MC-8C Fire Scout Completes IOT&E Event; Pierside Testing to Continue This Summer

By: Megan Eckstein

USNI.org

July 9, 2018 5:57 PM

An MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter conducts underway operations with an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter and the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) on June 28, 2018. The new Fire Scout variant is expected to deploy with the LCS class to provide reconnaissance, situational awareness, and precision targeting support. US Navy photo.

The Navy completed a comprehensive Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) for the MQ-8C Fire Scout, proving that the unmanned helicopter can work with a Littoral Combat Ship to identify targets and gather intelligence in support of surface warfare.

USS Coronado (LCS-4) and Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 (VX-1) completed the test event on June 29, according to a Navy news release.

“The results, lessons learned, and recommendations reported on following this underway test period are absolutely invaluable to the future of the MQ-8C Fire Scout’s mission effectiveness and suitability to perform that mission,” Lt. Cmdr. Seth Ervin, the lead for the VX-1 detachment aboard Coronado, said in the news release.

The IOT&E not only looked at the unmanned vehicle’s ability to work with the LCS but also with manned helicopters as well. The evaluation “also focused on developing practices for simultaneously operating and maintaining both the MQ-8C Fire Scout and the MH-60S Seahawk. Results confirmed that while it requires extensive planning and coordination across the ship, simultaneous operations can be conducted,” according to the news release.

“It has been challenging and rewarding to be one of the first maintainers afforded the opportunity to take both aircraft aboard the ship. Working together, we made the overall product more functional and efficient for the fleet,” Aviation Machinist’s Mate Second Class Salvatore Greene, a member of VX-1, said in the news release.

In 2016 Coronado deployed with the smaller MQ-8B Fire Scout, but the MQ-8C’s larger airframe allows for double the range and endurance and triple the payload capacity, according to builder Northrop Grumman. The service may use these greater capabilities to help serve as a forward spotter or carry more weapons in surface warfare.

The larger UAV conducted its first ship-based flight aboard USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) in December 2014 and conducted testing aboard an LCS, USS Montgomery (LCS-8) in April 2017.

With IOT&E now complete, the MQ-8C Fire Scout will continue pierside testing onboard Coronado throughout mid-July with a focus on maintenance and cyber, according to the news release.

Maintainers from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 (VX-1) analyze diagnostics from the MQ-8C Fire Scout on the flight deck of the Independence variant littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) on June 21, 2018. US Navy photo.

Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 (VX-1) Sailors Aviation Machinist’s Mate Second Class Salvatore Green, left, and Aviation Electronics Technician Third Class Jake Price prepare the MC-8C Fire Scout to launch from the Independence variant littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS-4) on June 21, 2018. VX-1 Sailors embarked Coronado to conduct the first comprehensive Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) for the MQ-8C Fire Scout, the Navy’s newest unmanned helicopter. US Navy photo.

Secretary of the Navy Visits Marinette Shipyard

Shailaja A. Lakshmi June 28, 2018

Marine Link

Secretary of the Navy, The Honorable Richard V. Spencer (far right), tours LCS 13 (Wichita), during his tour of the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard. He was joined by Ms. Polly Spencer, sponsor of LCS 27 (Nantucket) and Secretary Spencer’s wife. Photo: Lockheed Martin

 Secretary of the Navy, The Honorable Richard V. Spencer, visited the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard, the home of Freedom-Variant Littoral Combat Ship production. 

The Lockheed Martin-led Team Freedom has delivered five ships to the U.S. Navy to date, with two more scheduled for delivery this year.

"It is truly great to see what is being produced up here with the American worker," Secretary Spencer said during a shipyard tour. "We're producing a ship that based on price is exceptional. We're also going to increase the capabilities of these ships and they're going to be an integral part of the small surface combatants."

Spencer visited to view the modernized production line and tour LCS 13, the future USS WICHITA. 

Over the past 10 years, the Freedom-variant industry team invested more than $120 million to modernize the shipyard, hire more than 1,000 people and train a new workforce. This private investment optimized the shipyard for serial production at a rate of two Littoral Combat Ships per year.

