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get an overall look at *he state of the U. S. Navy Surface forces, Proceedings editors Mark Gatlin and pristine Wilcox interviewed ^ice Admiral John W. %quist, the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Surface Warfare.
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r°ceedings: Reportedly, the National ^cademy of Science and Naval Studies card’s Navy 21 study did not come °at with a strong statement in support 1 surface combatants in the future, ^specially after the year 2015. At the paval Institute’s “Future of Naval ower” conference in San Diego, ";ePticism was voiced about the future surface forces. What is your perfective on this?
%quist: First, I would say that I’m ,n optimist, and it’s not my view that %ttvy 21 sounded the death knell of the ^urface navy. What the report did .,y and it’s true because it’s part of 'aw of physics—is that surface fees are at least more vulnerable than 'hers to detection. That certainly (°esn’t spell the end of them. We have ° smarter about detectability, and g're doing that. DDG-51 [the Arleigh We guided-missile destroyer] is c°ln8 to be a lot less detectable than a o°uiparable destroyer of her size. Not *y have we rounded off comers and her lower to the water, but she’ll f®Ve a raked mast and a lot of other l atures that will reduce considerably er vulnerability to detection. That’s °'ng to be part of the shipbuilding jjfucess and part of the Revolution at a-to reduce the ability to detect ace forces. I don’t think any group ^ People familiar with the Navy, the ar'time Strategy, and what the Navy
h has to do in the Maritime Strategy would ever say we could do away with surface forces. I always like to say, “Presence is the presence of forces on the ocean.” That’s very important.
Proceedings: Speaking of Revolution at Sea, it has been a year since Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf [III] retired. We’ve heard very little about Revolution at Sea since then. What have been the results of the Ship Operational Characteristics Study and the Surface Combatant Force Requirements Study? Is the Revolution, as it was conceived by Admiral Metcalf, now passe?
Nyquist: Absolutely not. First of all, I was here in 1986 as Admiral Metcalf’s deputy as he formed the vision of Revolution at Sea. I would never pretend to put words in his mouth, but as I recall, we saw that we needed to do several things.
Number one, we had to come up with an up-to-date requirement of what we needed in numbers and characteristics of our surface combatants. That became known as the Surface Combatant Force Requirement Study, or SCFRS.
Once we knew the number and the general characteristics, we needed to know from a naval officer’s standpoint what characteristics those ships should have. What should they be able to do in the 21st century? What have naval officers always thought ought to go into those ships? Should the bridge be eliminated? Should it be combined with CIC [combat information center]? What kind of automatic threat warning should we have? What kind of security do we need? Could we get rid of paper?
Could we do all of the things that naval officers would suggest while sitting down around a table, unconstrained by any thought other than what can we do to make that ship more capable of putting ordnance on target? That analysis was called the Ship Operational Characteristics Study. Its genesis was a two-day conference in Yorktown, Virginia, in which we brought in both fleets. Admiral [Frank B.] Kelso [II] was there as the senior fleet commander-in-chief.
From there we entered into a yearlong study that got into the details of what those characteristics ought to be. We were always very careful, as we reached a milestone, to take that out to the fleet to get the professionals’ views and concurrence. That study was completed within the last six months.
The toughest part of the Revolution at Sea, then, is going forward from those studies. Because they are so important, they were done on paper to get them translated into a real ship. That’s the legacy of Group Mike—to have a group of senior naval officers chaired by OP-03, now me, to take a look at all of the good ideas available, not only out in industry, but in the Naval Sea Systems [NavSea] Command, and in our Navy labs, and then decide which of those had the payoff that we envisioned in the SCFRS study to put into a ship for the 21st century.
Proceedings: Speaking of that ship, what is the status of the “stealth ship”? Will there be one? And are there possibilities of putting stealth characteristics, and such things as remotely piloted vehicles, Harriers, etc., in the Flight III Arleigh Burkes?
