Once considered the submarine of the future, the Seawolf (SSN-21) is now considered a “bridge” to the less-expensive NSSN. And for the first time in 30 years, the Navy is cooking up a new carrier design.
Since the 1993 Bottom-Up Review (BUR) ordered by the late Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, the nation's military programs have been gauged by the requirement to fight and win two "nearly simultaneous” Major Regional Contingencies (MRCs), usually identified as Korean and Arabian Gulf scenarios—although, given the March 1996 dust-up in the Taiwan Strait, the People’s Republic of China increasingly has been cropping up in planners’ contingencies. While responding to these, the military is expected to have the capabilities to deter and contain crises and “lesser” contingencies in other regions. In his 1996 Annual Report, Secretary of Defense William Perry reaffirmed: “The guiding principle is that the United States will fight to win, and to win decisively, quickly, and with minimum casualties.”
This strategy and its accompanying Planning guidance have come under increasing scrutiny and skepticism as budgets continue to decline. The concern is that maintaining sufficient force to fight and win “two nearly simultaneous” MRCs is impossible without significant increases in funding, well beyond what even the most ardent congressional “Defense Hawks” have offered. A consensus began to emerge in the first few months of 1996 that the 346-ship Navy, 495,000-strong Army, and 13-fighter wing Air Force called for in the BUR is simply unaffordable. (Indeed, the Navy’s budget Provides for a deployable "battle force” of 341 ships by the end of fiscal year 1996 and only 339 ships by the end of fiscal year 1997, a situation that prompted a new look at how ships can be retained in the near term until new-construction Warships are delivered.) Thus, the U.S. Armed Services will be hard pressed by Congress to derive a new strategy, innovative concepts of operations, and an investment/sustainment plan that make sense for both the emerging international security environment and the domestic political-fiscal environment at the same time.
Table 1: Navy Department Budget Summary (Millions of Dollars) | ||
| FY 1996 | FY 1997 |
Military Personnel, Navy | 17,021.5 | 16,943.0 |
Military Personnel, Marine Corps | 5,843.3 | 6,102.1 |
Reserve Personnel, Navy | 1,379.4 | 1,386.3 |
Reserve Personnel, Marine Corps | 378.2 | 381.1 |
Operations & Maintenance, Navy | 22,196.7 | 21,040.1 |
Operations & Maintenance, Marine Corps | 2,420.5 | 2,203.8 |
Operations & Maintenance, Navy Reserve | 837.7 | 843.9 |
Operations & Maintenance, Marine Corps Reserve | 102.3 | 99.7 |
Aircraft Procurement, Navy | 4,443.7 | 5,882.0 |
Weapons Procurement, Navy | 1,765.9 | 1,400.4 |
Shipbuilding & Conversion, Navy | 6,496.8 | 5,524.9 |
Other Procurement, Navy | 2,421.4 | 2,714.2 |
Procurement, Marine Corps | 638.9 | 555.5 |
Research, Development Test & Evaluation, Navy | 8,419.7 | 7,334.7 |
Military Construction, Navy & Navy Reserve | 573.1 | 536.4 |
Family Housing, Navy & Marine Corps | 1,573.4 | 1,417.9 |
National Defense Sealift Fund | 1,024.2 | 963.0 |
Environmental Restoration | -- | 302.9 |
Base Closure & Realignment | 2,501.7 | 1,445.0 |
Payment to Kaho'olawe Range Remediation | 51.0 | 25.0 |
Total | 79,252.3 | 76,158.0 |
Includes $513 million above President's budget to support construction of New Attack Submarines at Newport News Shipbuilding in compliance with Section 131 of FY 1996 National Defense Authorization Act. |
A 1996 report of the Naval Studies Board, National Research Council—The Navy and Marine Corps in Regional Conflict in the 21st Century—concluded that the naval services’ strategic vision of the future could turn out to be just a grand illusion unless significant changes in force structure and equipment are made. This could end up costing $20 billion more than the service planned to spend during the next 15 years. The Navy and the Marine Corps “will face many problems of changing doctrine, acquiring new equipment, and budget allocation, simply to absorb the most important advancements currently at hand,” the study concluded. “In addition, the services will have to be on the alert for unforeseen technological advances that will clearly warrant exploitation.”
