The Launch Systems branch of the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Dahlgren division, sponsored Jointly by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has embarked on a technology-development effort that is expected to pave the way for fielding of new configurations of transportable missile launchers. The launchers could be installed on ships, on Marine Corps and Army land vehicles, or parachuted into combat zones for remote operations.
The effort, designated the joint warfighting counterfire system (JWCS), is being pursued as an element of DARPA's new Future Combat Systems initiative, a collaborative effort, mainly with the Army, to develop a highly integrated combat system for ground units. In early May, DARPA awarded 24-month concept-exploration contracts to industry teams led by Boeing, Raytheon, SAIC, and Lockheed Martin for development of fire control system design concepts. Nelson Mills, who will manage the system for Dahlgren, says that the lab will help develop an advanced, expeditionary missile launcher system for the Corps and the Army.
Dahlgren's role, he points out, emerges from technology-development work carried out by the launcher group and its concentric canister launcher (CCL) program, initiated in 1996 and scheduled to conclude at the end of this year. The effort has aimed to lay the groundwork for meeting new launcher requirements for future surface combatants, including the DD-21 land-attack destroyer, as well as for aircraft carriers, amphibious ships, and submarines.
The JWCS concept now envisions an easily deployable launcher that would be integrated with a rack and could be accommodated on a Marine Corps or Army humvee or other vehicle. It also could be inserted by parachute drop from a transport aircraft. It would be fitted with an radio transceiver in order to receive targeting data from a fire-control node.
Program officials say that the concept clearly would support the Marine Corps' concept of operational maneuver from the sea (OMFTS) and ship-to-objective maneuver (STOM) amphibious doctrine, both of which postulate rapid movement from amphibious ships across the beach and also directly against objectives. The concept still would have to be incorporated into Navy and Marine Corps thinking about control over supporting fires-an issue on which both services have had differences. Marine officials have expressed concern that some Navy surface warriors believe that surface combatants, such as Aegis cruisers and destroyers assigned to provide fire support, would be free to select targets independent of control from Marines ashore. Discussions on that front, they say, are continuing.
The JWCS concept derives directly from the progress achieved in CCL program. Mills, who has managed the CCL effort since 1997, stresses that the work, funded through ONR's 6.3 advanced technology program, has aimed at investigating a range of advanced surface ship launcher technologies and designs, including gas-venting management, launcher control, and packaging. According to Mills, the program initially was perceived as an attempt to develop a specific launcher system that would compete with the Navy's long-fielded Mk 41 vertical launch system-a perception that Navy officials say generated lukewarm support, and some opposition both from fleet operators and from Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & surveillance Systems, which acts as Mk 41 systems integrator. The Mk 4lis in service on board most Ticonderoga (CG-47)-class Aegis cruisers, Spruance (DD-963)-class destroyers, and all the Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-class Aegis guided-missile destroyers.
Dahlgren, supported by United Defense LP, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and other companies, designed a CCL system consisting of a two concentric tubes joined at the base. Missiles would be inserted and launched from the inner tube. A new-concept self-contained gas management system would vent missile exhaust gases from the space between the two tubes. A missile-unique electronics package would provide the interface between the individual canister and the shipboard combat system, which would provide targeting. Kyle Jones, head of Dahlgren's launcher branch, says that the use of the missile-- unique electronics eliminates the need for complex interfaces between the launcher and individual missiles.
Each CCL would represent an all-up launcher. Individual launchers could be configured in systems of four, eight, or more, as few as two or even one, depending on the platform or installation. The Mk 41 VLS installation is based on a baseline eight-cell launcher. Dahlgren in 1997 carried out a successful test-fly-out of an Army tactical missile (ATACM), fitted with a short-burn motor, from a prototype CCL, built by United Defense from a titanium alloy.
Mills says that the ATACM test showed the effectiveness of the gas-management system. Since then the program carried out a restrained test-firing of a full-scale Tomahawk booster rocket, and in late 1998 integrated a CCL-unique electronics package developed for the SM-2 Standard air-defense missile with the Aegis combat system. Last year the team tested a prototype "cold-launch" modular horizontal launcher system to launch Mk 46 and Mk 50 torpedoes.
In April of this year the CCL team carried out a restrained firing test of an SM-2 block 4 missile booster and successfully simulated an electronics package for the Evolved Seasparrow air defense missile. The program will conclude this fall with a fly-out test in a ship self-defense configuration, and then will dovetail with the startup work on the JWCS.