The Lockheed Martin-led LCS team is comprised of shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine, naval architect Gibbs & Cox, and more than 800 suppliers in 42 states. The LCS is the Navy's most affordable surface combatant shipbuilding program.

Navy May Reduce LCS-2 Drydocking Requirements as Drydock Shortage Looms

By: Megan Eckstein

June 21, 2018 2:40 PM

USNI.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Navy may not continue to put its Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ships into the drydock every time they go into planned maintenance, as one way of dealing with a looming shortfall in drydock availability and private sector maintenance capacity.

Vice Adm. Tom Moore, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, told USNI News that the LCS-2 hulls have to be drydocked for all planned maintenance events, partly due to a requirement to inspect the condition of the hull each time. Most of the Navy’s ships are made of steel, so with the Independence-variants being made of aluminum, the Navy decided early on to gather data through hull inspections at each planned maintenance event.

“Part of the drydocking piece was to do an underwater hull inspection,” Moore said.
“So we’re looking at, hey, are there other ways we can go do that inspection? So I think that’s viable, and if we can do that that’s great because not having it docked every time would be good. So we’re coming through the technical piece, we haven’t finished it yet but my goal is to try to get us to a point where we could figure out how to do the inspections without having to put the ship in the drydock.”

Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, NAVSEA’s chief engineer and deputy commander for ship design, integration and naval engineering, told USNI News during the same conversation that NAVSEA would evaluate an Independence-variant ship this fall to see how much the condition of its hull had changed over time, and “pending those results we may be able to actually, we think, possibly double the interval on the drydock, which would give us a lot more flexibility.”

The admirals didn’t have the exact maintenance schedule but said they believed the drydocking requirement could go from once every three years to once every five to six years, if the engineering study this fall supported only using the drydock every other maintenance availability.

Moore, speaking at the American Society of Naval Engineers’ annual Technology, Systems and Ships conference, said it’s clear the Navy will begin to need more drydocking availability than the private sector can offer, and that deficit in availability will become unmanageable in the next three to five years if companies don’t begin to make an investment now. Reducing the LCS requirement for drydocks wouldn’t be a total solution but would certainly go a long way in reducing demand on West Coast yards, since all the Independent-variant ships are stationed in San Diego.

Exacerbating the drydock shortage is the fact that most Navy surface combatants and amphibious ships undergoing maintenance in the private sector come out of the availability later than planned – since 2011, ships averaged about 60 days late, the admiral said. If those ships came out in a timely manner, new ships could come in and rotate through faster.

Additionally, the private sector has about 15,750 personnel in the workforce today and can already only meet about 75 percent of the Navy’s ship maintenance needs. By Fiscal Year 2020 the Navy will need the private sector workforce to be about 19,750, or 4,000 more than today.

“The private sector today, they don’t have the capacity to do the work we need,” Moore said in his speech.
“By our account, we’ve got about 15,750 workers in the private sector nation-wide; that’s about 75 percent basically of where we are from a workload perspective today, and it results in us delivering most of our surface ships late.”

Moore said many of the yards aren’t growing their workforce because the Navy’s operations and maintenance budget can be so unpredictable. Bringing in more employees would meet the Navy’s stated need but also represents a large, long-term cost for the company if the Navy doesn’t follow through and fund all of the maintenance availabilities it says it needs.

“They’re doing the math and saying, hey, if there’s no long-term predictability in the work, it’s probably better for me for my bottom line to perhaps deliver a little bit late but not over-hire. And so it’s incumbent upon us on the Navy side to send a very clear signal that there’s stable, predictable work coming and tell industry, hey, I need you to hire,” Moore said.

While the situation today is bad, it is only bound to get worse, Moore said. The Navy has 284 ships today and plans to grow to 355. Of those 71 additional ships, only nine are submarines and aircraft carriers that would be maintained at the public naval shipyards, Moore said; the rest would rely on the private sector for maintenance.

