Oh me! What will become of Flight III DDG?: The Drift XIII

Navigation Brief

WASHINGTON – Good Evening, Drifters

It’s Surface Navy Association time, the most wonderful time of the year as far as I’m concerned.

Look for some coverage to drop Monday and Tuesday, stories I’ve been working on for a long-damn time that I think will give folks a good idea of where the future of the U.S. surface fleet lies. But for now I want to hone in on one issue that a good friend and trusted resource of mine has raised repeatedly over the past year.

Bryan Clark, the retired submariner and brilliant naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has been saying for months now that there was a shift happening in the surface force toward more passive sensors, and that the DDG Flight III may not be best suited for that new model.

We’ll dive into that today in this week’s issue of The Drift.

Sincerely,

DBL

The Navy is knee-deep in its newest surface combatant project, the DDG Flight III.

First, a little primer on the Flight III: It’s a larger version of the Flight IIA, with the extra space being used up largely to support power and cooling for Raytheon’s new SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar. The first in the class, DDG-125, was awarded to Huntington Ingalls in June 2017 and was followed by DDG- 126, which will be built at Bath Iron Works.  

The Navy last year inked a 10-hull multiyear contract which gave six to Huntington Ingalls and four to Bath Iron Works. All told there have been 13 awarded and the breakdown goes thusly:

HII: DDG 125, 128, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137  

BIW: DDG 126, 130, 132, 134, 136, 138

So as of today, the Navy is planning to buy 29 Flight IIIs, but there is reason to doubt that the Navy will end up with that many.

That’s where Bryan Clark, naval analyst extraordinaire at CSBA, comes in. During the past few months I’ve had a number of conversations with him where he mentioned that the DDG Flight III may not be the best use of the Navy’s money considering the direction it wants to go in the way it fights the wars of the future. I gave him a call to flesh that out a bit.

Note: “Multistatic” means taking in sensor inputs from multiple sensor platforms spread out in a network.

The Quote: “So, the surface Navy probably needs to think about how they intend to do sensing and missile defense in the future. [Chief of Naval Operations’ surface warfare director Rear Adm. Ron] Boxall has been talking about shifting to this new surface fleet that focuses on passive and multi-static sensing. That would mean that big, monostatic sensors like the SPY-6 are less important for offensive operating in the future.”

Basically that means that the Navy wants to have multiple sensors aloft and on the water that can passively detect and triangulate targets and relay that information back to a shooter such as an FFG (X) or a large surface combatant. See this article for more details:

The US Navy’s surface fleet: Here’s what’s ahead in 2019

Now, on its surface it might seem like Clark is saying that the Navy is buying precisely the wrong platform for the kind of fleet the Navy wants to build. But there are some caveats: For missions like ballistic missile defense patrols or carrier defense, you need a big, monostatic SPY-6 radar. Also, the SPY-6 has “very capable passive sensing technology” that may be useful if there is another platform acting as an illuminator. But the question is, is the current SPY-6, designed largely for BMD, the right version?

“Is there a version that may be better at passive sensing than the current configuration?” Clark asks?

The Navy is looking at starting a large surface combatant in 2024. That might mean that the Flight III would be capped early as the Navy looks to move to something that fits more into this passive multistatic scheme of the future.

Just something to think about.

The Hotwash

A couple of interesting pieces over at USNI this week.

Sam Lagrone reports that the destroyer Dewey rattled off 20 hypervelocity projectiles from the Mk. 45 five-inch deck gun.

Excerpt: The test, conducted by the Navy and the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office as part of the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2018 international exercise, was part of a series of studies to prove the Navy could turn the more than 40- year-old deck gun design into an effective and low-cost weapon against cruise missiles and larger unmanned aerial vehicles.

While the HVP was originally designed to be the projectile for the electromagnetic railgun, the Navy and the Pentagon see the potential for a new missile defense weapon that can launch a guided round at near-hypersonic speeds.

Read More: Navy Quietly Fires 20 Hyper Velocity Projectiles Through Destroyer’s Deckgun

Secondly, SECNAV Spencer said he’s going to have the elevator problem on the Ford-class Carrier fixed by this summer.

Excerpt: “I asked him to stick his hand out; he stuck his hand out. I said, let’s do this like corporate America. I shook his hand and said, the elevators will be ready to go when she pulls out or you can fire me,” Spencer said, adding that someone had to take accountability over the ongoing elevator challenges.

“We’re going to get it done. I know I’m going to get it done. I haven’t been fired yet by anyone; being fired by the president really isn’t on the top of my list.”

SECNAV to Trump: Ford Carrier Weapons Elevators Will be Fixed by Summer, or ‘Fire Me’

More Reading

Navy officer funded high-stakes poker habit with almost $3 million in stolen government cash

CSIS Commentary: Taking a Bi-Partisan Approach to Combatting Illegal Fishing

Is the Navy’s new boot a flop?

US Navy Plans To Send More Ships Into The Arctic As It Looks To Establish New Polar Port

MBDA Mistral Missile Gets Anti-Surface Capabilities

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Thank you for supporting The Drift! If you like what you see, please tell your friends to sign up. If you have any questions, concerns or feedback, or if you are a public affairs officer wishing to gripe about something, please email me at dlarter@defensenews.com.