Nyquist: Certainly Admiral Metcalf and I would never say that we ever envisioned a “stealth ship.” The ship that gained some notoriety on the pages of Popular Mechanics was an artist’s conception of all the characteristics that Joe Metcalf had talked about in putting a ship together that would do one thing, and that’s put maximum ordnance on target. In the eye of an artist, it becomes a ship that has lots of missiles on it, and would not, in Admiral Metcalf’s view, have a bridge on it— not because you want a stealthy ship, but because the bridge takes up room
all the lead ships built in modem times, with the complexities that a
that you could fill with missiles. While bridges were important in the past, they are becoming less important as more and more of the information upon which you make a decision to fight or stay or do whatever you’re going to do happens to be in a CIC. Those things, when you render them on a piece of paper, make it look like a very stealthy ship. We don’t disagree that it should be stealthy.
Proceedings: So the 21st-century surface ship could look very different from the Popular Mechanics drawing?
Nyquist: It could look different or it could look the same, because our job over the next several years is first to determine what is the right choice of weapons and what the package is that ought to go into it. We know that manpower is expensive, so we need to minimize the number of sailors aboard the ship. We need to make it a fighting machine, but ships are places where people live as well as fight. We’ve got to provide for the comfort and health of the crew. But maybe you can do that in innovative ways that don’t take great amounts of space. An individual might be more comfortable in smaller places, better designed, than larger places not so well designed. Those are all the things that Group Mike will be looking at.
We’re working with the Center for Naval Analyses [CNA] now to put together a team that’s going to help us chart our way to the 21st century, because we must always remember that every great idea that we want to translate into hardware starts with a research and development [R&D] program—and that costs money. Then we have to translate that into production.
Proceedings: Where do you stand now? Are you sorting out the results of the two studies and trying to decide which ideas you’re going to proceed with?
Nyquist: The sorting out was done in the Ship Operational Characteristics Study. There are about a dozen imperatives that we say we must have in the ship of the 21st century. Now we need to figure out how we’re going to get to the ship of the 21st century. There are certain things that you have to assume. We can’t invent what is not at least on somebody’s drawing board.
We also have to ensure that we use intelligently all resources available to us in the government—in the Naval Sea Systems Command, for example.
All our great labs out there have people
with good ideas and good projects. We are going to work with CNA to help us bring all that together, with people like Admiral Metcalf; [Vice] Admiral [William H.] Rowden, previously ComNav- Sea; [Vice] Admiral Pete Heckman, currently ComNavSea; and officers with recent operational experience—to help us decide the best way to go.
But if you want to look at some concrete results, electric drive has always been one feature of a 21st-century ship that we wanted to look at very carefully. The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) has made a decision—and I think it’s absolutely the right one—that we need to get electric drive in our ships. That’s one of the imperatives, and it’s going to be in our battle force combatant of the 21st century because it gives you exactly what naval officers have been searching for in maximizing ordnance on target. If you do away with the long train of propulsion that started with the turbine and reduction gears—long shafts, propeller on the end. If you run that propeller with electricity, you can put the propulsor inside the hull or you can put the prime mover that’s going to produce the electricity anywhere in the ship. So it helps you in the construction of the hull. You can have a SWATH [small waterplane area twin hull] hull, monohull, or any kind of hull you want.
You don’t have to worry about the old-fashioned power train.
Proceedings: Will you be using the Ar- leigh Burke class in its various iterations as an evolutionary class to put in some of these things, helicopters, for example? Or are the Flight III Arleigh Burkes going to resemble the DDG-51, and then suddenly we’ll have a new surface stealth ship?
Nyquist: As everyone knows, while revolutions are going on, evolutions are also going on. The evolution of the Arleigh Burke will be the same as that of the Aegis cruiser. The USS Ticonder- oga [CG-47], with her Mark-26 launcher, is a very different ship, at least in some ways, from the Bunker Hill [CG-52] with vertical launch or in later versions with the SQQ-89 ASW system. But as we build our Aegis cruisers in base lines, we will build the DDG-51s in base lines, too, but we’ll also call them flights. Flight I is Arleigh Burke, the first 16 or 17 ships of the class. Then in Flight II, we’ll make some changes.
Proceedings: Can you say what kind of changes?