“We may not be challenged to get to 355 from a pure numbers standpoint; we’re going to be challenged in having 355 ships that we can go out and use and give to the combatant commanders to do the missions around the world we need to do,” he added.

Moore told the audience that “this is my number-one focus area now as COMNAVSEA. I probably spent more time on public shipyards in the first two years, but I think we’re on a better path there. … But the private sector is really where the biggest challenges are going to be in the next three to five years, in my opinion.”

On the public naval shipyard side, Moore said the Navy isn’t out of the woods yet but is seeing an “improving trend.” Hiring is on track to support reaching a higher workforce goal by 2019 or 2020, and a shipyard optimization plan has gone to Congress to outline a 20-year, $21-billion modernization and optimization effort. Included would be funding to replace aging drydocks with ones that can accommodate the longer Block V Virginia-class attack submarines and the higher power requirements of the Ford-class aircraft carriers; recapitalization of tooling and equipment, which the Navy only does every 20 to 25 years instead of every 10 years like private industry; and create a more efficient layout of shops, offices and other buildings at the four naval shipyards, some of which were originally designed to build new ships instead of repair nuclear-powered ones.

Moore said about two-thirds of the overall bill will go to layout redesigns.

“We found when we did some recent studies that at Norfolk Naval Shipyard we actually walk, the workforce walks the circumference of the Earth every single day getting back and forth between the shops and the ships,” Moore said.
“And so you can imagine that’s wasted time, and we think it’s wasted to the tune of at least 6 percent right off the bat – 6 percent of your labor hours are going to just transit.”

Navy Could Extend Life of Amphibs to 50 Years, LCS for 35, If Navy Invests in their Upkeep

By: Megan Eckstein, USNI.org

June 20, 2018 6:10 PM

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Navy could keep its amphibious ships in service for more than 50 years and its Littoral Combat Ships for up to 35 years, as the service looks for ways to increase the size of the fleet in the nearer term by extending the life of today’s ships, according to Naval Sea Systems Command.

NAVSEA Commander Vice Adm. Tom Moore said the Navy would not reach its goal of having 355 ships until 2052 if it got rid of in-service ships at the usual pace and relied on increasing the pace of new shipbuilding to grow the fleet. If all of today’s ships remain in service longer, though, the Navy could be operating a 355-ship fleet by 2032 – a full two decades sooner.

“If you want to keep all the classes out to as long as you can keep them – and there’s cost associated with that – we think we can get to 355 now in the early 2030s, 2032 to 2035. That’s a significant improvement, and it’s something that we’re looking at pretty seriously,” Moore said while speaking at the American Society of Naval Engineers’ annual Technology, Systems and Ships event.
“The budget that just came out funds to keep the cruisers around a little longer, and the Navy’s taking a serious look at do we want to keep the other ships around, in particular the DDGs, going forward.”

Vice Adm. Bill Merz, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems (OPNAV N9), already committed to keeping Arleigh Burke-class destroyers around for 45 years, instead of the planned 35. But Moore said that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

According to a memo Moore wrote to Merz in late April, Wasp-class amphibious assault ships could be extended from 40 years to between 46 and 53 years, San Antonio-class amphibious transport docks could be extended from 40 to between 47 and 53 years, Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships could be extended from 40 to between 45 to 52 years, Littoral Combat Ships could be extended from 25 years to between 32 and 35 years, Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ships could be extended from 40 to 50 years, and more.

The blog Cdr. Salamander first noted the existence of the memo last month.

“The bottom line is, if you’re willing to do the maintenance, from a naval architecture standpoint… we can manage all that. So I’m not worried about the service life of it,” Moore said.
“I’m more focused on the combat systems side of it, but I believe in this era of open architecture, Aegis, vertical launch systems, that the combat system can maintain its relevance for a long period of time. That was not the case when I was a young officer serving on a DDG-2 Adams-class destroyer. … The opportunity is there, and I think we’re going to work on that.”