With such concerns in mind. Navy planners contend that a change in overall strategy should favor the Navy and Marine Corps. In these naval officers’ judgment, the Navy and Marine Corps are the only two elements (barring the political will that would allow the Coast Guard to augment the “naval services” in peacetime, as was done with the cutter Dallas [WHEC-716] during her exploratory 1995 Mediterranean deployment) of the U.S. Armed Services that can with justification claim to be “expeditionary” and can ensure regional “enhanced conventional deterrence” through forward operations.
With calls for a second BUR to begin after the 1996 election, strategies, policies, roles, missions, functions, force structure, people, platforms, weapons, sensors, and technologies all hang in the balance. The way the debates and decisions go will determine whether the glow on the horizon is a rising or a setting sun for Tomorrow’s Fleet.
Attacking Submarines?
The 1993 BUR called for 45 to 55 nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) and 18 Ohio (SSBN-726)-class fleet ballistic missile submarines in the fleet. By the end of fiscal year 1999, the Navy will have no more than 55 SSNs, down from 80 in early fiscal year 1996. More recently, the Defense Department’s Nuclear Posture Review concluded that the Navy could reduce its strategic force to 14 SSBNs armed with the D-5/Trident II missile if the START II agreement enters into force. Many observers inside and outside the Navy’s submarine community remained concerned that these force levels are simply insufficient to satisfy today’s and tomorrow’s commitments.
Table 2: New Attack Submarine |
Length: 377 Feet Beam: 34 Feet Displacement: 7,700 Tons Speed: 25+ Knots Payload: 38 Weapons, including Vertical Launching System Special Operations Forces, Dry Deck Shelter, Advanced Swimmer Delivery System Weapon Launch: 4 21 -inch Torpedo Tubes, 12 Vertical Launching System tubes Weapons: Tomahawk Land-Attack Missiles Mk 48 Advanced Capability Torpedoes Mk 60 CAPTOR Mines Advanced Mobile Mines (Mk-48 modifications) Unmanned Underwater Vehicles Sensors/Electronics: Spherical Active/Passive Array Sonars Light Weight Wide Aperture Array TB-29 and future Towed Array Sonars High-Frequency Sail and Chin Mine-Detection Sonars Communications/Electronics/Photonics Imaging Masts Radar Countermeasures: 1 Internal (Reloadable), 14 External (Non-Reloadable) Propulsion: S9G Pressurized Water Nuclear Reactor, Steam Turbine, Single Shaft/Propulsor |
The Best Laid Plans . . . The Submarine Campaign of 1995 was controversial and at times at least figuratively bloody. In May last year, turmoil swirled around the administration’s request for full-balance funding of the third Sea- wolf (SSN-21)-class attack submarine that would serve as a “bridge” in submarine construction until the first unit of the New Attack Submarine (NSSN) class—being designed by Electric Boat Corporation—was authorized in fiscal year 1998. Follow-on NSSNs would be constructed, in consonance with the 1993 BUR decision, at Electric Boat beginning in fiscal year 2000, with low-rate production of about two submarines per year beginning in 2002 or 2003.
Navy and industry spokesmen argued that the three Seawolf-class warships will be capable of near-silent operations in all environments, from deep water to littoral regions, and will regain an important measure of undersea warfare superiority recently in doubt as a result of continuing Russian submarine advances. Among the largest SSNs that have gone to sea, with a length of 350 feet and a 40-foot beam, each Seawolf displaces nearly 9,200 tons. The SSN-21s will be formidable, with armaments of up to 50 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. Harpoon antiship missiles, antisubmarine and antiship torpedoes, or as many as 100 mines, or combinations of these weapons. And the Seawolf BSY-2 combat system is the most advanced in the world, with capabilities far exceeding those of any adversary’s submarine, according to supporting documentation.
For one, Rear Admiral John Grossenbacher. Deputy Director, Submarine Warfare (N87B), has stated that “these ships are capable of the entire spectrum of post-Cold War missions, from peacetime forward deployments, to covert insertion of special operations forces, to sea control and battlespace dominance, and to launching long-range precision strikes in war.” Special-warfare missions are increasingly important as the United States contemplates future strategies and operations, and the SSN-23 will incorporate special-operations forces features not available in the first two units, including the capability to mate with a dry deck shelter, and a new, specially designed nine-man combat swimmer lock-out/ lock-in chamber that is integral to the baseline design of the follow-on New Attack Submarine.