Nyquist: Probably some fairly minor ones. But let me go to Flight III, because that’s what everyone seems to be focusing on. One, it just happens to be a very nice round number—DDG-80. So people say, “Gee, DDG-80 must be a totally new ship,” because it’s the 30th ship. We have always said—and continue to say—that the first 29 DDG-51s will replace the Charles F- Adams [DDG-2]- and Farragut [DDG' 37]-class guided-missile destroyers, which they will. The DDG-80 is a ship for which we can do the kinds of planning that allow us to put helicopters aboard, we could add missile holes or other things. But because DDG-80, as the first of Flight III, in terms of Revolution at Sea, is a very near-term ship- we’re going to have to look very carefully at size and cost—particularly cost, because budget funds will continue to be constrained. So that ship lS going to have to be affordable.
We’ve given NavSea a number of areas to look at, and then we’re going to come back and put together a flight that, depending on costs, could be a fairly major departure if you just looked at it as a snapshot. But if y°u. look at it as a continuation of the basic line, we are going to be building Arleigh Burke-class destroyers for the foreseeable future. That’s the product line, just like the CG-47. So if we can afford it and if it makes operational sense, Flight III could have more missile capacity and a helicopter hangar-
We’ll have a Flight IV, and we’ll probably have a Flight V. But eventually, we will be building what we have always called the battle force combatant. That will be the product of a num ber of years of Group Mike looking at the technology and looking at the ship in different ways than we are now. ’’ can say it will be a ship with electric drive, again because of the great fie*1" bility it gives you. Also, if directed energy becomes a practical means of combat, then electric drive is a natura to produce the power that is required 1 that kind of system.
Proceedings: It has been rumored that the DDG-51 is some 18 months behin schedule. Is that an Aegis problem, a shipbuilding problem, or is it a problem at all?
Nyquist: You can probably look at lead
th/ br'n§s> and I doubt that any of dl/11 have been delivered on the sched- 0jc Predicted on paper, when it was e and easy to plan.
\A^eedings: What about the accumu- defa A-e8's experience with the Ticon- class? It’s a different ship, ob- ^y- but... .
b°n^u/U'St: *t s a different ship. Bath 'ts f or*cs w'ii he very up-front and ^l^ 'icials will tell you that they prob- ferg ®ot 'nt0 computerized design be- gjv the state of the art was there to dr .fhem the required accuracy in ln8- So they had to step back, feranother look, and design in a dif- thutnt Way. They would also tell you tl)e htey’ve had labor problems, but sign Put those behind them. They just a long-term labor agreement.
Prod "/°u 8° UP t0 Bath now, you see is .1 Ucti°n of assembly modules, which e Way you build ships now.
They’re breaking all sorts of production records in completing those modules.
So 1 think, yes, Arleigh Burke is going to be delivered later than originally planned, but I’m not concerned. Bath has eight cruisers and two destroyers through fiscal year 1988, and I think its people are through the learning curve. They’re going to be okay.
We certainly need to get Arleigh Burke in the water. We have selected Commander John Morgan, who was the commissioning executive officer for Vincennes, as the prospective commanding officer. He has put together his wardroom, and his enlisted people are beginning to form up in a crew. So we’ve got real flesh-and-blood people attached to that ship now. We expect her to deliver in early 1991.
Proceedings: In matching resources to commitments, how do deployment cycles look over the next five years?
Nyquist: I don’t see deployment cycles changing. Our commitments haven’t changed, so deployment cycles haven’t changed. Fortunately, now that the Persian Gulf is settling down somewhat, I think we’ll be able to ease the deployment cycles somewhat as we send fewer ships into the Gulf. But 1 think that overall, the deployment cycles will stay pretty constant. Of course, the CNO is very determined to keep the personnel and operational tempos right, so our people don’t spend long periods of time away from home.
Proceedings: The battleships are obviously expensive to operate. With tight operating and maintenance budgets continuing, what’s going to happen to them? Where do they stand in the surface warfare priority list?
