US Navy ships and weapon systems

SeaRAM is a 11-shot magazine. If double or triple-tapping to ensure a missile-kill, it is good for 3-5 incomings. If there is a 6 inbound, there might be problem. Also, SeaRAM is a modified sidewinder (which originally was intended for larger and slower-to-respond fighter plane). At mach 2+ speed, it is same or slower than the latest supersonic ASCM (such as Klub, Brahmos, or YJ-18) with manoeuvrable terminal phase. Can a '180-lb defensive back' running full speed and head-on at a bobbing and charging '250-lb running back' and trying to stop it? I don't see many tackles made that way (head on, full speed, and 1-on-1)

SeaRAM is a rotating missile like a bullet out of rifle. That mean there is added rotational inertia it must overcome if it wants to keep up with a weave-and-bob incoming.

The Sidewinder was originally designed to zoom up the exhaust port of a larger, and less manoeuvrable target going, more or less, in the same direction (that means, the net closing speed is the missile speed itself ~mach 2). Here we are talking about a combine closing speed of Mach 4-5 against a much smaller (and presumably harder jinking) target.

btw, I just wiki 'sidewinder missile', and look at its kill ratio,

"The Sidewinder is the most widely used missile in the West, with more than 110,000 missiles produced for the U.S. and 27 other nations, of which perhaps one percent have been used in combat. It has been built under license by some other nations including Sweden. The AIM-9 is one of the oldest, least expensive, and most successful air-to-air missiles, with an estimated 270 aircraft kills in its history of use. "

That means 1100 missiles fired for 270 kills. A 4:1 kill ratio. That means, of the SeaRAM's 11-shot magazine, it can statistically kill 2-3 attacking fighters from rear end...this looks worse and worse as I type. I think the Navy owes taxpayer a real scenario of shooting 2 inbounding supersonic target drones, and see if 11 missiles can knock down 2.

"Two U.S. Navy warplanes collided off the North Carolina coast on Thursday and crashed in the Atlantic, where the four crew were rescued by a commercial fishing boat and flown by helicopter to a Virginia hospital, the Coast Guard said.

The two F/A-18 fighter jets belonged to strike fighter squadron VFA-211, based at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, officials said. The crew members appeared to be in good condition, MSNBC reported, adding that one person had a leg injury.

"We had three Coast Guard helicopters, one Coast Guard C-130, naval vessel Mesa Verde, all involved in the rescue effort," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.

The fishing boat Tammy recovered some of the crew about 25 miles (40 km) east of Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, the Coast Guard said.

A Coast Guard helicopter from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, flew to the fishing vessel, hoisted the Navy fliers aboard and took them to Norfolk Sentara General hospital, the Coast Guard said.

Local TV images showed a second U.S. Coast Guard helicopter arriving at the local hospital in Norfolk, Virginia. Two service members wearing olive green jumpsuits and white helmets were seen walking without assistance toward the hospital alongside medical staff. (Reporting by Idrees Ali, David Alexander, Suzannah Gonzales, Letitia Stein, Susan Heavey and Megan Cassella; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Alan Crosby)"

Source: http://wncy.com/news/articles/2016/may/26/us-coast-guard-seeks-downed-military-planes-near-north-carolina-coast/

"The U.S. Marine Corps’ newest helicopter, the CH-53K, completed its first external load flight test carrying a 20,000 lb. load May 26 at Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation’s Development Flight Center in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Envelope expansion tests will continue with incrementally increasing speeds with the 20,000 load, and then on to the CH-53K’s requirement, a 27,000-lb. external payload.

The first two CH-53K heavy lift helicopters achieved their first flights on October 27, 2015, and January 22, 2016, respectively. To date these helicopters have achieved over 50 flight hours combined including one flight at speeds over 140 knots. The third and fourth King Stallion aircraft will join the flight test program this summer.



As the King Stallion flight test program proceeds, both of the current flying aircraft will be exercised to expand the external load envelope. Initial external payloads weighing 12,000 pounds will be flown first in hover and then incrementally to speeds up to 120 knots. The aircraft will then carry 20,000 and 27,000 pound external payloads.

The CH-53K King Stallion is a large, heavy-lift cargo helicopter currently being developed by Sikorsky Aircraft for the United States Marine Corps (USMC). The design features three 7,500 shp(5,590 kW) engines, new composite rotor blades, and a wider aircraft cabin than previous CH-53 variants. It will be the largest and heaviest helicopter in the U.S. military."

Source: http://defence-blog.com/news/ch-53k-heavy-lift-helicopters-completes-first-20k-lift.html

New U.S. Navy Transport Osprey Will Reach an Insane 280 Miles Per Hour

The Navy is in the early stages of building its own variant of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to perform its critical Carrier-Onboard-Delivery mission to delivery forces, supplies and weapons to forward-stationed ships at sea.