Despite the 1995 debates, with almost personal malevolence at times, the Congress approved partial funding for SSN-23 in fiscal year 1996, and the administration requested the balance in fiscal years 1997 and 1998. The lead ship of the class was commissioned in 1996. and the second, Connecticut (SSN-22), if 1998. The as-yet-unnamed SSN-23 was ordered on 30 April 1996, and wags have suggested the Navy christen it the USS Southern California, in honor of Representative Duncan Hunter’s (R-CA) efforts to ensure the health of the nation’s submarine force.
Because of the concern about the ultimate cost of the Seawolf SSNs even in series production, the Navy embarked on an ambitious program to design and build the NSSN, formerly called the Centurion class. Navy planners envisage numerous critical missions and tasks for the NSSN:
- Covert strike warfare
- Antisubmarine warfare
- Covert intelligence collection/surveil- lance, covert indication and warning, and electronic warfare
- Antisurface ship warfare
- Special warfare
- Covert mine warfare
- Battle group support
During lengthy patrols in forward areas, the sub’s advanced electronic sensors will be “tuned” for collecting critical intelligence: on-board sonars and special off-board systems will be used to “prepare” the undersea battlespace for subsequent operations, a mission that is critical to success in war. Minefields can be detected and locations radioed to commanders before forces are committed to battle, while other threats and targets are monitored to ensure achievement of campaign objectives.
The NSSN will support the full range of covert special-warfare missions—search and rescue, intelligence collection and reconnaissance, sabotage and diversionary attacks, directing fire support and strikes, and other clandestine tasks. Navy SEALs and other-service special operations forces can be hosted for extended periods in forward areas, and teams can be replaced with fresh troops on station, without tipping off an adversary. The large swimmer lock-out/lock-in chamber will provide an unprecedented capability that is further enhanced by the ability to host the Advanced Swimmer Delivery System. A dry mini-submarine that greatly expands the special-forces undersea operational envelope, the Advanced Swimmer Delivery System has a 125-nautical-mile range at eight knots and carries eight SEALS and their gear, in addition to the two-man crew. The NSSN’s reconfigurable torpedo-handling room can support both larger special operations missions, as well as the use of unmanned undersea vehicles and other specialized equipment.
The NSSN will carry the most advanced-capability heavy-weight torpedoes, antiship cruise missiles, naval mines, and unmanned underwater vehicles to hold at risk any enemy’s submarine and surface forces. The submarine’s four torpedo tubes can launch 26 Weapons, and other weapon systems— such as a submerged-launch version of the Army’s enhanced fiber optic-guided missile (E-FOGM) for anti-helicopter and anti-small craft defense and even short-range land attack—are also being investigated to enhance the new submarine’s Warfare specialties.
In addition to its launched weapons, the NSSN will carry strike weapons in its 12 vertical launching system cells: Tomahawk land-attack missiles armed with a variety of warheads, and a submerged- launch variant of the Army tactical missile system, a 160-mile range, precision- fire weapon, is being investigated for direct support of ground maneuver forces. Unmanned aerial vehicles—such as the Predator, which was planned for testing from an SSN in early summer 1996—can link forces ashore directly to the NSSN for immediate targeting, strike, and battle damage assessment.
Fleet commanders and regional commanders-in-chief have called for a minimum of 72 submarines—10 of which by 2012 must have Seawolf quieting and stealth—to satisfy normal peacetime operational commitments and be ready to support the “two nearly simultaneous” MRCs identified in Defense Guidance. In the meantime, older, less- capable submarines will continue to be retired in increasing numbers, and after 2010, three to four nuclear-powered submarines will reach the end of their service lives each year. Thus, the Navy believes that it has structured an affordable plan for the sustained production of NSSNs to ensure that essential force levels can be maintained.
