The office estimated an 18-ship LSM program would cost between $6.2 billion and $7.8 billion in 2024 inflation-adjusted dollars, or $340 million to $430 million per ship. This is three times more than the Navy’s comparable estimate of $2.6 billion total, or $150 million per ship.

The CBO, in a report released April 11, noted the program would cost between $11.9 billion and $15 billion in 2024 dollars if the service ultimately buys 35 ships, as the Marine Corps has pushed for.

The report outlined the challenges in predicting the cost of the program, given remaining questions about what the platform will look like and how it will be used, and cited inconsistencies over time between how the Navy and Marine Corps each talk about the future of this program.

For example, the Marine Corps originally proposed LSM in its Force Design 2030 modernization plan in spring 2020, calling for a vessel that would be built to commercial standards to keep costs low and to help it blend in with commercial shipping.

The Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, however, have pushed for higher standards for safety and survivability, leading to a back-and-forth over design, cost and quantity.

“A central issue that remains unclear is the LSM’s concept of operations. Specifically, do Navy and Marine Corps leaders expect the ships to deploy and resupply their marines only before a war has started, such as when a crisis is building? Or would the ships also redeploy and resupply marine units during a conflict, when those ships would be potentially vulnerable to detection and attack by opposing military forces?” the report asked.

“A ship that is not expected to face enemy fire in a conflict could be built to a lesser survivability standard, with fewer defensive systems than a ship that would sail in contested waters during a conflict. Recent experiments by the Marine Corps suggest that the naval services are still determining what the capabilities of the LSM will be,” it continued.

The answers to these questions will directly affect cost.

The CBO created a cost estimate based on a hybrid military-commercial ship design, as Navy and Marine Corps leaders have indicated they’ll pursue.

Using strictly military standards associated with traditional amphibious warships would add $2 billion to $3 billion to the cost of an 18-ship program, and $5 billion to $6 billion to the price of a 35-ship program, the report noted.

The use of commercial standards would lower the cost estimate by $4 billion to $8 billion for an 18-ship program, and by $5 billion to $10 billion for a 35-ship program, the report added.

Additionally, the CBO report noted uncertainty over how many ships the Navy will ultimately buy. The service has discussed buying 18, while the Marine Corps insists it needs 35.

“The total cost of the program — as opposed to the average cost of individual ships — will largely be determined by the number of LSMs the Navy ultimately buys,” the report noted.

The cost will also depend on how many shipyards the Navy puts on contract to build LSMs and at what annual rate. This might look different if the services hurried to get as many out as quickly as possible, versus if they stick to the current plan of buying one or two per year for the first five years.

The Navy originally planned to begin buying LSMs in fiscal 2023, but that was pushed back to fiscal 2025 for budgetary reasons. The Navy has awarded contracts to five companies to help refine the requirements for the ship type, and in January the service released a request for proposals to industry for the contract to design and build the first LSMs.

The vessels will have a draft of 12 feet, be 200-400 feet long, be able to transit 3,500 nautical miles at a speed of 14 knots, beach themselves to load and unload vehicles and supplies, have a crew of 70 sailors, and embark 50 Marines, among other specifications.

This effort will include finalizing a vision for what role the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel will play, with the range and payload capacity to do much more than the small drones currently conducting surveillance missions in the Middle East and Latin America, he said during a panel discussion at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference

The service is continuing down a path to incorporate unmanned technologies into routine fleet operations. One year into operating a hybrid manned-unmanned fleet, U.S. 4th Fleet is using unmanned surface vessels to map patterns of behavior and common trafficking routes in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in a keynote speech at the event.

Rear Adm. James Aiken, the 4th Fleet commander, said during a panel discussion that these operations are beneficial.

“We’re putting unmanned vessels in the hands of operators, and so we see what the challenges are, being at sea for six, eight, nine months now with some of the unmanned surface vessels. And it really has challenged us” to reconsider where and how they employ these vessels, he explained.

Smith said during the same panel that learning by using basic unmanned systems — or the “minimum viable product,” as he put it — is important. But at some point, he added, “we need to get beyond surveillance” and begin using these sea drones for more warfare-focused operations.

To that end, he said, the Navy will conduct an analysis of alternatives this year to determine what payloads can equip the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel. He added that this would go beyond surveillance and instead incorporate that information-gathering capability into the detect-identify-track-engage kill chain.

Also speaking at the conference, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said unmanned systems are not only tools for sailors but also “players on the field.”

Asked by Defense News about the move beyond experiments and into routine operations with this hybrid fleet, Franchetti said she doesn’t want to squash the momentum of experimentation just yet, as sailors are collaborating with industry to find new uses for unmanned systems.

“The most important thing,” she explained” “is to cohere [lessons from experimentation] together into a concept of operations that can apply broadly across our Navy, and I’m really focused on getting to that point. But right now, I really like the fleets having this creative spirit unleashed and being able to get all their ideas out there, so then we can think about how would we elevate that into a concept of operations that we can train to, that we can resource to and that we can continue to use.”

“I’m confident that the future of our Navy is going to be a mix of conventionally manned platforms with unmanned and autonomous platforms all teamed together, so these are all the building blocks that we need to take right now to be able to get there,” she added.

Even though 4th Fleet and 5th Fleet are focused on maritime domain awareness in support of counter-trafficking missions — whereas 7th Fleet focuses on using unmanned systems in support of sea denial and sea control missions — the CNO said there would have to be some sort of common concept of operations across the whole service.

“But you always need to have tailored concepts below it because each theater is different. The geostrategic environment is different. The adversaries are different. The partners are different. And so everything will need to be tailored to that,” Franchetti said. “But I think having a common understanding of the who, what, why we employ unmanned — I think that will be very important for our Navy going forward.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — This week, U.S. Navy leadership and some of the world’s largest defense contractors flocked to the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center south of the nation’s capital for the 2024 Sea-Air-Space defense conference.

Hosted by the Navy League, it’s the service’s largest annual trade show. Reporters with C4ISRNET, Defense News, and Military Times were on the ground, reporting on the latest remarks and industry insights.

From an eclipse that yanked attendees to the waterfront to a surprise appearance by Lance Cpl. Chesty XVI, here’s what you may have missed:

• As the Navy, Coast Guard and Maritime Administration press shipbuilders to increase production, the services are also considering other ideas to get ships in the water faster. What that means for the future.
• Creating a new robotics warfare specialist rating signified a critical step in achieving a “truly hybrid” fleet, according to the Navy’s top civilian. Learn more.
• Northrop Grumman said it finished building its prototype of the Manta Ray underwater drone, devised for assignments that demand long hours and extended ranges while minimizing human involvement. Interested?
• The Marine Corps plans to deploy its powerful new heavy-lift helicopter for the first time in 2026 — the year after it previously had anticipated. All the details here.
• The Navy recently wrapped a review of its shipbuilding programs. It found several shortfalls, including schedule slips attributed to a lack of workers and a brittle supply chain. For both issues, 3D printing could be the answer. How so?
• Shield AI in the next year plans to have its Hivemind digital pilot working aboard three additional types of aircraft, bringing the total to nine. Click me!
• A space-focused program spreading hundreds of small satellites in low orbit aims to bring clearer communications and faster data transfer to military units in the field. Why you should care.

The next Sea-Air-Space conference is scheduled for April 2025.

For the long-range plan to be carried out, the first step is executing the FYDP plan through fiscal 2029, per the president’s budget request, which provides plenty of insight into the expectation for ship construction timelines and statuses.

These ship-by-ship details provide insight into recent performance, the changing of expectations and the difficult road ahead for the long-range plan.

The plan outlines an ambitious increase in the number of active battle force ships to meet the goal of an eventual 381 ships (plus 134 unmanned vessels). It shows increasing deliveries effectively across all ship categories through the late 2030s in a baseline plan, and provides an alternative with fewer procurements, but both begin with the assumption that FY25-FY29 FYDP expectations will be met.