Merz told USNI News in April that the Navy keeping all its destroyers around until 45 years of service would get the fleet to 355 ships by 2036 or 2037, though it would be a destroyer-heavy mix of ships compared to the Navy’s ideal composition of a 355-ship fleet. In particular, that fleet would be lacking attack submarines and some amphibious ships compared to the Navy’s stated need.

The Navy hopes to extend the life of up to five Los Angeles-class attack submarines, though the SSNs have to be extended on a hull-by-hull basis instead of the class-wide extension the Navy agreed to on the DDGs. Due to strict engineering requirements to submerge, those hulls must be in very good shape; and due to the need to refuel the SSNs after their planned service life, and the Navy having only five spare reactor cores to devote to SSN life extensions, only up to five could be extended.

On the amphib side, Moore told USNI News he was confident they could serve in the fleet for 50 years or more, though top Navy leadership has not publicly committed to extending their service life the way it did for the DDGs.

“We sell our FFGs to other countries and they keep them for another 20 years. We keep carriers, Enterprise,around for 52, 53. And we’re going to look at service-life extensions for Nimitz-class [aircraft carriers]; Congress asked us to do that. So from an HM&E standpoint, steel hulls, we know a lot about them and we’re pretty confident we can operate them for the intervals we gave to the Pentagon,” Moore said after his speech.

New Littoral Combat Ship Completes Acceptance Trials

By Franz-Stefan Gady

The U.S. Navy’s latest Littoral Combat Ship successfully completed acceptance trials at the end of May.

The U.S. Navy’s latest Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the future USS Sioux City, successfully completed acceptance trials in the waters of Lake Michigan in late May the service said in a statement.

The acceptance trials, which included a series of graded in-port and underway demonstrations, were conducted by the U.S. Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey, the U.S. Navy’s chief body inspecting and reporting on a vessel’s readiness for active duty operations.

“The acceptance trial is the last significant milestone before delivery of the ship to the Navy,” the Naval Sea Systems Command said in a June 8 press release. “During the trial, the Navy conducted comprehensive tests of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) intended to demonstrate the performance of the propulsion plant, ship handling and auxiliary systems.”

According to Lockheed Martin, “the trials, conducted May 20-24, included surface and air detect-to-engage demonstrations of the ship’s combat system. Major systems and features were demonstrated, including aviation support, small boat launch handling and recovery and ride control.”

The U.S. Navy’s fleet of Littoral Combat Ships is divided into two separate classes, the Independence and Freedom variants. Construction of the Freedom variant is spearheaded by Lockheed Martin at Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin, while the building of Independence-class ships is led by Austal USA in Alabama.

The future Sioux City is the sixth Freedom-class LCS designed and built by the Lockheed Martin-led industry team. It is slated for delivery to the U.S. Navy later this summer and will be commissioned before the end of the year. As I explained previously:

Using an open architecture design, both LCS classes — the mono-hull Freedom and trimaran-hull Independence variants — are modular, reconfigurable warships that can be fitted with interchangeable mission packages providing specific capabilities for surface warfare (SUW), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and mine countermeasures (MCM) missions in the littoral region.

Standard armament of a Freedom-class LCS includes a 11-cell Raytheon RIM-116B SeaRAM missile-defense system, a 57-millimeter naval gun, and Mark 5o torpedoes. Depending on the mission package other weapons systems can be added.

The Freedom-class USS Milwaukee last month tested the so-called Surface-to-Surface Missile Module, a 24-shot vertical launch system designed to engage smaller surface targets in close proximity to the LCS with AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire missiles. LCS of both variants are expected to be retrofitted with this new weapon system in the near future.

Twenty-nine LCS construction contracts have been awarded as of May 2018 by the U.S. Navy, with 13 LCS delivered to the service so far, another 13 in various stages of construction and testing, and three LCS in pre-production states. The next Freedom-class LCS, the future USS Wichita, is expected to complete acceptance trials this summer.

Following delivery and commissioning in Annapolis, Maryland later this year, the USS Sioux City will sail to Florida to be homeported in Mayport with sister ships USS Milwaukee, USS Detroit and USS Little Rock.

