheffield Class destroyers were designed in the late 1960s to provide fleet area air-defense for Britain’s Royal Navy, after the proposed Type 82 air defense cruisers were canceled by the Labour Government in 1966. Britain built 14 of the Type 42s, but these old ships are reaching the limits of their operational lives and effectiveness.

To replace them, the Royal Navy planned to induct 12 Type 45 Daring Class destroyers. The Daring class would be built to deal with a new age of threats. Saturation attacks with supersonic ship-killing missiles, that fly from the ship’s radar horizon to ship impact in under 45 seconds. The reality of future threats from ballistic missiles, and WMD proliferation. Plus a proliferation of possible threats involving smaller, hard to detect enemies like UAVs. Overall, the Type 45s promise to be one of the world’s most capable air defense ships – but design choices have left the cost-to-value ratio uncertain, and limited the Type 45s in other key roles. A reduced 6-ship program moved forward.

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$96M to DS2 for LAIRCM Aircraft Defense System Support

May 02, 2019 04:58 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Northrop Grumman won a contract action with a not-to-exceed-value of $132.3 million to integrate the Department of Navy Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (LAIRCM) system onto aircraft for the US Navy, Army, and the governments of the UK and Norway. The deal provides necessary hardware and systems technical support, analysis and studies for the integration work. The LAIRCM system enhances individual aircraft survival through improved aircrew situational awareness of the electromagnetic threat environment. The fundamental requirement for the LAIRCM system is to provide protection against man-portable, shoulder-fired and vehicle launched infrared guided missiles. Hardware for the procurement includes 283 advanced threat warning sensors, 79 control indicator unit replaceables, 52 -2103 signal processors, 120 infrared missile warning sensors, 91 Guardian Laser Transmitter Assemblies (GLTAs), 13 multi-role electro-optical end-to-end test sets, 190 GLTA shipping containers, 46 high capacity cards, 10 LAIRCM signal processor replacements smart connector assemblies, and 123 personal computer memory card, international association cards. Northrop will perform work within the US and expected completion date is in June 2021.

LAIRCM Concept

Defense Support Services (DS2), a Greenville, SC-based venture between Lockheed Martin and Day & Zimmermann, received a $96 million contract to provide support for the Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasure (LAIRCM) System.

Northrop Grumman’s LAIRCM is a laser-based countermeasures system that is designed to defend C-17 and C-130 transport aircraft and other large, slow-moving aircraft from an infrared missile attack by automatically detecting a missile launch, determining if it is a threat, and activating a high-intensity system of pulsed lasers to track and defeat the threat by confusing its guidance head…

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Britain Upgrading Her Dukes [Type 23 Frigates]

Apr 15, 2019 04:54 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The Type 23 frigate HMS Montrose reportedly arrived in Bahrain to start a three-year mission. The Duke Class ship, that was commissioned in 1994 started its 47,000 mile journey six months ago from her home in Plymouth, sailing via the Pacific and Indian Ocean to reach the Gulf. The Montrose will conduct patrols related to drug trafficking in the Indian Ocean, support counter-terrorism and counter-smuggling operations, and work with Middle East and allied Navies to ensure the safety and security of the region. According to the ship’s Commanding Officer, this deployment „marks a significant milestone“ for the UK’s operations in the Middle East.

HMS Sutherland

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 2005-2015.

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