Navy leaders recently executed a 45-day review of shipbuilding performance, which highlighted several delays to big-ticket programs. Our analysis of some of these major programs, including the outcome of the 45-day review, shows that the steadily increasing construction spans, paired with an outlook of increasing demand on shipbuilders, will not aid improvement.

Submarines

The Columbia-class submarine is the highest-priority shipbuilding program, and building it according to plan is required for the Navy to stay at the threshold of 10 ballistic missile submarines. Columbia construction has been historically prioritized to the detriment of the Virginia class so that Columbia can use more attention and resources from the shared shipbuilder (ideally to shield Columbia from delays).

According to the recent shipbuilding review, the first boat, SSBN-826, is now 12 to 14 months behind schedule.

While the second boat is not yet officially delayed, it is hard to imagine the construction spans dropping from what is now nearly 100 months for the first boat down into the 70s for SSBN-827 and all subsequent units. Given the second boat is only scheduled to begin construction in FY24, it is too early to see the extent to which SSBN-826 issues will impact SSBN-827 and beyond. One would expect delays for SSBN-827 and onward, especially considering the two boats being built in FY24 are planned to grow to six by FY28.

The Virginia-class program has experienced large delays over recent years as production has ramped up. But for what it’s worth, the Navy has begun incorporating more realistic expectations in its plans.

Since 2019, the months required to build each ship has risen from 68 months per boat to 85 months for the four most recently delivered boats, and is planned to be 95 months on average for all boats currently under construction.

This increase in construction months has been in line with a ramp-up in production as the number of ships being built has risen from 12 in 2019 to 15 in 2024, and is expected to climb to 18 by the end of the decade. Per the FYDP, planned boats are expected to remain around 95 months on average, which appears to be reasonable given recent history.

With the higher-priority Columbia program now officially experiencing delays — which may become more severe — and with Virginia construction ramping up to 18 boats at a time, maintaining the same level of efficiency will be a victory in itself.

Destroyers

Procurement of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is planned to continue until FY32, when procurement for the next-generation destroyer DDG(X) should begin.

Between those boats recently delivered and those that have already begun construction, the average actual or planned construction is roughly 70 months per boat and has been trending upward.

The nuance is that the performance is largely unique to the shipyards. DDG-51s are split between General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works and HII. Those ships under construction or completed by HII average 62 months per boat, while those by General Dynamics average over 75 months per boat.

This disparity in performance is also reflected in the Navy’s forecast, where HII is expected to drive improvement to the program with constructions spans eventually dipping below 50 months, while General Dynamics boats are never expected to break 70.

Whether the issues at Bath Iron Works are due to the beleaguered DDG-1000 program still being wrapped up there or other causes, naval planning is clearly not expecting much to change in terms of DDG-51 construction, besides allocating fewer boats to build going forward.

Meanwhile, HII will be expected to improve construction time by a double-digit percentage while taking on the lion’s share of the work, going from six ships under construction in 2024 to at least nine by the end of the decade.

Aircraft carriers

CVN-79 and CVN-80 are each delayed by more than two years compared to original delivery plans, while CVN-81 is still on schedule. This is largely attributed to CVN-81 being procured in a two-carrier contract, which allowed for procurement efforts to be spread over a much longer period since contract signing.

This gives CVN-81 a longer planned construction span and means less work has been completed, even though construction has technically been ongoing for a few years.

It is still yet to be known if CVN-81 will really be built to schedule, given the keel laying is still a few years away.

Frigates

It’s early days for the Constellation-class guided-missile frigates, but the program is already looking at delivery delays.

Coming out of the recent shipbuilding review, it has been reported that the lead ship, FFG-62, is now expected to be delivered 36 months late. This puts the total construction time for the boat at more than seven years, nearing double the original estimate of four years.

Issues have been attributed to shipbuilder Marinette Marine now managing three programs, including the Littoral Combat Ship program and the Saudi Multi-Mission Surface Combatant. The Navy has stated that it’s taking steps to improve the process.

Given the second ship was only slated to begin the construction process in December 2023, it’s too soon to identify the extent to which these issues will continue — not only for the lead ship, but spread to the next ships beginning construction.

According to the latest plans, the shipbuilder is expected to go from potentially three ships underway in 2024 to more than 10 of the class under construction by 2028, while simultaneously bringing construction spans back down to planned levels. Assuming some level of delay continues for even just the first few hulls, the profile of small surface combatant deliveries and fleet size outlined in the 30-year plan has the potential to shift.

The problems plaguing U.S. shipbuilding have been attributed to multiple factors, from the cutting down of the industrial base in the 1990s to the impacts of COVID-19 on the supply chain in recent years.

Whichever issues can be argued for recent performance on these specific programs, construction performance has not been trending in the right direction, and much of the plan for the upcoming years looks ambitious given where things stand.

For industry to execute the plans in the FYDP, and therefore follow the path that provides the Navy with the capability it needs, major improvements will have to be made.

The shipbuilding community has its work cut out for it.

Theo Egan is a co-founder of Tamarack Defense, a data analytics and advisory firm.

The Charles de Gaulle, with an escort including a French air-defense frigate, a multimission frigate and a nuclear attack submarine, will start a deployment in the Mediterranean on April 22, according to Rear Adm. Jacques Mallard, commander of the French carrier strike group. Vessels from the United States, Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal will complete the escort.

While French aircraft and individual vessels have previously operated under NATO direction, the carrier strike group has until now remained under national command, according to Mallard.

Sailing under alliance command for part of the envisioned tour is meant to “show that we’re an ally who’s doing what everyone else is doing, but also to understand how the chain of command works,” Mallard said in a press briefing on April 11. “It’s a first, but it’s a logical continuation of what’s been going on until now.”

The goal is to “reinforce the defensive and deterrent posture of the alliance” as well as support operations that favor regional stability, with a focus on the central and eastern Mediterranean, according to a presentation by Mallard. The entire deployment might last around six weeks, according to the Armed Forces Ministry.

The admiral said cooperation with allies has been “fundamental” over the past 10 years, as the French carrier strike group integrated around 30 different ships from 12 nations during operations, with NATO procedures and exercises key to creating interoperability.

The Charles de Gaulle will carry some 18 Rafale jets during the upcoming mission, about two-thirds of its maximum contingent, as well as two E-2C Hawkeye airborne early-warning aircraft and two Dauphin helicopters. The French escort frigates will each carry a helicopter in either a surface- or submarine-warfare role.

During the mission, dubbed Akila, all ships and aircraft will report to Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO, a command located in Oeiras, Portugal, near Lisbon for a period of about two weeks, Mallard said.

The admiral declined to identify the ships that will escort the Charles de Gaulle, other than the supply ship Jacques Chevalier. He said the French Navy has started to conceal the identity of its warships, which creates a degree of confusion for adversaries.

“We’re starting to get into the habit of not revealing the names, which is why the hull numbers and names have disappeared from our ships,” Mallard said. “It’s quite effective, and it’s sown doubt on several occasions when our vessels have come across other vessels that didn’t know exactly what to call them. We try to maintain a level of ambiguity.”

The strike group may cooperate with the Standing NATO Maritime Group operating in the Mediterranean, which has been under French command since April 5, as well as participate in the NATO’s air-defense mission over Poland and defensive mission in Romania, according to the rear admiral.

The carrier group will also participate in the Mare Aperto exercise in Italy as part of one of two forces confronting each other in what Mallard called a “symmetric” scenario. The admiral declined to provide details on the deployment timetable. “The more details we give you, the more we reveal part of our intentions.”

Mallard said a deployment of the carrier strike group to the Red Sea is not on the agenda, but is among the options being studied.

He declined to confirm reports that the Charles de Gaulle might head to the Indo-Pacific following its mission in the Mediterranean. He said the strike group’s missions are prepared at “a very high level,” with an eye on being useful to French policy and regional stability.

“The Indo-Pacific is one of the many theaters where the carrier strike group could have an impact,” Mallard said. “So we’re looking at many things, in particular far-away deployments, but for the time being, nothing tangible, nor any announcement to make.”