HAC-D Passes $674.6B FY 2019 Spending Bill; $22.7B for Shipbuilding

By: Sam LaGrone, USNI.org

June 13, 2018 4:54 PM

USS Tripoli (LHA-7) is launched at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. on May 1, 2017. US Navy Photo

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee passed its Fiscal Year 2019 spending bill, according to a Wednesday statement.

The $674.6 billion Pentagon spending bill — $606.5 billion in the base budget and $68.1 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) spending — follows last year trend of increasing the bottom line for the Defense Department, according to a statement from Defense Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas).

“Our military must have the resources it needs to respond to and deter threats from countries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, and also counter violent extremists throughout the world. This bill does what General Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff has asked, it ‘ensures the joint force has the depth, flexibility, readiness and responsiveness that ensures our men and women will never face a fair fight’,” she said in the statement.

The bill supports a $22.7-billion shipbuilding budget for the Navy and $20.1 billion for new Navy and Marine Corps aircraft.
The shipbuilding line includes three Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers (DDG-51), two Virginia-class attack submarines (SSN-774), two John Lewis-class fleet oilers, an Expeditionary Sea Base and a fleet tug.

The spending bill also supports $2.9 billion for advanced procurement of the Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile program, $41 million for the LCU landing craft replacement program and $507.8 million for the Ship-to-Shore Connector program.

The aviation spend includes $1.9 billion for 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters, $1.1 billion for 13 MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and $1.8 billion for 10 P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.

The bill also sets aside $9.4 billion for 93 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, split between the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

Price Hikes, Production Delays Mark Navy Shipbuilding for Past Decade

By: Ben Werner

USNI.org

June 11, 2018 12:15 PM • Updated: June 11, 2018 3:51 PM

A crane moves the lower stern into place on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) at Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. on June 22, 2017. US Navy Photo

Navy shipbuilding has been plagued for the last decade by programs running over-budget and underperforming once completed, according to a new government report, resulting in a smaller fleet than previously planned.

Between 2007 and 2018, the Navy spent $24 billion more than the $182 billion originally planned for shipbuilding, according to the Government Accountability Office’s recently released report, Navy Shipbuilding: Past Performance Provides Valuable Lessons for Future Investments.

However, the Navy’s pace of shipbuilding during the past decade barely kept pace with the rate of decommissioning ships. The Navy’s 283-ship fleet of today is a mere two hulls more than the 281-ships the Navy had at the end of 2006, and is 50 ships shy of the 330-ship fleet the Navy in 2007 predicted would be operating today, according to the report.

“Cost growth has contributed to the erosion of the Navy’s buying power with ship costs exceeding estimates by over $11 billion during this time frame. Additionally, the Navy’s shipbuilding programs have had years of construction delays and, even when the ships eventually reached the fleet, they often fell short of quality and performance expectations,” the report states.

The report evaluated the cost and outcomes of 11 shipbuilding programs, including both variants of the the Littoral Combat Ship, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer (DDG-51), the Zumwalt-class destroyer (DDG-1000), the America-class amphibious assault ship (LHA-6), the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock (LPD-17), the Virginia-class attack submarine (SSN-774), the Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear aircraft carrier (CVN-78), the Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF), the Expeditionary Transfer Dock/Expeditionary Sea Base (ESD/ESB), and the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo/ ammunition ship (T-AKE).

The GAO studied the outcomes of eight first-in-class ship designs and found all were provided to the fleet behind schedule, with four of these ships arriving more than two years late. USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) was the tardiest, arriving six years behind schedule.

During the past decade, the GAO has issued 26 reports, identified shipbuilding best practices for the Navy to implement, testified before Congress on several occasions, and made 67 recommendations to help the Navy improve its shipbuilding programs. The Navy has implemented 29 of the 67 recommendations. As for the shipbuilding best practices identified by the GAO, in many cases the Navy has agreed with these GAO suggestions but has yet to implement the ideas, the report states.