The service plans to procure 44 new CMV-22B Ospreys for the COD mission, replacing the 1960’s era C-2 Greyhound aircraft.

Unlike the C-2 fixed wing aircraft, which requires a catapult to lift off of the deck of a carrier, the Osprey tiltrotor can both reach airplane speeds of 220mph and also hover like a helicopter such that it can come in for vertical landings on the carrier deck.

“280mph is the maximum speed,” Rick Lemaster, Director for Business Development, Bell Boeing, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

The Navy has contracted Bell-Boeing to develop the engineering changes needed to meet this range requirement, as well as the other changes, to enable the CMV-22B to fulfill Navy's COD mission.

Hahahahaha... and when those transport aircraft are moving at 280mph what will be supporting them and giving them top cover?

AH-64s will be too slow and F-35 will burn a lot of fuel flying at such low speed...

GarryB wrote:Hahahahaha... and when those transport aircraft are moving at 280mph what will be supporting them and giving them top cover?

AH-64s will be too slow and F-35 will burn a lot of fuel flying at such low speed...

Well normally over sea they would fly from supply ships to forward deployed forces so they will rarely require aerial support, most likely would fly most of the time under own shipborne air defences, and when they would it would be given from high altitude on aircrafts "normal" speeds, they would fly circles over transport routes.

U.S. Navy's New Lethal Torpedo Is Almost Ready


The U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin are restarting production of the latest version of the Mk-48 heavyweight torpedo. The new Mod 7 version— which is being upgraded under the Common Broadband Advanced Sonar System (CBASS) program—will help the Navy’s attack boats take on the threat from advanced Russian and Chinese-built ships and submarines.

“The latest guidance and control technologies for Mk-48 torpedo are thanks in part to Lockheed Martin’s $10 million investment in manufacturing efficiencies, facilities, and laboratories to ensure navies can pace the threats in littoral and deep sea environments,” said Tom Jarbeau, Lockheed Martin Mk-48 program director. “We are building on our five decades of experience in undersea systems and our strong record of providing complex electronic systems to our customers on schedule and on budget.”

Lockheed Martin developed the new version of the Mk-48 under a five-year $425 million contract that was awarded in 2011. While the Mod 7 upgrade will be applied to new torpedoes, it can also be used to upgrade older weapons to the new standard. Under the terms of the contract, Lockheed Martin will deliver 20 Mod 7 CBASS kits to the Navy per month. The company expects that it could sell as many as 250 torpedoes to the Navy over the next five years.

Compared to older versions of the venerable Mk-48, the new modular Mod 7 variant increases sonar bandwidth. It can transmit and receive pings over a wider frequency band and it takes advantage of broadband signal processing techniques to greatly improve the weapon’s search, acquisition and attack effectiveness. The new weapon is also much more resistant to advanced enemy counter-measures. Perhaps most significantly, the Mod 7 uses modern open-architecture computers, which means it will be easier to integrate new hardware and software upgrades.

The new upgrades will keep the venerable 21-inch diameter, 3500lbs weapon—which incorporates a 650lbs warhead—relevant well into the future. The original version of the weapon was designed during the 1960s and entered service in 1971 with the U.S. Navy. Over the years the Mk-48 has been upgraded many times and remains the principal anti-ship and anti-submarine weapon onboard American submarines—and indeed many allied navies. Versions of the Mk-48 are in service with the Canadian, Australian, Dutch and Brazilian fleets.

The Mk-48 will remain the U.S. submarine fleet’s primary weapon for the foreseeable future.

Well normally over sea they would fly from supply ships to forward deployed forces so they will rarely require aerial support...

So landing troops in forward areas don't require attack helo support... are they really that fast?

Submarine Launched Blackwing Drone to Enable Strikes in Denied, Contested Environment




The U.S. Navy plans to deploy unmanned aerial systems (UAS) on board submarines, to provide covert intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and target acquisition to support special operations and full-scale warfare, on sub-surface and surface operations. According to the Navy’s plans, attack and guided missile submarine will be equipped with a miniature UAS known as ‘Blackwing,’ produced by Aerovironment Inc. The Navy plans to buy 150 such systems. The company introduced the new unmanned vehicle at the Sea Air Space event in Washington DC.

Typical operation will see the Blacking deployed in the vicinity of targets in contested or denied airspace, where activities of other manned or unmanned platforms would be too risky. From its forward position, the Blackwing will provide target acquisition and battle damage assessment, in support of strikes performed from stand-off range.