Nyquist: Your question comes on the eve of recommissioning Wisconsin [BB-64], which was my first introduction to battleships as a third-class midshipman on a cruise in 1952. So I would have to say they’re number one in my heart certainly. But you have to ask: Expensive compared to what? Certainly they’re more expensive to operate than a frigate and less expensive to operate than a carrier, but the battleship brings unique capabilities. It brings you long-range gunnery. Even in today’s world of Star Wars technology, there still is a place in the Navy for the 16- inch gun. And it brings you Tomahawk, great survivability, and it is the centerpiece of four battle groups.
The cost to the Navy to bring those ships back is in the neighborhood of $450 million, which is a lot of money, certainly. But to build that ship from the keel up would cost you $2-3 billion. To bring in that capability for that cost—and they have a long life ahead of them—we think they’re very cost- effective. We continue to plan their modernization, but like all modernizations, we have to fit it into a budget.
So they, like other ships, aren’t going to get as much modernizing as we’d like.
Proceedings: Do you see them serving alongside stealth ships?
Nyquist: Yes. The battleship has a lower radar cross-section than other ships of similar displacement, so she has many of the “stealth” characteristics.
Proceedings: What would be the impact on planning in the surface forces if the Coral Sea [CV-43] and the Midway [CV-41] were decommissioned early?
• and
Nyquist: First, I certainly hope that that will not happen. But in that hypothetical case, we are below the required number of surface combatants now, so in the near-term and mid-term, that wouldn’t change things at all as far as the building program goes. We’re about 25% below the number of multipurpose surface combatants that we need for the battle groups. We have to continue building. But again, if you took those two carriers off the line, that just means fewer ships to carry out the same number of commitments. We don’t see that happening. Again, as far as the surface forces are concerned, we need to continue to build at the rate we’re building.
Proceedings: Some NavSea analysts have questioned the role of frigates in the future Navy, saying we will have to rely on our allies to provide low-mix ships. What are the prospects for frigates in the future?
Nyquist: We have 104 frigates today, and they’re very important to us. In the context of the Surface Combatant Force Requirements Study, they fill the protection of shipping role. We are considering some modernization options for both the FF-1052s [Knox class] and the FFG-7s [Oliver Hazard Perry class]. So those ships are going to be around for quite a while.
Proceedings: The Surface Combatant Force Requirements Study came up with a new concept for upgrading ships in the fleet and putting older, less capable ships into less demanding roles. Where does this proposal stand?
Nyquist: The CNO has called it a very promising concept, and has asked us to put some meat on the bones of the planning process. But that means that instead of very expensive modernization programs—that is, installing new equipment in existing ships—that if you build a ship like the DDG-51 or the CG-47 in the 1980s, when that ship enters the second half of its life or at about the 20-year point, it will be very capable against the lower threat that it would expect to encounter in a protec- tion-of-shipping role, though not as capable against the then-threat. That’s a flexible transition, assuming that when you build the ship it is capable against the current threat and very slowly degrades. By the time it gets halfway through its service life, you shift it to the lesser role. Then its capability against that threat rises again, and it can serve out the remainder of its service life in the protection-of-shipping role. That gets you away from a modernization cost that is difficult to sustain, particularly in the time of tight budgets we’re facing right now.
I hasten to add that we’re some years away from this concept. We’re going to have to continue to modernize until we get to that point, and that point depends on a steady building rate of ships like the DDG-51.
Proceedings: Some say the Navy does not have enough underway replenishment ships now, and in the budget crunch it will be even harder to get this type of ship. How will you acquire the funds to upgrade underway replenishment in the future surface force?
Nyquist: We have the most modern and capable combat logistics force in the world. It has strong Navy and congressional support. In any shipbuilding budget, you’re going to have ships move from year to year, whether it’s a carrier, AOE [fast combat support ship], or a surface combatant. So you can’t take a snapshot of one building plan and say, “That’s the way it’s going to be forever.” The CNO is committed to modernizing the combat logistics force ships, particularly the AOE. We are always going to have a need for replenishment ships that can steam with the battle groups and can provide that support, particularly considering the budget crunch and the probability of fewer forward bases than we have had in the past.
Proceedings: Is there a strong enough feeling in the CNO’s office and in Congress to make sure that these ships are funded?