The Charles de Gaulle has a crew of about 1,200, including around 80 staff, as well as the embarked air group. The carrier in January set off from its home port of Toulon for sea trails, after being taken out of action for maintenance in May last year for work on the carrier’s steam catapults, water-purification plant and medical facilities, among other things.

The nuclear-powered carrier replaced the conventionally-powered Clemenceau in 2001, and France expects to continue operating the vessel until 2038, when the Charles de Gaulle is set to be replaced by a future nuclear-powered carrier known for now by its French acronym PANG.

France plans to start work on the future carrier either late next year or early 2026, with Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu last year estimating the cost of the next-generation vessel at €10 billion. Sea trials are expected in 2036 or 2037, and France included an initial €5 billion for construction of the carrier in its 2024-2030 military budget law.

But for one U.S. Navy commander, there’s another more-promising application.

“For unmanned systems, I think electronic warfare- and cyber-related mission areas are the ‘killer app,’ if you will,” Rear Adm. Doug Small said April 10 at the Sea-Air-Space defense conference here. “That is the growth imperative.”

Small is the leader of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, what he calls the service’s “Geek Squad.” He’s also the head of Project Overmatch, which seeks to digitally link sailors, Marines and their vessels over vast distances. Little has been shared about the project since its inception in 2020, with officials attributing the secrecy to Russian and Chinese monitoring.

Outfitting unmanned vehicles or vessels with jammers, spoofers and other gear capable of wreaking electronic havoc is “absolutely critical,” according to Small. EW represents a battle over the electromagnetic spectrum, which militaries for decades have relied upon to communicate, identify friend from foe, and guide weapons to their targets.

“These smaller vehicles, commercial vehicles, have the capability to provide effects,” he said. “And if we architect it correctly, and make sure that, again, we can bring those AI-enabled autonomous behaviors to those vehicles, there are any number of missions that we can accomplish.”

The Navy is investing in unmanned systems — on the water, as well as above and below it — to augment existing and near-future firepower. A service strategy known as the Navigation Plan at one point included an outline of a fleet comprising roughly 373 manned ships and 150 uncrewed vessels.

Defense News previously reported the Navy was realizing its manned-unmanned teams in three phases: experimentation from fiscal 2024 to 2028; deployment in fiscal 2029 through 2033; and full-fledged operations in the years thereafter.

“One of the key things is establishing and expanding this naval operational architecture throughout the Navy, to include unmanned systems. Part of our role is extending that connectivity to these unmanned systems,” Small said. “Our North Star is a hybrid fleet.”

Former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday last year said unmanned vessels with the ability to confuse adversary electronics, spy on distant activities and coordinate the flow of fighting would play an increasingly important role in the service’s mission.

Work to realize such a concept, he said at the time, is underway.

Information warfare becoming a critical submarine capability: Aeschbach

“Think about medium unmanned vessels that have [command-and-control] capabilities, that have [EW] capabilities, that can, perhaps, even have cyber capabilities,” Gilday said. “That kind of work is happening now.”

The defense industry is taking the hint, too. Northrop Grumman plans to participate in two events this year to demonstrate autonomy and EW kits it is developing for unmanned surface vessels under its Project Scion initiative.

The project leans on tech in other domains, such as aerial drones, ground robotics and smart buoys, to quickly produce equipment that can turn platforms into “true combat-and-surveillance systems for our customers,” a Northrop business development manager told C4ISRNET in February.

All three areas face similar challenges, such as a lack of output at key suppliers, which prevents prime contractors from increasing deliveries to the Navy.

The service would like to strengthen the supply chains and increase delivery quantities in all three industrial bases, noted Vice Adm. Frank Morley, the top uniformed deputy to the Navy’s acquisition chief.

However, they have vastly different construction timelines. This means the weapons-industrial base — the one with the shortest manufacturing timelines and therefore the one that will show a return on investment first — is paving the way for how the Navy will manage the submarine and surface combatant counterparts.

Expanding the munitions-industrial base is not as complex as expanding shipbuilding-industrial bases, he noted during a panel discussion at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference. “But we can learn things about what stable funding does, what multiyear procurement [contracts] do, what kind of incentives” are effective in contracts, and how government spending can encourage additional private sector spending in facilities and workforce development, he added.

Specifically, he told Defense News, the Navy is improving the way it pairs public and private dollars, as well as how to spend that money at private companies and and government labs or warfare centers to benefit the final weapons production lines.

Morley added that the Navy had to learn how to best analyze the health of a supply base so it could understand which lower-tier vendors experience the biggest impact on delivery schedules and could most benefit from a one-time payment to expand their output.

“I look at munitions as our opportunity to teach ourselves many of the things that we can do in shipbuilding in parallel,” he said.

The Navy has increased its weapons spending in recent years, culminating in the fiscal 2024 budget request that included a historic $6.9 billion to buy missiles and torpedoes, $380 million specifically to address supply chain bottlenecks, and a request for authority from Congress to kick off four multiyear procurement contracts for weapons.

With the goal of increasing weapons output and reducing manufacturing timelines, Morley told Defense News, “we can do this in two, three, four years if we stick to it and do it right.”

He said that as individual vendors receive money from the Navy and prime contractors to expand their facilities, hire more workers or adopt advanced manufacturing processes, the Navy expects to see incremental gains that will eventually lead to “a larger magnitude impact.”

Learning how to measure that incremental progress will be important, he explained.

“Munitions is our guiding light as to the details of ... what to measure to show you’re getting effect because the ultimate outcome on shipbuilding has got such a long lead that you’ve got to measure incrementally as you go,” he explained.

James Geurts, the former Navy acquisition chief who moderated the panel discussion, explained the importance of measuring this progress, noting that without proof that something good is coming from the billions of dollars in spending, it’ll be harder to convince lawmakers to keep the money coming.

“We’ve got to be able to show that, collectively between the public side and the private side, we can put those resources to bear to produce outcomes. I think if we can do that and show that those resources are making changes and those are reflected in outcomes, that will then accelerate more resources coming in,” Geurts noted.

The defense committees of the upper and lower houses of the Italian parliament were due last week to start evaluating a proposal by the Italian defense ministry to purchase three of the torpedo-shaped BlueWhale drones designed for intelligence gathering, anti-submarine warfare and mine countermeasures.

Equipped with sonars, including towed array sonar, the 5.5 tonne platform also boasts a raisable, satellite-linked turret offering radar and electro-optic capabilities.

The program was listed, without naming Elta, in last year’s Italian defense budget, which priced the purchase at €254 million ($273 million), with payments to be spread between 2023 and 2035, including logistic support, control stations and recovery and deployment systems for ships and submarines.

The Italian parliament’s defense committees generally approve all purchase proposals sent to them by the Italian defense ministry, marking the last formal step before a procurement goes ahead.

But last week, just before the BlueWhale purchase was due to be debated and voted on, the plan was withdrawn by the defense ministry.

Sources knowledgeable of the planned procurement said it was blocked over concerns that the technology could be entirely produced by Italian industry without the need to involve overseas firms.

The decision suggests that plans to partly involve Italian firms in work share on the 10.9 meter long BlueWhale were deemed insufficient.

Italy is raising its profile in sub-sea warfare with a new centre at La Spezia which brings together the Navy, industry and universities to develop systems.

A second reason, the sources said, was the political sensitivity involved in buying Israeli defense products amid the international outcry over Israel’s military operation in Gaza which has led to the deaths of over 33,000 Palestinians.

The Israeli operation followed the Hamas attack on Israel which killed around 1,200.

Italy’s right wing government is solidly pro-Israel, but opposition members of parliament sitting on defense committees hail from parties which have been vocal in criticizing the Israeli operation.

Two sources, who could not be named because they were not permitted to speak publicly about the program, told Defense News the decision to block it was also related to doubts raised by Italian officials over the performance of the platform, with criticism of the acoustic signal emitted by its propellor, its maneuverability and its cost.