Blackwing is believed to be a derivative of Aerovironment’s Switchblade Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile System (LMAMS), redesigned to fit the submarine’s 3” torpedo decoy launcher. It was developed under the Navy’s Advanced Weapons Enhanced by Submarine UAS against Mobile targets (AWESUM) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) launched in 2013. During the demonstration phase (2013-2015) the AWESUM “demonstrates submarine launch, data sharing and control across naval, special operations and air-force units,” the Navy announcement. This JCTD ended in September 2015 with a strong recommendation to transition the capability into the fleet.

The Navy also plans to evolve the submarine-launched drone concept with larger vehicles, launched through 21” torpedo tubes. In 2013, the Navy Research Lab (NRL) demonstrated a submerged launch of the Sea Robin UAV, from a modified Tomahawk cruise missile canister.

According to Aerovironment, The Blackwing drone is not limited to a submarine platform, and can also be integrated with and deployed from a variety of surface vessels and mobile ground vehicles to provide rapid response reconnaissance capabilities.

GarryB wrote:

Well normally over sea they would fly from supply ships to forward deployed forces so they will rarely require aerial support...

So landing troops in forward areas don't require attack helo support... are they really that fast?  

Flying from supply ship to landing ships near shore, those would provide further payload deployment and support, they wouldnt fly supply missions ashore with these probably unless its safe. But where their speed would count, above sea they will be safe most of the time.

Delays with the F-35 program has forced the U.S. Marine Corps to bring 30 legacy Hornets out from the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) facility at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to cover shortfalls, Jane’s reported.

Noticed a strange design feature on this LCS compared to a 'normal' bridge as per the destroyer behind it. Although it has an angled bridge there are no side looking bridge windows. They have to open the door.

An article from last month with a US view on the Chinese DF-21D and forthcoming DF-26 anti ship missiles. The article seems balanced but the comments are..........well it is a US site.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/chinas-df-26-anti-ship-ballistic-missile-what-does-the-16260


Also a 'journalists' view on the top 5 attack submarines of the Cold War, one from each of US/UK/Germany and two from Russia. Only 13 comments with what seems to be a Russian poster standing his ground.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-five-best-submarines-the-cold-war-10314

JohninMK wrote:An article from last month with a US view on the Chinese DF-21D and forthcoming DF-26 anti ship missiles. The article seems balanced but the comments are..........well it is a US site.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/chinas-df-26-anti-ship-ballistic-missile-what-does-the-16260


Also a 'journalists' view on the top 5 attack submarines of the Cold War, one from each of US/UK/Germany and two from Russia. Only 13 comments with what seems to be a Russian poster standing his ground.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-five-best-submarines-the-cold-war-10314

The National Interest magazine seriously--most of its publications are wet dreams of "professionals" from political pseudo-science and technophile amateurs who love those big guns and sexy planes. But once in a while even TNI publishes a  good piece.

Navy helicopter crashes in river

An MH-60S helicopter crashed in the James River in Virginia during a training mission Tuesday but all crew members were rescued, the Navy said.

The three crew members were taken to Naval Medical Center Portsmouth with non-life threatening injuries, the Navy said in a press release, while adding that the helicopter was based at Norfolk Navy Station Chambers Field.

The Navy announced an investigation to look into Tuesday's incident in Virginia to determine its cause.

LCS Survives First Shock Test, Preps For More


The new littoral combat ship (LCS) Jackson was showered by spray and shaken by a large explosion June 10 as she endured the first of a series of controlled tests intended to prove the design’s ability to withstand and survive combat and damage.

A 10,000-pound explosive charge was set off about a hundred yards from the Jackson – the Navy wouldn’t say exactly how close, saying the actual distance is classified – in waters off Florida’s Atlantic coast.

So was there any damage?

“Nothing unexpected,” said Capt. Thurraya Kent, a spokesperson for the Navy’s acquisition directorate. She acknowledged that minor damage was expected, such as items falling to the deck or glass cracking, and some components could be stressed.

Other sources indicated that initial results show the ship withstood the explosion better than expected, although evaluations continue.

About 260 instruments are placed throughout the ship to measure various aspects of the blast, which strikes above and below the water. After the test, the Jackson returned to the Mayport Naval Station where engineers downloaded instrument data, examined the ship and made necessary repairs, Kent said.

Another test is scheduled to take place around June 22, she said. A third and final shot planned for July 8. Each test will use the same 10,000-pound explosives charge, but the ship will be moved progressively closer to the explosion.

The test schedule, Kent noted, is volatile, subject to weather conditions, traffic in the vicinity of the blast and marine fish and mammal activity. The first test, she noted, was delayed several days by weather.