Nyquist: There certainly is in OP- 03, and certainly the CNO supports it.
A lot of people say, “Gee, maybe you can’t transfer at sea all the heavier weapons.” Well, that may be so. There may be other ways to do that, but you still have to transfer fuel oil, aviation fuel, stores, and spare parts. We must never forget that the United States Navy invented replenishment at sea; we do it better than any navy in the world; and we keep improving it. So I would not rule out the time when we are able to replenish heavier weapons at sea.
We have not given up on that.
Proceedings: So you’re working on that now, as well?
Nyquist: We are working on that now. Again, there is absolutely firm support from the CNO on our combat logistics force program.
Proceedings: Is there anything unique about these programs? Are these new kinds of ships?
Nyquist: The AOE-6 will be a mod' emized version, but certainly not a Revolution at Sea in the combat logistics force ship. I would add that the Revolution at Sea concept is not going to be devoted just to the surface combatant, because there will be Revolution at Sea spinoffs that will apply t0 every ship—submarines, carriers, combat logistics force, the amphibious ships.
Proceedings: As Soviet submarines ge quieter, our passive detection capability is being challenged more and more. H you see a return to active sonar detection and tracking?
Nyquist: Absolutely. R&D is going to be looking at active sonar again, an we are now delivering the SQS-53C sonar, which is an all-digital sonar a the ultimate improvement to the SQS" 26 sonar. But at the same time, the Soviets cannot turn over their entire fleet of submarines. Passive ASW <s going to have a role to play for a l°n® time to come.
We are also looking at ways of m1' proving our older analog sonar, the SQS-26, with some fairly modest upgrades that will help us get the most out of it. Clearly, active is going to make a resurgence in ASW.
Proceedings: Is an active capability ( being worked into the SQQ-89 system
Nyquist: It certainly will be part of the improved version. Active sonar is back in the ASW equation, so it’s going to play in every system that wc work.
Proceedings: Admiral Metcalf said t 3 the only effective anti-torpedo defend is to station a frigate in the wake of every high-value unit. What is your thinking on that?
Nyquist: That was Admiral Metcalf’s way of energizing the system t0 get on with surface ship torpedo defense. Although that is essentially a classified program, there is a very de termined R&D program to give us a real capability in surface ship torped defense. So we have heeded Adrrnr3 Metcalf’s plea to get off our ditty boxes and get on with surface ship 1 pedo defense. We won’t be putting a frigates in the wakes of the carriers stop torpedoes.
Proceedings: You have 16 Brooke [FFG-1]- and Garcia [FF- 1040]-clasS.^ frigates now that have been decorum
minesweepers. We have started
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. _ robust shipbuilding programs: the p-M-1 /\vcllger ancj (he MHC-51 Os- .p- And let’s not forget that we have
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to our reserve force that those
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On the Institute
Nyquist: I have my Naval Institute 25-year silver membership certificate. When I graduated from the Naval Academy, they said, “Here’s one of your chances to join the Naval Institute.” I did; that was 33 years ago. Proceedings: Even with Captain John Byron’s December 1987 article questioning whether the surface forces were ready, you kept your membership? Nyquist: Well, that’s what the Institute is for, a forum for that kind of discussion. It gets the blood going, but that’s what it’s for.
s,oned and some reportedly have been *ered to Pakistan in a leasing arrangement. What is the status of that Pr°gram? Can these ships be recalled.? fe we going to keep them upgraded? Nyquist: We’re going to be leasing , °Se to a number of our allies, but the p word is “lease.” They will be Jve-year leases. They could be re- ^Wed, but at any point under that asing program and under the law, we lP bring those ships back so we don’t °Se them irrevocably.
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feedings: After the big emphasis on lne warfare in the Persian Gulf and the media hoopla that went along '. tt, has the Navy stepped up its 'Jte warfare program?