A third source however said the BlueWhale’s performance had not been a factor.

“I can’t say it enough. We are in demand, more in demand than we’ve ever been, and that will continue to increase,” Vice Adm. Kelly Aeschbach, leader of Naval Information Forces, said at the Sea-Air-Space conference going on this week in Maryland, just outside the nation’s capital. “My sense is, in the partnership we’ve had, we will have a persistent and growing presence within submarine crews over the coming years.”

The service in 2022 embedded information warfare specialists aboard subs to examine how their expertise aids underwater operations. A follow-up effort is now on the books, with information professional officers and cryptologic technicians joining two East Coast-based subs: the Delaware and the California.

The trials have so far proven fruitful, according to Aeschbach, who is colloquially known as “IBoss.” That said, staffing and other resources need considering before any sweeping moves are made.

“It’ll be a slow evolution, I think, as we build out that capacity,” Aeschbach said. “Part of that’s just the reality, as we’ve talked about today, of some of the choices we have to make about investment.”

Del Toro asks Navy contractors to consider taxpayers over shareholders

The Navy is also introducing information warfare systems into its live, virtual and constructive environments. The first few, focused on cryptology, meteorology and oceanography, will be uploaded in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, service officials have said. Other disciplines include communications, cryptology and electronic warfare, or the ability to use the electromagnetic spectrum to sense, defend and share data.

Tenets of information warfare — situational awareness, assured command-and-control, and the melding of intel and firepower — have enabled U.S. forces to swat down overhead threats in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. They have also assisted retaliatory strikes across the Greater Middle East.

Aeschbach cited as an example the USS Carney’s performance. The guided-missile destroyer and its crew spent the past six months intercepting attack drones and missiles launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“Carney had the means to put the right weapon on the target through kinetic means,” Aeschbach said. “She also had the ability to defend herself. And, in all of that, the only part that I tell people is not information warfare is the operator pressing the button to release the missile.”

These were no ordinary metal widgets, argued Massie, who is a program manager for additive manufacturing — another term for 3D printing — at Naval Sea Systems Command. The three parts were built with 3D printers and delivered in less than a year, ready to go on ships.

“Metal additive manufacturing is ready for prime time,” he said.

Earlier this month, the Navy finished a 45-day review of its shipbuilding programs to assess delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. It found many, including key vessels like aircraft carriers and submarines, were far behind schedule due to a lack of workers and a brittle supply chain.

For both issues, 3D printing could be the answer. To wit, the Navy says work at its Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Virginia is crucial to its plans for building submarines. Sailors on select ships, too, are using the equipment to build parts they need at sea.

Even still, Massie was cautious about the technology.

“We’re definitely still at the interim phase,” he told Defense News.

The needs are perhaps most clear for the Navy, and yet even for that service, the technology — and the path to using it more widely — is still growing. Describing his command’s additive manufacturing strategy, Massie listed three challenges.

The first is getting more companies on contract.

In March 2023, his office issued a statement of need for 3D-printed parts. Using a shortcut procurement tool known as an other transaction authority, eight vendors signed contracts within six months, and then parts — including those on the display table — arrived in about nine months.

Still, the Navy needs to send a clearer signal to companies, Massie noted. Eight vendors is a start, he explained, but it’s not enough.

The second challenge is simplifying the process by which the Pentagon buys 3D-printed materials.

The other transaction authority illustrates two sides to the existing process. On one hand, Massie said, it shows how quickly the Defense Department can move to buy parts. On the other, it shows that the department is still learning how to buy them.

“We’re not quite there yet, but eventually it will look and feel a lot like procuring traditional materials,” he said.

The final issue involves testing the parts once they’re acquired. It’s one thing to design materials in a lab, but anything the Navy would use on a ship must undergo testing in the field. Officials have identified parts considered low risk for such testing, and service members are working to integrate them onto ships.

“Ideally you just go order the parts from supply and it’s approved and it gets right in,” Massie said. “But the reality is it’s not going to be that easy for us.”

Speaking with reporters last week, Chris Kastner, the chief executive of the shipbuilder HII, described similar challenges.

The biggest role his company will play in 3D printing, Kastner said, won’t be building the parts themselves. Instead, it will be regulatory — getting approval from the Navy to use such parts on ships.

Kastner said he expects those approvals to increase.

“It’s here, it’s happening,” he said of 3D printing. “I would like it to happen much more quickly and [there be] more of it.”

Last May, the Pentagon described in a letter what parts it thinks are safe enough to build with 3D printers and then test on vessels, Massie said.

James Pluta, also a program manager for additive manufacturing at Naval Sea Systems Command, said those approvals are a sign of how comfortable the Defense Department is with the technology.

“Every year or so we’re getting newer guidance ... from leadership that says we don’t just want you to use additive manufacturing, we want you to use it at all opportunities” for these low-risk items, Pluta said.

Speaking on the show floor, he cited examples of ships that needed parts too small to order alone — or below a threshold called the “lowest replaceable unit” — but without which sailors would lose a key capability, such as flying aircraft. In each example, the Navy used 3D printers to rush parts to those sailors, who then fixed the issue.

This year, the Navy plans to focus on installing such materials ashore. But next year, Pluta said, the service has money to install printers on ships, submarines and carriers — around 40 to 50 for polymer parts, and 10 or so for metal ones.

“Over the next year or two,” Pluta said, “we’re going to start to see confidence levels in 3D-printed parts [on ships] increase.”

“We continue to adopt the identities of our people in uniform to match the changing character of war,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference. “This year, CNO Franchetti introduced the robotics warfare specialist, or RW rating, into the fleet. RW’s will be the subject matter experts for computer vision, mission autonomy, navigation autonomy, data systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning.”

“The establishment of the robotic rating is a significant milestone in our journey towards achieving a truly hybrid fleet,” he added. “And the state of the world today highlights the importance of building a culture of warfighting excellence through integrated training environments.”

Navy introduces new robotics warfare rating

The Navy unveiled the robotics warfare specialist rating in February, which will involve operating and maintaining active and passive payload systems and sensors.

The Navy described the rating as a “major milestone” for the service, one that has been in the works for more than three years. Establishment of the rating means the Navy is the first branch of the military to create a specific enlisted workforce that oversees unmanned and autonomous technology, according to the service.

Those converting to the new rating will primarily come from those assigned to billets in unmanned vehicle divisions, as well as those with applicable Navy enlisted classification codes, according to the service.

Master Chief Christopher Rambert became the first robotics warfare specialist in February.

Active duty sailors between the ranks of E-4 and E-9 may submit a request to convert. Commands will coordinate with their superior command and enlisted community manager so they can apply.

The Navy-wide robotics warfare advancement exam will launch in September for E-5 and E-6 sailors, while higher ranks will complete the exam and screening board in 2025.

A week after releasing a shipbuilding review that acknowledged several top ship programs are one to three years behind schedule, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said the service is already taking actions to recover from these delays.

Each program executive office has plans to address shortfalls within its portfolio, he told Defense News at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference, and in some cases this involves greater oversight over shipyards and subcontractors.

He said a number of delays are related to major components being delivered to prime shipyards late. The Navy is working “to get to the root cause of what’s causing these delays and how we can strengthen the industrial base to prevent them in the future,” he added.

The secretary identified multiyear procurement contracts and advanced procurement funding as ways to get materials and components to shipyards early, noting the Navy will continue to advocate for these spending and contracting tools.

But moreover, he said during his lunchtime speech, “right now we build the most capable warships in the world in shipyards that are sometimes decades behind the global technological standard. This is an inefficient approach requiring far too much time, workforce and taxpayers’ dollars.”

Noting that South Korean and Japanese shipyards build “high-quality ships, including Aegis destroyers, for a fraction of the cost that we do,” he said he is interested in understanding how the U.S. Navy can leverage the digital tools these nations’ shipyards use.