The result of this failure to take actions is that eight of the ship programs studied blew through their initial budgets. CVN-78, DDG-1000, LHA-6, SSN-74, T-AKE-1, LCS-1, LCS-2, and LPD-17 were all over-budget, with three programs – the LCS-1, LCS-2, and LPD-17 – exceeding their initial budgets by 80 to 150 percent.

The GAO found the Navy’s anticipated cost-savings were often overly optimistic. Construction delays due to the Navy changing requirements caused costs to increase. The Navy practice of accepting delivery of ships with significant deficiencies also drove up costs because these ships required extensive work, and more money, before being deemed combat-ready.

In the case of the first-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the GAO report found the Navy’s original cost and schedule estimates did not fully account for the risks associated with building a first-in-class ship using new technology, nor did the Navy account for how long new technologies would take to install. The Navy even under-calculated the amount of labor needed to build the ship, estimating fewer labor hours than required for the last two Nimitz-class carriers, the GAO states.

“The Navy took delivery of CVN-78 in May 2017, but the carrier will not be ready to deploy until 2022 as significant development, construction, and testing continues,” the GAO report states.

While cost-overruns are an expected part of building a first-in-class ship, the GAO report found follow-on ships in several classes also cost more than originally expected. In the case of Ford-class carriers, the GAO report states, “Costs for CVN-79 are likely to exceed the $11.4 billion estimate.”

A more disciplined approach to shipbuilding will help control costs in the future, the GAO report states. Suggestions include aligning achievable capabilities with available funding and allowing new technologies to mature before incorporating them into ship programs.

Despite all the recommendations, the GAO does not consider the Navy’s current shipbuilding plans to have changed much from the past.

“Though the Navy has started to make some improvements, its current approach to shipbuilding leaves it at risk of continually losing buying power and jeopardizes its ability to achieve its long-range shipbuilding goals,” the GAO report states.

House Defense Appropriations Bill Supports 3 LCSs, Single Carrier Buy

By: Sam LaGrone

USNI.org

June 7, 2018 6:26 PM

The House Appropriations Committee’s defense funding bill for Fiscal Year 2019 would buy a dozen new warships for the Navy, including two Littoral Combat Ships beyond the service’s request, according to the text of the bill that was released on Wednesday.

The $22.7-billion shipbuilding account includes three LCSs, three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers (DDG-51), two Virginia-class attack submarines (SSN-774), two John Lewis-class fleet oilers, an Expeditionary Sea Base and a fleet tug.

Absent from the bill is money to accelerate the procurement of a Ford-class aircraft carrier (CVN-78), which the House Armed Service Committee’s National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2019 supported doing. The Navy has proposed buying the planned Enterprise (CVN-80) and the yet-unnamed CVN-81 in a two-carrier contract to achieve some savings, and HASC further supported this by allowing the Navy to bump CVN-81 procurement up to FY 2019 to create additional workforce efficiencies by having the ships centered closer together.

The defense spending bill also sides with the HASC and opposes SASC and the Navy when it comes to LCS. Navy leaders have been split on the need for additional LCS buys to maintain the shipbuilding industrial base ahead of the transition to the next-generation FFG(X) guided-missile frigate. The Navy plans to buy 20 frigates from one of five companies competing for the program – including both current LCS builders.

The bill also includes $2.9 billion for advanced procurement of the Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile program, $41 million for the LCU landing craft replacement program and $507.8 million for the Ship-to-Shore Connector program.

In addition to the shipbuilding budget, the bill authorizes $20.1 billion for new aircraft, including $1.9 billion for 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters, $1.1 billion for 13 MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and $1.8 billion for 10 P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, according to a news release from HAC regarding the defense spending bill.

The bill also appropriates $9.4 billion for 93 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, split between the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

In total, the HAC bill funds $674.6 billion on defense: $606.5 billion in the base budget and $68.1 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) spending.

