From its integrated electric propulsion system to its precision naval gunfire support capabilities, the Navy's DD(X) is breaking new ground and laying the foundation for future generations of surface ships of all types.
Naval warfare is, on occasion, fundamentally altered by a warship. Langley, Nautilus, and Ticonderoga are significant names in our nation's maritime legacy because they navigated uncharted waters of innovation. In one manner or another, they left an indelible mark on the course of war at sea and remain distinct in our nation's history because they were so unlike their peers.
As the Navy's future multimission surface combatant, DD(X), comes into being, it is appropriate to consider how it will shape the future of the U.S. Navy, and, in many respects, the navies of both our friends and our enemies.
The remarkable revolution being pursued in the design, development, and construction of DD(X) is akin to the ground-breaking achievement of British designers with HMS Dreadnought, a ship that in one generation set the Royal Navy far apart from its peers. The combination of lethal main battery (all big gun turrets offering greater fire power), steam turbine propulsion (top-end speed advantage), and armored hull made her the envy of every navy in the world and changed the standards by which warships were judged.
To the novice, a comparison of DD(X) and Dreadnought could be made on size alone. At 14,000 tons, DD(X), like Dreadnought, is a substantial ship. From the churning, frigid North Atlantic to the calmer, temperate waters of the Persian Gulf, size offers sea keeping, stability, and endurance, which together equal persistence. Most important, size offers survivability, permitting a warship to shrug off small attacks or absorb the effects of larger ones and keep fighting.
Naval historians, architects, and war fighters also appreciate Dreadnought's unprecedented blend of technology and capability. She established new expectations for maritime warfare. But the ship was not built for technology's sake or simply because she could be. She was built for the challenges and threats Britain faced at the time and for the potentially turbulent and unforeseen times ahead.
DD(X) is an advanced, expeditionary combatant for a new age of naval warfare, as well, combining revolutionary land-attack capability with the ability to protect itself in all environments, especially in the littorals. It will deliver both high-volume, precision surface fires and pinpoint Tomahawk strikes. In addition, DD(X) will dominate the battle space like no other surface combatant with dual-band, active-array radar and a fully integrated undersea warfare system.
DD(X) is the Navy's first "clean sheet" class of major combatant since the end of the Cold War. Its technologies will be the cornerstones of the future fleet, introducing systems, capabilities, and practices that will be passed to generations of surface ships. It will be an integrated war fighting system unconstrained by previous designs.
During the Cold War, U.S. Navy surface combatants benefited from shared developments, as important advancements in one class were passed to others. Successive generations of combatants—Spruance (DD-963) to Kidd (DDG-993) to Ticonderoga (CG-47) to Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)—shared technological lineage, which was an appropriate and successful evolutionary course to deal with the known and measured threat of the time. Shared technologies have included missiles, launchers, combatant systems, radar, propulsion, and various hull, mechanical, and electrical systems.
With the exception of missiles, DD(X) will plow new ground in each area. To do so, the Navy has invested significant resources in development of the class, and the return, both in the short and long term, will be significant. DD(X) provides the technological foundation for generations of U.S. warship classes, including surface combatants, aircraft carriers, and amphibious ships. It not only is developing critical technologies and systems for the future fleet but also will integrate them into a complete warfighting system that introduces powerful and effective operating principles to naval warfare. These include balanced warfighting systems design for littoral operations, multispectral signature reduction, survivability, the employment of optimal manning through human systems integration, improved quality of life, and low operating and support costs.
DD(X)'s primary mission is influencing events ashore through the rapid and precise application of naval gunfire. Its Advanced Gun System (AGS) and long-range land-attack projectile (LRLAP) will usher a dramatic change in the manner in which surface ships produce effects ashore. Over the past decade, four major studies have determined that the 155-mm AGS, along with missiles, delivers the right combination for naval surface fire support.
DD(X)'s main battery of two AGSs—each capable of ten rounds of sustained fire per minute—will shoot precision-guided LRLAPs 85 nautical miles, nearly seven times farther than and covering more than 100 times the area of current Mk 45 5-inch/54-caliber guns. LRLAP has three times the lethality of traditional 5-inch gun rounds, meaning fewer rounds can produce the same effect. Fewer rounds mean less cost. Better precision means greater effects and less collateral damage.
Current naval guns with traditional, ballistic ammunition lack the range, accuracy, and firing rate to defeat targets at the long ranges typical of expeditionary maneuver warfare. Land-based artillery can provide this type of capability but is rarely available during the critical ship-to-shore phase of forcible entry operations. Aircraft also can provide lethal support, but they would be directed from more time-critical strike missions and can be limited by weather and ground fire.
Since the Vietnam War and the debut of laser-guided bombs, military aviation has seen a dramatic increase in both lethality and effectiveness. Today, one strike fighter armed with smart standoff munitions can destroy multiple targets in a single sortie, a reversal of the age-old calculus that demanded large strike packages of bombers, escorts, and jammers to neutralize a single high-value target. Naval gunfire finally is capitalizing on advances in technology that will permit a similar leap in strike efficacy for the surface fleet. Unlike the massive bombardments of traditional naval surface fire support, AGS and LRLAP on board DD(X) will allow commanders to apply destructive force within a precise area at previously unachieved distances. Put another way, DD(X) will destroy more targets, at greater ranges, with fewer munitions than any warship in history.