The NSSN proved to be a whipping boy for critics of the Navy’s submarine warfare vision, however. The charges and counter-charges culminated in a special hearing of the Military Procurement Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee, convened by Representative Hunter on 7 September 1995 to review the administration’s NSSN program and an alternative submarine plan. Generally, the non-Navy witnesses supported killing the third Seawolf (SSN-23), scrapping the Navy’s NSSN program, and increasing R&D spending dramatically to get the “best” submarine possible and at a truly affordable price. The way to get this was to begin a national-priority program to develop a submarine design for series production that would be more affordable and more capable than the NSSN. (In series production, the NSSN would be about two-thirds the cost of the SSN-21 class, but would have “about three-quarters” of the Seawolf’s military capabilities, according to Navy documentation.) Envisioned were competitive prototype efforts involving both Electric Boat and Newport News, reinvigorating the “SubTech” program at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to evaluate highly advanced technologies, and perhaps even a consideration of non-nuclear submarines for the U.S. Navy.
Navy witnesses—Rear Admiral Robert E. Frick, Program Executive Officer for Submarines, and Rear Admiral Dennis A. Jones, then-Director of Submarine Warfare (N87)—responded that the NSSN design already was the best balance between advanced capability and cost, and the program would produce a highly capable and militarily flexible submarine that could defeat all expected threats.
House testimony and rumored backroom deal-making involving Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) resulted in the Congress attempting to revamp almost completely the Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine program. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 called for:
- $700 million of the $1.5 billion requested for the SSN-23
- $704.5 million for long-lead and advance procurement for a fiscal year 1998 submarine that would in essence be the initial baseline for a new-design program
- $100 million for long-lead and advance construction costs for an attack submarine to be authorized in fiscal year 1999 and built by Newport News Shipbuilding.
The Act also specified that the Secretary of Defense must prepare a “detailed plan for development of a program that will lead to the production of a more capable, less expensive submarine than the submarine previously designated as the New Attack Submarine.” This plan is to include the construction of four nuclear- powered attack submarines to be authorized and funded in fiscal years 1998 to 2001. The New Attack Submarine design is to be used as the “base design” by both Electric Boat and Newport News in this effort, and $100 million is to be made available for DARPA for the development and demonstration of advanced technologies—electric drive, hydrodynamic quieting, ship control automation, solid-state power electronics, wake reduction, superconductors, torpedo defense, advanced control concepts, and fuel cells—for these four and subsequent submarines. The interim objectives are “to develop and demonstrate new technologies that will result in each submarine of those four being a more capable and more affordable submarine than the submarine that preceded it.” Finally, this process is to culminate in the selection of a design for the next submarine for serial production not earlier than fiscal year 2003.
When is “Advanced” . . . “Not Enough”? Early in 1996, the Navy announced the formation of an independent Submarine Technology Assessment Panel, under the direction of retired Vice Admiral Albert Baciocco. Based upon the results of the panel and its own internal assessments, the Navy has addressed a wide range of technologies now under development that have the potential for installation in the first four NSSNs as well as back-fit into the improved Los Angeles (SSN-688I) class that will be the backbone of the submarine force for the next 15 years.
Numerous advanced technologies and systems are already included in the baseline NSSN design, and the baseline design characteristics are such that future technology-insertion will be more efficient and facile than ever before. The lightweight wide-aperture array will enhance antisubmarine and antisurface warfare capabilities while providing “timely undersea situational awareness” far beyond what is possible with standard hull-mounted and towed sonar arrays. Other state-of-the-art sensors include advanced electronic support measures equipment and non-hull-penetrating Photonics electronic imaging masts instead of standard periscopes. An electromagnetic “silencing” system, together with advanced mine detection and avoidance systems, will enable safe operation in the vicinity of naval mines. Onboard data fusion systems will tie together critical information from numerous sources, and real-time links to off-board underwater, surface, airborne, and space-based assets will enable the NSSN to reach out far beyond what is possible today.
Although operational, war-fighting capabilities remain the paramount concern for the NSSN class, reducing acquisition and life-cycle costs is a major consideration. Millions of dollars have already been saved through the innovative application of concurrent engineering de- sign/build teams, computer-aided "paperless” design tools, and simplifying and if possible eliminating components and systems. More cost-saving measures include adapting the main propulsion unit and quieted torpedo tube designs from the Seawolf class, as well as adapting and re-using actual equipment from Los Angeles class submarines that are being decommissioned.