“When my team and I went to South Korea, we were floored at the level of digitization and real-time monitoring of shipbuilding progress, with readily available information down to individual pieces of stock materials. Their top executives could tell us — to the day — when ships would actually be delivered,” he said in his remarks. “I am pushing our shipbuilding industry to invest in itself to get better, to be technological leaders, and to once again deliver platforms on time and on budget.”

Del Toro told reporters after his speech that the Navy’s science and research road map, released April 9, would consider “what science and technology innovations can we bring to the table that perhaps aren’t being used here in the United States, that are being used elsewhere with our partners, for example, to help digitize our public shipyards.

A publicly released summary of the road map does not elaborate on this particular topic.

During a separate panel discussion, the program executive officer for ships, Rear Adm. Tom Anderson, said his organization had previously drawn commercial best practices from elsewhere in the U.S. but hadn’t looked outwards at foreign shipyards.

As part of Del Toro’s ongoing push to improve shipbuilding performance as well as bolster the commercial shipbuilding and ship repair industries, Anderson said Program Executive Office Ships has begun strengthening relationships with Japanese and Korean yards.

Anderson said he was particularly impressed with the volume and throughput of the Korean yards he visited, as well as their focus on creating an environment around the shipyard to support workers and their families.

That comment is in contrast to what Del Toro and other sea service leaders said this week — that it is challenging to recruit and retain workers at U.S.-based yards.

Speaking at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference here on Monday, Lt. Gen. James Bierman, deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations, laid out challenges the U.S. military faces in the Western Pacific and moves the Marines are making to address those gaps.

The three key challenges are “time, space and access,” Bierman said.

“Much as they might like to think so, the (People’s Republic of China) is not 10-feet tall,” Bierman said. “That’s not to say they’re not worthy of respect, and we do respect them, they’re working very hard, they’re building lots of capacity, but they struggle with doubt and uncertainty and we’re purposefully campaigning and posturing to maintain and magnify their doubt and unease.”

Marines build two littoral regiments to fight peer threats with a third on the way

To meet those challenges, Bierman said, the Corps has focused efforts on its units both already within the U.S. Navy fleet and those inside of the first island chain and “weapons engagement zone.”

The island chain refers to a string of islands from the Kuril Islands in the north, sweeping south through Okinawa, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines, paralleling Russian, North Korean and Chinese shores.

Partner and allied nations in that same chain are training alongside Marines in new ways, focused on detecting, targeting and striking enemy naval vessels.

“They’re very much seeing the problem the same way,” Bierman said. “Which is how in distributed naval terrain do you sense and make sense; do you synchronize and coordinate in combined operations. How do you establish the right linkages for command and control?”

The Marines think they have the answer: the Marine littoral regiment.

In recent years, the Corps has developed the littoral regiment as purpose-built for littoral combat, or fighting in the shallower reaches where land, islands and archipelagos meet ocean.

The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment operates out of Hawaii. The 12th Marine Littoral Regiment was redesignated in 2023 in Okinawa, Japan, and another regiment is planned to form in Guam in 2027.

The regiments hold 2,000 Marines each, about the size of a Marine expeditionary unit, but with different capabilities. They have fewer infantry but contain their own air control and air defense units, a medium missile battery instead of conventional artillery and more advanced logistics capabilities.

Bierman said that military partners and allies in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines are either copying elements of the littoral combat concept or were working toward these moves even as the Corps began developing it.

Following the panel discussion, he told Marine Corps Times that each nation is taking its own approach, some weighting the units more toward sensing capabilities, others toward lethal strike capabilities. He declined to discuss specific equipment, platforms or capabilities by country.

The three-star stressed that success in any potential conflict will involve a combination of Marine littoral regiment assets and more traditional formations, such as the Marine expeditionary unit or other capabilities from the Marine expeditionary force.

The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment has been participating in various exercises, chiefly with the Philippines’ armed forces, since 2022. The 12th Marine Littoral Regiment, still under construction, will primarily work with the Japanese military.

The Japanese military developed its first amphibious rapid deployment brigade in 2018. In March, it activated the 3rd Regiment within the brigade for defense of its southwest region, U.S. Naval Institute reported. It also formed and deployed an electronic warfare unit to Yonaguni Island, Japan, in March.

Bierman previously served as commanding general of III Marine Expeditionary Force, the only forward-deployed Marine expeditionary force, and lead force in the Pacific.

“Our allies and partners are all in,” Bierman said. “They are feeling the heat, they’re tired of getting pushed around in their own backyards.”

In January, the Philippines announced its Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept, a shift to join its army, air force and navy in an external security focus instead of its previous concentration on external security. The move has been described as a move to counter Chinese military aggression and incursion into the nation’s territorial waters.

Bierman noted an uptick in various military exercises. The large-scale, multinational naval exercise Rim of the Pacific, the U.S.-Australia annual Talisman Sabre exercise and the U.S.-Philippines exercise Balikatan have grown steadily in size and scope in recent years.

And those exercises are not simple live fires. The Marine littoral regiment is working sensing and ship targeting, passing data and conducting command and control alongside host nation partners.

Bierman emphasized the realism of the exercises and their effect on adversaries.

“The exercise the operations we’re doing, everything we walk back from an existing war plan,” Bierman said. “It is a rehearsal of an existing war plan with the actual joint partners, allies and partners we will fight with more often than not on the terrain we will operate with at the specific high risk time of year.”

Using these exercises to highlight how the U.S. and its partners are working on shared aims for another target ― deterrence.

“Everything we do in INDOPACOM is done with an eye toward cognitive impact on potential adversaries,” Bierman said. “Nothing sends a message of deterrence and unsettles our adversaries like true interoperability.”

The CH-53K King Stallion will get deployed from the East Coast sometime in 2026 with a Marine expeditionary unit, said Col. Kate Fleeger, the helicopter’s program manager, on Tuesday at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

At the same conference in 2023, Fleeger said the Corps planned to deploy the King Stallion with a Marine expeditionary unit in 2025.

But the Marine Corps has adjusted how many heavy-lift helicopter squadrons it anticipates having on the East Coast, Fleeger said Tuesday.

The Corps’ previous plan had been to deactivate Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 464, keeping Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461, but now the plan is for both North Carolina-based squadrons to remain in the fleet, according to the colonel.

Before sending the helicopters abroad with a Marine expeditionary unit — a crisis-response force that travels aboard three amphibious ships — the Corps wants to make sure it would have enough spare components and repair capability left in the United States, according to Fleeger.

“What we don’t want to do is we don’t want to send aircraft forward and then have a deficit at home,” Fleeger said.

The Marine Corps has tweaked its deployment timeline for the King Stallion before: Back in 2022, the service said it planned to deploy the helicopter in 2024.

The sea services tout the King Stallion as the most powerful helicopter in the U.S. military.

How Marines, sailors, mules and a King Stallion recovered a downed helo

A replacement for the aging CH-53E Super Stallion, the King Stallion can haul armored vehicles or other heavy equipment over long stretches of land and sea. The service predicts the King Stallion would be especially useful in providing logistics support to Marines who are spread out on and near shore in the Indo-Pacific.

Sikorsky, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that manufactures the helicopter, has delivered 14 King Stallions to the Marine Corps and has 79 total on contract, including 12 for Israel, according to Andrea Ulery, program manager for the aircraft at the company.

The King Stallion won’t reach full operational capability until 2029, according to Fleeger, but the helicopter already has shown off its power in domestic missions.

In September 2021, Marines used a King Stallion to recover a Navy MH-60S Seahawk that had experienced a hard landing in California’s White Mountains. It was déjà vu all over again in October 2023, when Marines once again used a King Stallion to recover a downed Navy Seahawk from California mountains.

The Virginia-based defense contractor teased a photo of the novel unmanned underwater vehicle, or UUV, on April 8, coinciding with the first day of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference in Maryland. The image — darkened along the edges and sporting a sparse backdrop — shows its glider-like body and a rounded nose. Little can be seen of its tail, and its dimensions are unclear.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2020 kicked off the Manta Ray program with the thought of creating a large underwater drone that can operate independently of manned vessels and ports once underway. DARPA later tapped Northrop and PacMar Technologies to design and build preliminary versions.