To conduct its primary mission of delivering precision fires, DD(X) must be able to maintain presence in the littorals. This ship will offer full-spectrum signature management to cloak it from a variety of detection and targeting methods. Its signature-dampening characteristics will change how we fight and will force the enemy to alter the way he fights us. With DD(X)'s low signatures scattered amid the clutter of the littoral environment, ship commanders will develop new tactics for maritime dominance. By complicating the enemy's detect-to-engage problem, we will stretch our tactical advantages by limiting the effective distance of hostile sensors and weapons and increasing the space in which our ships can safely operate.
DD(X)'s cutting-edge sensors and combat system-which includes the Integrated Undersea Warfare System, 57-mm Mk 110 close-in gun system, and the dual-band radar suite comprising an X-band multifunction radar and S-band volume search radar-will enable it to counter the most challenging maritime threats below, on, and above the sea for decades to come. The ship's dual-band sonar and multifunction towed array sonar will provide significant capability against diesel submarines in the shallows, as well as allowing in-stride mine-avoidance. DD(X) will be able to defend itself against swarming small boats and asymmetric attacks. In addition, a completely integrated radar suite will reduce clutter rejection and near-land operating issues associated with current radar and lay a solid foundation for a technology that can grow and keep pace with emerging threats around the globe.
Optimized manning and human systems integration will usher in improvements to the way sailors live, work, and fight at sea. These innovations will debut aboard DD(X) but, in one form or another, will find their way on every future class of warship. We also will look to refit our existing ships with these new technologies and operate them using the streamlined standards and practices we develop along the way.
Paving the way for future U.S. warships, DD(X) will introduce integrated electric propulsion through the Integrated Power System (IPS), which consists of two main and two auxiliary gas turbine engines that will produce and efficiently distribute power for all the ship's electrical needs, from the motors that drive the ship to the combat systems and "hotel" services. IPS will provide surplus shipboard power and energy management flexibility so the Navy can field new and remarkable weapons, such as high-power microwave systems for both nonlethal and lethal applications, lasers for active ship defense, and rail guns for super-long-range strike. The introduction of IPS has been likened to the shift from sail to steam. In 50 years, many likely will consider it as the technology behind the most fundamental sea change for the Navy. Consider a ship with no hydraulic systems, no reduction gears, and no distributed, pressurized oil systems.
DD(X)'s open architecture Total Ship Computing Environment will use plug-and-play systems to provide adaptability and scalability and cost-effectively upgrade and modernize the class throughout its service life. Equipped with state-of-the-art, network-centric information systems, the ship will operate seamlessly with other naval, ground, and land-based air forces. Its advanced command, control, and computing systems and persistent time-critical strike capability will revolutionize joint fire support and ground maneuver operations, while also providing strike group or joint task force commanders the freedom to direct aircraft to other high-value targets of opportunity, as appropriate.
Some fundamental cultural changes finally will be able to be realized aboard DD(X). This ship is designed from the keel up to take advantage of innovative programs being explored on the waterfront today. The ship's mission center will include the engineering officer of the watch sitting side by side with the tactical action officer and the ship's commanding officer. The engine rooms will be unmanned, backed by remote sensors and camera systems that actively monitor DD(X)'s systems and provide operators with real-time recommendations on equipment operations, to include automated distance support and integrated supply functionality. The ship's local area network will be a multilayered security architecture operating on a common backbone, with classified and unclassified systems sharing infrastructure. And with a bandwidth capacity exceeding that of current aircraft carriers, DD(X) will have an immense reach-back capability (allowing migration of administrative functions ashore), as well as being completely interoperable with joint and coalition forces.
The DD(X) design-build strategy is structured to mitigate the development and production risks inherent in fielding breakthrough capabilities. The spiral development approach adopted by DD(X) allows for the evolutionary introduction of capability as technology matures. Central to risk management are the ten engineering development models that will be used to test critical systems prior to installation on the lead ship in the fiscal year 2008-2009 timeframe. In addition, historically proven, Naval Sea Systems Command Chief Engineer-approved design margins will control potential weight, volume, power, and cooling growth.
Over the past two years, DD(X) has achieved a number of important milestones. The overall system preliminary design review was completed on 18 March 2004 and determined DD(X)'s design is balanced, feasible, and producible. The event was particularly noteworthy because it used mission scenarios to evaluate the progress of the overall integrated system design and of each of the ship's ten major systems-each of which has completed its own separate preliminary design review. This positive evaluation provides confidence to continue with system design and development work and proceed to the next major evaluation, critical design review, scheduled for the summer of 2005.
As we consider the future of war-not just at sea, but joint warfare on land and in the air, as well-we realize the ships of our future fleet will need to be different in significant ways. They need to carry the fight to the enemy on land, often at long ranges, very quickly, with great precision, and in any type of weather. They must be cost effective to operate, habitable for the crews, survivable against an array of ever deadlier threats, hard to find and target, and, perhaps most important, readily adaptable to emerging threats and technologies.
DD(X) is the vanguard of the fleet of tomorrow.
Captain Goddard is the DD(X) program manager in the Program Executive Office for Ships. Commander Marks is the DD(X) requirements officer in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.