Other innovations for the NSSN focus on its propulsion plant, which is more compact and a simpler design compared to previous submarine plants. More important, it is the first naval nuclear propulsion plant designed for life-of-ship core, which will eliminate the need for a mid-life refueling and save hundreds of millions of dollars in future life-cycle costs for each submarine acquired.
The Navy has also completely reworked the design concept of the sail, which is capable of accommodating self-contained, non-hull-penetrating antenna or mast modules that are connected to standard electrical and electronic fittings.
The modular isolated deck structure (MIDS), pioneered in the NSSN, will facilitate the use of commercial electronics and other components, while simplifying off-hull construction and testing. And as the most cost-effective way to keep ahead of the “threat-requirements” curve, the ship’s modular design facilitates the insertion of new technologies and systems as they emerge, either for new construction or back fit into existing ships.
The NSSN’s modular design also facilitates the construction of mission-specific variants. For example, future NSSNs could be built with submerged-launch ballistic missile modules to replace the Ohio- class strategic ballistic missile submarines as they begin to be retired after 2015 or so. Other mission-specific NSSN variants could be built to accommodate hundreds of special operations forces or strike weapons, or dozens of mines, or combinations of systems and troops.
Arsenal “Boomers”? There were 16 Ohio-class SSBNs in the Fleet in early 1996; the Wyoming (SSBN-742) was to be delivered in June and commissioned later in the year. The final Ohio-class SSBN, the Louisiana (SSBN-743), is scheduled for commissioning in late summer 1997 and will make its first operational patrol in early fiscal year 1998. No new SSBNs or submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) are under development, although industry R&D is addressing future missile concepts. And an SLBM module could be designed, engineered, and developed for a future variant of the New Attack Submarine, thus underscoring the technological and design flexibility of the baseline NSSN.
With the signing of the START II Treaty in early 1996, which is to be fully implemented by the year 2003, and the results of the 1994-1995 Nuclear Posture Review, the Navy could be constrained to operate no more than 14 Ohio class SSBNs, each armed with 24 D-5/Trident II SLBMs. The first eight submarines of the class carry the C-4/Trident I missile. Although controversial in Congress, the Navy still plans to retire from strategic service or convert the USS Ohio, Michigan (SSBN-727), Florida (SSBN- 728), and Georgia (SSBN-729) rather than upgrade them to launch the D-5 missile, unless START II fails to come into force and Congress provides the funding for the upgrades. The other four early Ohios—the USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN-730), Alabama (SSBN-731), Alaska (SSBN-732), and Nevada (SSBN-733)—will be upgraded for the D-5s early in the next century.
Capable of carrying 12 multiple, independently targeted reentry vehicles (MIRVs), in operation the D-5 has been limited to 8 MIRVs and penetration aids. To ensure START II compliance at a maximum level of 1,750 SLBM warheads, the D-5s in a 14-SSBN force would have to be limited to about five warheads each.
Ideas continued to circulate about converting the first four Ohio-class/C-4-equipped SSBNs into a variety of special-purpose submarines, and the only issues remain finding the resources to do so and—a bit trickier in some cases—ensuring that the resulting submarine would no longer figure in START II compliance requirements. No known engineering issues would preclude extending these ships’ service lives from 30 to 40 years. Converting one or all four of the submarines into special-forces platforms by removing the missile tubes and inserting special warfare-specific features would seem to solve that problem. A single converted Ohio-class Special Forces SSN might be capable of carrying four companies of reconnaissance Marines, as many as 512 Special Forces troops, and could remain covertly on station in a forward, crisis-prone region without jeopardizing its mission. This would also compensate for the retirement by the early years of the next decade of the six “long- hull” Sturgeon (SSN-637) and two converted SSBNs—Kamehameha (SSN-642) and James K. Polk (SSN-645)—currently serving in Special Forces roles. These four ships would bridge the Special Forces gap until the special warfare-configured SSN-23 is commissioned and the NSSNs reach the fleet in numbers.
Carriers . . . Forever?
"As it turns out," then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Boorda remarked at a U.S. Naval Institute seminar in September 1995, as Operation deliberate Force air strikes were being carried out against Bosnian Serb positions, "aircraft carriers work pretty well in this new regime. We need airplanes, so I think we'll keep the carriers. . . . We will not only keep the carriers, we'll buy three more. Aircraft carriers are a big part of our Navy today and part of the future."