“At Northrop Grumman, we’re creating a new type of unmanned underwater vehicle,” Todd Leavitt, a company executive, said in a statement at the time. “Our design can carry large payloads over long distances without the need for maintenance or refueling.”

Northrop harnesses machine learning to aid Space Force missile parsing

The U.S. military is increasingly interested in uncrewed technologies and their battlefield application. The Navy is seeking to establish a so-called hybrid fleet, augmenting sailors and Marines with smart machinery and their specialty equipment. Defense News previously reported the service was maturing its manned-unmanned teams in three phases: prototyping and experimenting from fiscal 2024 to 2028; buying and using in fiscal 2029 through 2033; and becoming fully operational in the years thereafter.

Key considerations for Manta Ray development include communication capabilities, high-efficiency propulsion systems and low-power means of threat detection and classification. Having a drone that can survive on its own for protracted periods of time would reduce logistical demands and free up manpower.

Northrop is the third-largest defense contractor in the world when ranked by defense-related revenue. The company earned $32.4 billion in 2022, according to Defense News Top 100 analysis.

During a panel discussion at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space conference being held this week at National Harbor in Maryland, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti described the Navy having 88 ships on contract, 66 in construction, and 57 planned for acquisition across the five-year budget planning period. Commandant of the Coast Guard Adm. Linda Fagan spoke of being in the midst of “the largest acquisition that we’ve had since World War II.”

“We know we need a larger Navy; every study since 2016 has shown that, and I think the most effective way to work on that right now is to invest in our industrial base. Franchetti said. “Invest in the workforce. Invest in, alongside our industry partners, in the infrastructure necessary to really set the conditions to speed up the production and the throughput of the ships and submarines.”

Franchetti told Defense News these investments would take time to pay off — but the Navy needed to start budgeting the dollars now, and Congress needed to pass the spending plans on time.

“These investments need to be made, and then they’re going to take time to percolate through the system,” she said. “Getting a budget on time, not having a [continuing resolution], would be very helpful for us to maintain the momentum that we’re trying to achieve. But again, I think it’s going to take a couple of years before we see these investments really paying off in the ability of the of all of our shipbuilders to really produce at the scale that we need them to.”

The Navy in its fiscal 2025 budget requested $3.9 billion to support the submarine industrial base and $227 million for the weapons industrial base, among its efforts aimed at increasing throughput at factories and shipyards.

The CNO said she recently visited several shipyards, and common challenges are recruiting and retaining enough workers, having enough small businesses in the supplier base, and grappling with much longer lead times for material than had existed before.

The Navy can devote government dollars to helping address these issues, she said. But in tandem, she said it was important to focus on “process improvement, data analytics, having a better understanding of seeing where the choke points are,” and making sure the spending is actually leading to faster ship and submarine production.

This need to increase output comes as the Coast Guard is recapitalizing a number of ship classes, with the Polar Security Cutter being the top focus to replace its lone heavy icebreaker, the Polar Star.

“We compete for the same industrial base space, both new construction and repair, with the Navy. And it just is critical for the nation that we’ve got that kind of reliable access and commitment to the new ship capacity, and then repair capacity and maintenance capacity for the ships” in the Coast Guard’s fleet, Fagan said.

Until there’s more construction and repair capacity to meet Coast Guard needs on a relevant timeframe, Fagan said Congress provided the Coast Guard some funds in FY24 to pursue another option: buying a commercially available icebreaker, which would hit the fleet much faster than the Polar Security Cutter program that Fagan hopes will start cutting steel this year.

Buying a commercial icebreaker would be “an acknowledgment of the need to have a ship with additional capacity that we are able to operate in the high latitudes” today, she said — and while there hasn’t been a larger conversation about the Coast Guard continuing to buy off-the-shelf solutions from industry, Fagan said she believed “it is probably a righteous topic to focus on.”

For the Maritime Administration’s part, as it tries to build more dual-use ships that could carry ground forces to a fight overseas, Administrator Ann Phillips touted the benefits of a new vessel construction manager concept that’s kept its National Security Multi-Mission Vessels on budget.

“What’s innovative about this is we started with a firm fixed-price contract, 100% designed and … a very small change order budget, which we have not spent all of,” she said, noting the strict set of requirements the program was sticking to.

Whereas many of the Navy’s shipbuilding programs are running behind schedule and over budget, Phillips said her five NSMVs are “on budget. We’re nearly on time … And we think this particular strategy has great promise for other things.”

The vessel construction manager concept will likely be applied to a future sealift ship, for which Phillips said MARAD was given $12 million in FY24 to begin designing alongside the Navy.

“There’s no desire to over-militarize or create a theme of a contested battlespace in the Arctic,” Vice Adm. Douglas Perry, the commander of U.S. 2nd Fleet, said at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference Monday.

“Rather, the reverse is that we know that ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’ is an underlying need of free nations that value freedom in an area that will see more and more traffic and more and more competition for resources in the near future and throughout the future,” he added.

Arctic will become ‘contested’ without US presence and partnerships, 2nd Fleet CO warns

Perry, who is also the commander of NATO’s Joint Force Command Norfolk, also emphasized that sophisticated platforms, icebreakers, as well as the right tactics, techniques and procedures are paramount to keeping peace in the frigid north.

Vice Adm. Angus Topshee, commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, echoed similar sentiments Monday and said the Arctic represents a significant portion of Russia’s gross domestic product, population, and defense infrastructure. As a result, he said it is logical that the Russians would feel the need to defend themselves there.

“Yes, it could also be a base for offensive operations,” Topshee said. “But let’s not assume that until we see something more about what the actual intent is there, though the data lately is not great.”

Former 2nd Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Andrew “Woody” Lewis, who has since retired, previously stressed the importance of presence in the Arctic to prevent the region from becoming a contested environment.

According to Lewis, failure to maintain presence in the Arctic would “cede the space to the Russians or somebody else,” he said in August 2021 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference.

At the time, Lewis described the region as cooperative, but that would only continue if the U.S. continued to facilitate partnerships with others – including the Russians.

“But if we aren’t present there, and if we aren’t continuing to build those partnerships, it will be a contested space,” Lewis said.

Navy leaders have cited a need for a strong military presence in the Arctic as global warming opens more waters in the freezing-cold territory to navigation. In response, the service conducts exercises like Snow Crab to allow sailors to become more adept at operating in the Arctic.

The Navy released its “Blue Arctic” strategy for the region in 2021, urging the Navy to “operate more assertively” there. It also warned that Russia is reopening old bases in the Arctic and “reinvigorating” regional exercises.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said she and Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith signed a letter to their three-star officers who oversee plans and operations, calling for a deep dive on ship readiness and requirements for the training and certification of ship groups and the Marines who embark on them.

Franchetti, who spoke to a group of reporters following remarks at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference here, acknowledged the amphibious assault ship Boxer deployed last week several months later than planned. To make up for its delay — caused by a maintenance challenge, as reported by Military.com — fellow Boxer Amphibious Ready Group ship Somerset deployed in January, taking on missions solo until its two fellow vessels and their embarked Marines could join it in the Pacific Ocean.

She said the Navy is also eyeing potential delays for the amphibious assault ship Wasp, which recently began basic at-sea operations following a lengthy maintenance availability.

“We’re trying to look ahead to make sure that we can, I want to say, nip this in the bud,” she explained. “Many of our amphibious ships are older. Also, they’re getting the [Joint Strike Fighter] modifications, so that’s taking time when they go in for their upgrades, and that’s taking a little bit longer than expected.”

The chief of naval operations called this study a “proactive approach” to help “get ahead of potential delays” in maintenance, and ensure ship crews and embarked Marines are properly trained and certified to respond to contingencies and deploy on time, even if maintenance runs long.

She said the group will report back next month with the “terms of reference” for the study, which will outline what to look at and how.