Ij %quist: Some people think that we P'e been lagging in mine warfare; and e have been slow in replacing our U|der ]
lrborne mine countermeasures, which Sl re immediately available in the Per- 0, n Gulf. Certainly, when we look at 0r °ider MSOs [ocean minesweepers], 'has to say it’s time for those ships pe replaced. We’re doing that right
Avenger came to the Washington isavy Yard and was an instant hit. She aa state-of-the-art mine hunter-killer, .nV,Cry capable ship. The 14 Avengers (j. '7 Ospreys definitely will put us f m the minesweeping business, p Ve done a number of things in the Sian Gulf that have improved our ^Pability in mine warfare, and those, a„ c°urse, will continue development er We leave the Persian Gulf.
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,, °Ceedings: What are some of those
‘■tings?
Most of them are classi- det ’ *?ut they concern mainly better theeCt'on m‘nes> not necessarily for bat ITllnesweepers, but for other coition Yes, we certainly have learned thcesson» and I think we’re rebuilding |e forces, i would not want to lne e lhat subject, though, without sa- 3j'n§ °ur older minesweepers, those ij-0 ^ear-°ld ships with wood hulls and d0j in the Persian Gulf who are
c,redit
-ilpo \ •
’'On W£re *n exce^ent material condi- nav; . were able to put some modem ab0!®at'on anc* mine-detecting gear fiab| ’hem, and made them very cae assets in the Persian Gulf.
Proceedings: In the Navy’s shift from Deputy Chiefs of Naval Operations to Assistant Chiefs there was a subtle change from DCNO Submarine Warfare to ACNO Undersea Warfare. Does this have any implication for ASW in the submarine and surface communities?
Nyquist: The change from DCNO to ACNO made no difference in the scope of responsibilities of OP-02, OP-03, and OP-05, but in changing OP-02 from submarine to undersea warfare, OP-02 has taken over all undersea warfare, including surveillance. I don’t think anyone thinks that is anything but a good move, and, as OP-03, I don’t feel threatened by that. It’s a sensible thing to do, to put all of those resources and capabilities with someone who has the undersea responsibility that OP-02 does.
Proceedings: Would you like to address something that we didn’t ask you?
Nyquist: I want to talk about the quality of our sailors, transcending surface warfare, aviation, or submarine warfare. I see our sailors getting brighter and more enthusiastic, patriotic, and capable every day. We have to be sure we take care of these people. As an Assistant Chief of Naval Operations in charge of the people who make up the surface warfare community, I think of them first, last, and always, because they are the people who make our ships go and our combat systems work.
Proceedings: Is it going to be a cruel and brutal process to move from heavily manned ships to technologically superior ships that will need fewer people? What does that mean for surface warfare?
Nyquist: We’ve been constrained in adding people to the Navy across the board, whether it’s aviation, surface, or submarine. But I think it’s going to be a boon to all the forces to reduce manpower, because in the abstract, anyway, setting aside how great our people are, people are the most expensive part of any operation. If you look at the Ar- leigh Burke-class destroyer and her manning compared to the DDG-2 [Charles F. Adams], which was conceived and designed 25 to 30 years ago, the difference is dramatic. We have over 300 people on the DDG-2 class; there are 40 to 50 fewer people on the Arleigh Burke, with all of its additional capability and technology.
The driver has been the move to the gas turbine. Twelve-hundred-pound steam plants require a lot of people to operate them and keep them fixed. We don’t need that many for a gas-turbine propulsion plant.
But we need to continue to attract and retain the same bright, qualified people we have today, so that’s one of my major concerns and goals every day, to make sure we provide the right training for our people. We work very hard on that. Again, I’m an optimist, and I see a bright future for surface warfare.
Proceedings: You’ve been in OP-03 for 11 years. Is it still fun?
Nyquist: The more senior you get, the more you see the tremendous talent of the people who you have working for you. I tell people when I go out in the fleet: “You lieutenant commanders, commanders, and lieutenants are the guys who really change the course of the Navy.” It’s the ideas and hard work of the junior officers that make a difference. You may have to wait for a tour or two to see the fruition of what you started happen, but that’s the way the bureaucracy works. The seeds of ideas and the direction come from the young people. They really do run the Navy. We listen to their ideas and say, “Wow! How did you think of that? Sounds good to me.”