Raytheon Awarded LCS Over-the-Horizon Anti-Surface Weapon Contract; Deal Could be Worth $848M

By: Sam LaGrone

USNI.org

May 31, 2018 5:22 PM • Updated: May 31, 2018 5:50 PM

The Norwegian-designed Naval Strike Missile has been officially selected to serve as the Littoral Combat Ship’s over-the-horizon anti-ship weapon, according to a Thursday Pentagon contract announcement.

The $14.8 million contract awarded to Raytheon will purchase the first round of missiles that will be incorporated on to the Freedom and Independence variants of the Littoral Combat Ships as part of Fiscal Year 2018 funds for OTH weapon research and development. The value could grow to $847.6 million if all contract options are exercised.

The award calls for the delivery of the Kongsberg designed, “encanistered missiles loaded into launching mechanisms; and a single fire control suite.” The contract did not specify how many missiles were paid for in the contract, but USNI News understands the Thursday award buys about a dozen missiles.

The subsonic NSM has been in service with the Royal Norwegian Navy since 2012. The weapon has a range of about 100 nautical miles with a cost of slightly less than the Raytheon Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile (the Navy quotes the price per round of the TLAMs at $569,000 per round in FY 1999 dollars (about $868,000 in 2018, adjusted for inflation)).

The companies announced they would pair together to compete for new U.S. anti-ship missile contracts in 2015. In 2016 Raytheon and Kongsberg agreed to assemble and test the Norwegian missile’s components in Raytheon’s Tucson, Ariz. facility and the launchers at Raytheon’s plant in Louisville, Ky.

The award to the Raytheon-Kongsberg team comes as little surprise as the Naval Strike Missile was the only competitor for the OTH contract. The Boeing Harpoon Block II Plus and the Lockheed Martin Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) were both withdrawn by their respective companies from the competition last year. Both Boeing and Lockheed complained that Navy requirements for the OTH missiles did not value the networking capability of their offerings, several sources confirmed to USNI News.

The OTH program for LCS emerged in tandem with the U.S. surface navy’s distributed lethality push in 2015.

The following is the complete May 31, 2018 contract announcement. 

Raytheon Co., Missile Systems, Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $14,856,016 firm-fixed-price contract for Over-the-Horizon Weapon Systems. This contract will manufacture and deliver Over-the-Horizon Weapon Systems, which consists of encanistered missiles (EM) loaded into launching mechanisms (LM); and a single fire control suite (FCS). This contract consists of EMs (tactical, telemetered and inert operational); FCSs; LMs; mission support equipment, training equipment and courses; engineering services; and travel and other direct costs. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $847,611,857. Work will be performed in Kongsberg, Norway (75 percent); Tucson, Arizona (15 percent); Schrobenhausen, Germany (4 percent); Raufoss, Norway (3 percent); McKinney, Texas (2 percent); and Louisville, Kentucky (1 percent), and is expected to be completed by May 2020. Fiscal 2018 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funding; and fiscal 2018 other procurement (Navy) funding in the amount of $14,856,016 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with one offer received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N00024-18-C-5432).

Photo Gallery: Fincantieri Pitches Frigate Design in Baltimore

By: Ben Werner & USNI.org

May 30, 2018 3:00 PM • Updated: May 30, 2018 5:55 PM

BALTIMORE, Md. — When the Italian FREMM-class frigate ITS Alpino (F-594) sailed into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor earlier this week, the ship was not just on a good will tour but offered a chance for its builder to show off their entry into the Navy’s new frigate design competition.Alpino was built by Italian ship builder Fincantieri, which through its Marinette, Wisc.-based subsidiary, Fincantieri Marine Group, is one of five ship builders vying for the contract to build the Navy’s next guided missile frigate (FFG(X)).

In February, Fincantieri Marine Group, along with Austal USA, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Huntington Ingalls Industries, were each awarded $15 million contracts to provide the Navy with designs as part of the bidding competition. The Navy plans to buy 20 frigates and has stated a contract award is expected in 2020.

During a recent USNI News tour of Alpino, one of the ship’s most noticeable attributes is its open space and systems redundancies. The frigate was built according to Italian Navy demands and using Italian navy technology but is designed to be updated throughout its expected service life.