Presence . . . It's Everything! The Bottom-Up Review identified the need for 12 carriers—actually 11 active carriers and one "operational/training reserve" carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), which will continue to be available for "limited" deployments. Actual warfighting requirements for the "two-MRC” strategy resulted in ten large-deck carriers. What drove the additional two carriers for the "11+1" force structure was the number needed to meet peacetime forward-presence and crisis response missions as well as to support air crew training requirements. "Forward presence demonstrates U.S. commitment, strengthens deterrence, and facilitates transition from peace to war," General Binford Peay, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command, remarked in February 1995. "Because of their limited footprint, strategic agility, calculated ambiguity of intent, and major strategic and operational deterrent capability," Peay recognized, "naval forces are invaluable . . . the carrier battle group, in particular, has been an unmistakable sign of U.S. commitment and resolve in the Central Region."
In the months before his death, Admiral Boorda had taken to respond with "12" when asked about carrier force requirements, and in early 1996 there were indications that the “operational/reserve” Kennedy will continue to deploy in a standard pattern along with all other "active” carriers. So 12 it is. And yet, internal Navy analyses completed during 1995 indicated that the “minimum essential force” is 13 active carriers, while Admiral Boorda stated several times. “I wish we had 15. The idea that we were going to gap carriers in deployment areas doesn’t work. We can share carriers between theaters, but zero is never the right answer.” When the Joint Chiefs of Staff a few years ago adopted a "tether" concept that allowed gaps in carrier coverage of key area such as the Arabian Gulf, the combatant commanders continued to demand 100% coverage in their respective areas of responsibility, leading Admiral Boorda last fall to conclude that "We better not have gaps. We’re doing heel-to-toe with scheduling, and it makes good sense. We can manage it with 12 carriers, but not any less.”
The USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74). commissioned on 9 December 1995. replaces the USS America (CV-66), which in February 1996 returned from her last deployment to the Mediterranean. The eighth Nimitz (CVN-68)-class nuclear- propelled carrier, the Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), will join the Fleet in fiscal year 1998, to relieve the USS Independence (CV-62). A ninth Nimitz-class ship, the Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), was approved by Congress in fiscal year 1996 and will deliver in 2002 to replace the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63). At that time, only two conventionally propelled carriers, the USS Constellation (CV-64) and John F. Kennedy, will be in the fleet. The USS Nimitz (CVN-68) will undergo a $2- billion-plus complex overhaul and nuclear plant refueling in fiscal years 1998-2000, to be followed in heel-to-toe fashion by remaining nuclear-powered carriers. The first nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), completed her refueling and overhaul in fiscal year 1995 and it is scheduled to stay in the active force until 2013.
Project CVX . . . Finally! The Director, Air Warfare (N88) in late 1993 undertook a review of the range of possibilities for future tactical aviation-capable ships and other sea-basing concepts. The result was a proposal for a Future Carrier (CVX ) Program that will examine how to build technologically superior and still affordable “sea bases” for tactical aviation. As Rear Admiral Harry Rit- tenour, head. Aircraft Carrier and Air Station Programs Branch (N885), recognized, “we’re designing a potentially revolutionary class of aviation warships, the last units of which might still be around at the turn of the next century! We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
The Navy will expand upon the limited R&D studies that began in fiscal year 1995—the first substantive carrier R&D work conducted in more than 30 years—starting in fiscal year 1997, which will address requirements, technologies and systems, designs, and costs for both evolutionary and revolutionary approaches to future sea-based air platforms. This larger, six-year effort will result in a firm CVX design by fiscal year 2004; construction will begin in fiscal 2006 for a fiscal year 2013 delivery to replace the USS Enterprise. (The administration requested $12.7 million in fiscal 1997, which the Congress frankly assessed as “insufficient”: the House added $23 million to the Navy’s request and the Senate Armed Services Committee recommended increasing the fiscal 1997 CVX R&D effort by $52 million.) The CVX design effort could even include 3,000- foot Mobile Offshore Basing Systems (MOBS). While not an aircraft carrier in the traditional sense, and more supportive of a logistics/sealift function, a mission need statement for such a concept was signed in fall 1995. Then, in late March 1996, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminski directed the Navy to “address the Mobile Offshore Base as part of the mix of sea-based platforms.” The Office of Naval Research in April announced a call for research proposals, which Major General Carol Mutter, head of the Marine Corps Systems Command, commented could involve “a family of bases.”