Franchetti emphasized she’s committed to the amphibious fleet, noting the recent fiscal 2025 budget request reflects that with money to buy new amphibious assault ships, amphibious transport docks and landing ships medium.

Amphibious ships have been a point of contention between the Navy and Marine Corps in recent years. Some of the oldest Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships have required an increasing amount of time and money for maintenance. And yet, in some cases, they have struggled to be ready enough to deploy.

The Navy has argued it should stop throwing money at these ships that aren’t combat-credible. The Marine Corps has argued that decommissioning the ships early would put it further from its required 31-ship amphibious fleet — a number Congress passed into law in 2022. The Corps says it needs a minimum of 31 ships to ensure Marines are sufficiently trained and can maintain a regular presence around the world.

The issue was exacerbated by a Pentagon-driven effort last year to pause buying amphibious transport docks and reconsider what, if any, design the Navy should buy in the future. That debate now appears to be over, with the Navy’s FY25 spending plan showing the continued purchase of amphibious transport docks as originally planned.

U.S.-based Saildrone and Thales Australia, a division of France-based Thales Group, on April 8 said they would outfit the former’s Surveyor unmanned surface vessels with the latter’s BlueSentry towed arrays capable of detecting and classifying crafts on or below the waves.

The announcement coincided with the start of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference here.

The Department of Defense has long sought an unmanned or autonomous ability to surveil stealthy submersibles; DARPA, for example, more than a decade ago launched the Anti-Submarine Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel effort. Navy leadership has since advocated for a hybrid fleet, with sailors and Marines augmented by smart machines and the equipment they carry.

Defense News last year reported the Navy pictured its manned-unmanned fleet maturing in three phases: prototyping and experimenting from fiscal 2024 to 2028; buying and using in fiscal 2029 through 2033; and becoming fully operational in the years thereafter.

Epirus directed energy to face off against vessels in US Navy testing

Troy Stephen, vice president of underwater systems at Thales Australia and New Zealand, in a statement said the Surveyor “offers a unique capability within the field of USVs,” adding that his team looks forward to contributing to its “impressive maritime domain awareness” capabilities. Maritime domain awareness provides a deep understanding of the potential repercussions of what’s happening on, below or near the water.

“Thales Australia has a proud history of exporting specialized sonar and acoustic products in support of one of our closest allies, the United States,” Stephen said. “Over two decades, these products have spanned the fields of seismic survey to mine warfare and, more recently, surface ship anti-submarine warfare.”

A Surveyor USV weighs 15 tons and stretches 65 feet. It sports an aluminum hull and keel manufactured by Austal USA.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Christopher Mahoney viewed Surveyor construction last month during shipbuilding tours along the Gulf Coast.

“Using unmanned assets helps put more players on the field by freeing up manned assets for more specific and important tasks,” Franchetti said in a statement at the time. “It’s good to see high tech industry partnering with the traditional shipbuilding industrial base to rapidly deliver cutting-edge products at scale.”

Under the deal, part of the Naval Energetics Systems and Technologies program, the Denver-based firm will develop a new design for the Navy’s Mk 104 rocket motor and use its tailored additive manufacturing approach to build a prototype.

Albuquerque-based X-Bow Systems also received a contract, according to a source familiar with the deal. Reuters reported that Aerojet Rocketdyne — the program’s incumbent rocket motor producer — was also awarded a contract.

The Mk 104 supports the Navy’s line of Standard Missiles, which provide a range of surface-to-air defense, ballistic missile defense, and anti-air, land and sea capabilities. Notably, the SM-6 can intercept hypersonic weapons, which fly and maneuver at or above Mach 5 speeds.

“While the Mk 104 is a high-performance motor, legacy models are challenging to manufacture,” Ursa Major said in an April 8 statement. “Using the company’s cutting-edge Lynx production process for SRMs, Ursa Major will leverage additive manufacturing to design a high-performing motor built for manufacturability and reliability.”

The company declined to provide the exact value of the contract, but told C4ISRNET it is worth “single digit millions.”

Ursa Major unveiled its Lynx additive manufacturing approach last November. The process uses tools like 3D printing to quickly build solid rocket motor cases as well as subcomponents for other systems.

Solid rocket motors, or SRMs, are in high demand, but production is limited to a handful of suppliers. Ursa Major wants to help revive that industrial base through its streamlined, rapid production process.

CEO Joe Laurienti told reporters during a briefing last month the company’s production line is “very active,” adding that it builds at least one solid rocket motor a day. The firm is upping its investment in manufacturing infrastructure to hopefully increase that production rate.

Asked about the trend of larger defense primes buying SRM producers in order to shore up supply, Laurienti said he doesn’t think further consolidation is the answer to meeting market demand.

“If every prime and incumbent and new entrant were providing solid rocket motors today, we would not fill the gaps the U.S. has,” he said. “A lot of it is in part due to the inflexibility of manufacturing solid rocket motors. Building a Javelin is extremely different than building a [Precision Strike Missile], which is extremely different than building a [Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems]. Our mission is to make those much more similar and common on the manufacturing side.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional contract information.

“With the challenges we are facing, a new chief of defense is needed,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said during a press briefing on April 3, according to local media.

The minister was referring to the emergence of claims, initially made by the Danish news website Olfi, regarding critical weapon and mission systems issues on the frigate, that appear to have been unreported and ignored for a significant period of time.

The minister added that with the dismissal of the Flemming Lentfer, Maj. Gen. Michael Wiggers Hyldgaard will take over the role for the time being. The officer currently leads the country’s special operations command.

Lund Poulsen said he was unaware of the ship’s defects until these reports were published.

The frigate was initially scheduled for deployment to the Red Sea as part of the U.S.-led Operation Prosperity Guardian until mid-April. However, Denmark’s Defence Ministry announced March 26 that the ship was already sailing back home.

Among the reported faulty equipment was the ship’s active phased array radar, which is manufactured by Thales Nederland.

“Thales has been informed about FMI’s [the Danish Ministry of Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation’s] preliminary investigation of available data from Iver Huitfeldt’s systems from the incident in question during a combat situation in the Red Sea,” the defense company said, according to Danish broadcaster DR. “[It] does not indicate a problem related to the APAR radar.”

Danish defense leaders also have another problem on their hands following an April 4 incident aboard the frigate Niels Juel, a sister ship of the Iver Huitfeldt.

Denmark currently has three Iver Huitfeldt-class and two Absalon-class frigates in service. Each is subject to docking every five years. The area around the Korsør naval base, where the Niels Juel was docked, was closed to air and marine traffic after the ship was unable to deactivate the booster of a Harpoon missile during what the ministry described as a “mandatory test.”

While the warhead was unaffected, officials feared a scenario in which the missile would accidently launch into a target area around 1,000 meters (3,281 feet) above the water level in a southern direction from the frigate’s location.

As of Thursday afternoon, authorities were still investigating the situation.

The company’s Leonidas technology, which pumps out waves of energy capable of frying electronics, will be used in the 2024 Advanced Naval Technology Exercise-Coastal Trident, or ANTX-CT24, according to an April 4 announcement. The trials will examine how high-power microwaves can disable outboard motors, among other applications.

Navy leaders have lamented a lack of directed-energy options aboard warships as Houthi rebels in Yemen pepper the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with attack drones and Ukrainian forces sink Russian ships with unmanned surface vessels. While the Department of Defense has invested in the nontraditional armaments for decades, few projects have been developed and widely deployed.

The Army in 2022 inked a $66 million deal with Epirus to supply Leonidas in advancement of its Indirect Fire Protection Capability venture, which aims to protect sites from drones, rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles. The company delivered an initial prototype in 2023, Defense News reported.

Chief executive Andy Lowery in a statement said his team was excited to participate in ANTX-CT24 and “demonstrate the effectiveness of long-pulse HPM technology in another threat environment.”

Attack drones at heart of ‘military partnership’ between Russia, Iran

“Epirus can defend against a wide range of threats across domains,” Lowery said. “Our expanded collaboration with the Department of Defense also underscores the growing recognition of the benefits of working with innovative tech companies outside of the traditional defense ecosystem.”