By itself, the JAST program should have far-reaching benefits for naval aviation in general and carrier aviation specifically. It will increase the effectiveness of future carrier air wings, no matter whether it operates from existing carriers, or from a ship of the new CVX class, or a mobile offshore base. Existing carriers that will be in service after 2010, and those that will joint the fleet between now and then, will readily adapt to support the joint strike fighter (JSF), and the new aircraft should integrate easily into existing air wings. But the shipboard alterations and procedural modifications needed to do this essentially represent changes at the margin of carriers and carrier aviation. Only with the blank sheet of the CVX design does the Navy have the opportunity to let aircraft capabilities drive carrier design, with all the operational benefits that entails.
As part of its R&D effort, the CVX Program team will examine ski-jump concepts as well as a ski-jump/catapult combination. A straight ski-jump flight deck would be optimized for launching short take-off/vertical landing aircraft. At least initially, this would not seem to benefit the Navy variant, which most likely will be launched from some type of catapult.
In conjunction with its study of ski jumps, the CVX Program also will examine the feasibility of replacing steam catapults now in the fleet with an electromagnetic aircraft launch system. Adopting the new catapult does not raise any major integration questions per se (aircraft tow-link attachments would be modified only slightly from what is in use today), but it does show how ship and aircraft technology that are advancing in tandem can benefit the entire carrier/air wing “system.” In the case of catapults, doing away with steam as a motive force permits the Navy to eliminate a costly, labor intensive, and energy-inefficient system. The new system also may allow smoother acceleration on catapult shots, which in turn would decrease the wear on airframes. Moreover, without steam catapults, the CVX’s overall steam requirement may be vastly reduced, allowing the Navy a wider range of options for the propulsion of the new class of ships.
Manpower reduction is another focus of the CVX R&D effort. Current carrier classes have complements of 5,000-plus people—roughly 3,000 in ship’s company and another 2,000 in the air wing. Each crew and air wing billet comes with a price in tonnage and internal space: two tons of support and 500 cubic feet of volume. Moreover, manpower represents approximately 25 percent of life-cycle costs for carriers and their air wings, hence the search for significant decrease in their size.
There are several ways to approach this challenge. New aircraft such as the F/A-18E/F and the JSF should in theory require less maintenance than the older aircraft they replace, in turn reducing the number of personnel required to support them. But these reductions by themselves may be marginal at best. Removing some shipboard “overhead” functions (e.g., personnel and disbursing) and placing them partially or completely ashore may offer a greater payoff, since many of these not only increase the size of the ship’s company, but also require air wing squadrons to provide supplementary personnel as well. The CVX Program will examine the feasibility of “virtual organizations” in these and other areas, where members—some on board the ship and some ashore—are tied together by advanced command-and-control, communications, and computer links.
The project team will also evaluate how technology might impact manning in several “core” areas of carrier operations. For instance, advances in display, internal communications, data processing, and sensors may decrease the number of people needed to manage flight operations. Automating weapon selection, movement to aircraft, and aircraft arming offers another potential opportunity to increase the efficiency of flight operations and aircraft turnaround while still using fewer people. To make such a procedure work, however, the interface among ship equipment, aircraft configuration, and weapons size and support requirements will have to be designed and engineered carefully. Applying common systems and equipment wherever possible will hold down CVX development and life-cycle costs, improve “interoperability” across the fleet, and streamline the Navy’s logistics system. This could also mean that in some ways the CVX design and the technologies it incorporates will differ, perhaps significantly, from that of previous carriers.
Part II of “Tomorrow’s Fleet” will re- view surface, amphibious/expeditionary. mine, and sealift programs.
Dr. Truver is Executive Director, Center for Security Strategies and Operations, TECHMATICS, Inc., Fairfax, Virginia. He thanks Edward Feege and David Nelson, of the Center's Naval & Maritime Programs Staff, for their research assistance and Thomas Malloy for his graphics support. All judgments are the responsibility of the author alone.