At least 31 directed-energy initiatives are underway across the military, according to a study published by a defense industry advocacy group. Nine — including the Optical Dazzling Interdictor Navy and the High Energy Laser Counter-Anti-Ship Cruise Missile Program — can be traced back to the Navy and Marine Corps.

The ANTX-CT series serves as a test bed for promising technologies and promotes collaboration among industry, academia and the military. High-power microwave equipment has made an appearance before, according to Brendan Applegate, the lead for fleet experimentation and exercises.

“ANTX-CT24 will feature technical demonstrations and experiments across a wide variety of technology areas, including unmanned systems countermeasures,” he said in a statement.

The move comes after increasing collaboration between the two companies. In August 2023, the two artificial intelligence firms announced the joint development of a ViDAR-enabled wide area motion imagery payload called Sentient Observer, which the companies expect to fly this year.

Sentient’s ViDAR is an artificial intelligence-powered electro-optic/infrared sensor that can detect and classify targets within the imagery it collects.

Sentient told Defense News the following month the company was working to integrate its ViDAR with Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy package for better performance.

“The DOD has asked for an all-seeing eye over tens of thousands of square miles, 24/7, without the need for GPS or communication links. For Shield AI, Sentient Observer is the final piece of that puzzle,” Shield AI president and cofounder Brandon Tseng said in the companies’ announcement.

“The DOD can begin augmenting and replacing their legacy solutions for a distributed, low cost, low risk solution that doesn’t break the bank if an aircraft is shot down,” he added, noting the two companies could pair Sentient’s ViDAR with Shield AI’s Hivemind AI pilot to enable a fleet of unmanned aircraft to collaboratively patrol an area.

Though both ViDAR and Hivemind are platform-agnostic, Shield AI acquired the V-BAT group 3 unmanned aerial vehicle in 2021 and plans to apply the ViDAR and Hivemind combo on this vertical-takeoff drone, the statement noted.

“What stood out to us about Shield AI is that they are the only company in the world with an operational AI pilot, and therefore have the technological expertise and maturity to really deliver on the AI technology workstream underlined in AUKUS Pillar 2,” Sentient CEO Mark Palmer said in the statement, referring to the Australia-United Kingdom-United States nuclear-powered submarine collaboration, whose Pillar 2 is focused on cutting edge technologies.

Under AUKUS Pillar 2, traditional barriers to tech-sharing between these three nations are being reduced such that the three can co-develop or sell autonomy, unmanned, quantum computing, hypersonic and other in-demand technologies to support operations in the Indo-Pacific region.

The companies did not disclose the value of the acquisition when asked by Defense News.

Jennifer Parker, a naval analyst at the National Security College within the Australian National University, told Defense News: “If you think about what Australia is trying to achieve with its continuous shipbuilding, think about the fact that a lack of Australian ownership is not a barrier for being a sovereign defense industrial base, then I think there’s a lot of opportunity.”

Yet one obstacle to a takeover is regulatory approval from authorities like Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). In an April 2 press release, Austal said it was “not satisfied that these mandatory approvals would be secured.”

Hanwha Executive Vice President David Kim responded: “There is no foundation of the claim that the FIRB would reject Hanwha’s acquisition of the company.” The South Korean company has previously obtained the board’s approval for investments in Australian armored vehicles.

Domestic opportunities certainly abound. Australia’s recent surface combatant fleet review recommended three general-purpose frigates be built overseas and eight in Western Australia. Korea’s FFX-III frigate, which Hanwha Ocean is helping build, is one of four shortlisted designs.

Hanwha’s acquisition of Austal would increase the chances of swaying the competition in favor of that ship design, Parker noted.

Furthermore, announced last November, Austal has a pilot agreement with Australia’s Department of Defence to act as strategic partner in Western Australia. Already, Austal has landing craft and patrol boats in its order book.

Parker highlighted the Korean conglomerate’s desire for a Five Eyes foothold, a reference to the intelligence-sharing club of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States. “I think that for Hanwha, who wants to get into the Five Eyes market, it sees that the industrial capacity of the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada to build the ships they want is just not there.”

The prize of Austal USA, a supplier of U.S. Navy vessels, presumably enters Hanwha’s calculus, even if this subsidiary has relative autonomy from Austal Australia.

American shipbuilders might be reluctant about a Korean competitor appearing, but Parker wondered whether the U.S. should not be leaning more on South Korea for assistance in producing ships. “We know the U.S. industrial base is struggling to produce ships and submarines … so there’s opportunity there,” she argued.

Parker highlighted different ideas over what “sovereign” actually means when it comes to serving the Australian market. According to the government’s “Defence Industry Development Strategy,” released in February, Australian ownership is not critical to sovereignty. Apart from the public optics of a 36-year-old Australian company being sold, Parker said, “I can’t right now see any significant disadvantage to it.”

Additionally, it could signal to China that Australia is serious about relations with regional partners.

Leaving the door ajar, Austal said it “is open to further engagement if Hanwha is able to provide certainty on whether a transaction would be approved.”

The two companies will jointly build the boats under the deal, inked March 28.

The Indonesian Navy’s future submarines are described as Scorpene Evolved Full LiB submarines featuring lithium-ion batteries, according to Naval Group’s news release. Indonesia’s Scorpenes are to be the first to use such battery technology.

The French shipbuilder stated the lithium-ion technology allows for more efficient energy, a decreased snorkeling rate and a reduced charging time.

The boats will be “built in Indonesia in a PT PAL shipyard, through transfer of technology from Naval Group,” per a joint news release.

Their assembly in Surabaya follows an August 2021 defense cooperation agreement between Paris and Jakarta as well as a memorandum of understanding for two Scorpenes signed by the two shipbuilders in February 2022.

“This step is a high commitment and trust of the Indonesian government in the capability of local engineers to advancing defense technology, especially submarine technology,” according to Kaharuddin Djenod, the president director of PT PAL. “In the future, Indonesia is expected to be able to master submarine technology.”

Germany and South Korea were also vying for this contract. This latest deal confirms Indonesia has abandoned a 2019 agreement to buy a second trio of Nagapasa-class submarines from South Korea.

Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies with Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told Defense News it’s interesting Indonesia didn’t choose Korean submarines, given PT PAL gained experience assembling the Nagapasa class and that the type would have ensured commonality in the fleet. However, it’s likely France likely offered the best package and offsets, Koh said.

“I believe Indonesia probably saw benefits from the tech transfer that could enrich the local submarine industry going forward because ultimately Indonesia wants to build its own submarines,” he said, noting the French firm was “way more aggressive in marketing their wares.”

Under the Korean program that saw three Nagapasa-class submarines commissioned from 2017 to 2021, “PT PAL was able to master at least a rather reasonable local capability,” Koh said. However, this French project “will allow it to absorb and grow” other technologies.

PT PAL has already prepared for local construction. In February 2022, it issued a tender for development and construction of a ship lift and transfer system capable of moving 2,000-ton submarines.

“PT PAL is one of the most experienced shipyards in ASEAN with unique skills and capabilities for large ships and submarine construction,” a Naval Group spokesperson told Defense News. “PT PAL has invested in some infrastructure and tools dedicated to submarine construction, and these investments can be fully reused for construction of the Scorpene submarine.”

The companies did not divulge the value of the latest contract nor the delivery schedule, but Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance approved a request for $2.16 billion in foreign loans for two submarines last year.

Crewed by 31 personnel, the 72-meter-long (233-foot-long) platforms have six launch tubes and carry 18 torpedoes or missiles. Depending on exact configurations, the type displaces 1,600-2,000 tons, can remain submerged for at least 12 days, and can operate on missions lasting 80 days.

Should construction commence next year, the first boat could join service in 2033, based on the comparative build rate of India’s Scorpene program.

The Indonesian Navy is seeking 12 submarines in total.

This story was updated April 11, 2024, at 9:28 a.m. ET with comment from Naval Group.