The ship’s crew of about 50 and a number of engineers and observers – many from the Pentagon’s Office of Test and Evaluation (OT&E) -- were on board during the test. Kent added that a veterinarian was included “to assess sea mammal’s safety and security.”

“We take the safety and security of marine mammals seriously,” Kent added. “We have to keep in mind migration patterns in addition to the other variable of sea state and weather. We also have additional lookout, more than you would normally have when you’re out to sea. We do not conduct test shots if a marine mammal is in the proximity.”

Full Scale Shock Trials (FSST) are performed on most new US Navy ship designs, although Congress – at the urging of Pentagon OT&E director Michael Gilmore – actually wrote into law a requirement for the LCS tests. Thus, the tests are coming earlier in the LCS production line than originally planned.

Gilmore himself is expected to be aboard for the third test shot on Jackson.

The last time the Navy conducted FSSTs was in 2008 with Mesa Verde, the third ship of the San Antonio-class of amphibious transport docks.

Kent noted that a great deal of testing already has been accomplished on individual components built into the ships.

“Individual equipment shock trials, modelling and testing and other surrogate testing already have been done. They give you an idea of what to expect,” she said.

“Shock trials become the validation of those tests and demonstrate the ship’s ability to withstand an explosion. Shock trials are actually the culmination of all the trials that have been done to date.”

With two different LCS designs in production, there will be two series of shock trials. Jackson represents the Independence LCS 2 class, while the Milwaukee will test the Freedom LCS 1 design.

The Milwaukee recently completed a maintenance period and is also operating from Mayport. Her first test shot is scheduled for Aug. 9 and the last on Sept. 13. The ship recently completed a firing exercise using her 57mm gun.

The full series of LCS shock trials will cost about $65 million, Kent said, using research, development, testing and evaluation funding.

In the Pacific, meanwhile, the Freedom and another Independence-class ship, the Coronado, are preparing to take part in Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises that begin in late June.

The Coronado completed the initial operational testing and evaluation of the SeaRAM Rolling Airframe Missile weapon system for its class on June 2, and is expected to leave San Diego for Hawaii June 22, fitted with launch canisters for the Harpoon missile, the first installation of a new over-the-horizon (OTH) capability developed by the Navy.

After taking part in RIMPAC, the Coronado will continue to Singapore to begin the first deployment of an LCS 2-class ship. She’s expected to operate in the region up to 18 months or more.

The Freedom will not travel to Pearl Harbor, but rather will take part in a Southern California series of RIMPAC exercises with five other ships. This fall, she will be fitted with launchers for the Raytheon/Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile, a Norwegian weapon that is being considered, along with Harpoon, as the OTH weapon for LCSs and the follow-on LCS frigate.

And in Singapore, engineers are working to restore as much of the Fort Worth’s engineering capability as possible before the ship leaves for San Diego.

The Fort Worth’s power plant was severely damaged Jan. 12 in a pier side accident at Singapore’s Changi naval base, in which the ship’s engines were mistakenly engaged and the combining gear, a complex piece of equipment that allows the ship’s two gas turbines and two main propulsion diesel engines to be cross-connected to propulsion shafts, was wrecked.

In a combined diesel and gas turbine plant, ships routinely travel on economical diesel engines, bringing on the less-efficient gas turbines for high speeds. Travelling long distances on gas turbines alone is inefficient, potentially damaging to the plant, and requires frequent refueling. Nevertheless, the Navy decided in April the ship would return to San Diego for full repairs, even if she could only use her turbines. At that time, it was hoped the Fort Worth could leave Singapore as early as June.

But, according to several sources, engineers now believe they’re able to get at least one of the diesels on line for the passage, using a combination of software reconfiguration and partial mechanical repairs. Some are reportedly hopeful both diesels can be used.

A test configuration already has been successfully evaluated aboard the Fort Worth’s sister ship Freedom.

Reconfiguring the engineering plant, however, will add to the time needed to prepare the Fort Worth for the long trans-Pacific voyage. Combined with the need to provide an escorting oiler – many of which will be engaged in RIMPAC – it’s now likely the Fort Worth won’t leave Singapore at least until sometime in August. That raises the possibility that the Coronado could arrive at Changi before Fort Worth leaves.

U.S. Navy’s AMDR Radar Arrives At Pacific Missile Range

The U.S. Navy installed a new AN/SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) in its Advanced Radar Development Evaluation Laboratory (Ardel) at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) off Hawaii.

The Navy's Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) is a next-generation radar system designed to provide ballistic missile defense, air defense, and surface warfare capabilities. AMDR will initially support DDG 51 Flight III. The AMDR suite consists of an S-band radar (AMDR-S) for ballistic missile and air defense, X-band radar, and a Radar Suite Controller (RSC). AMDR-S is a new development Integrated Air and Missile Defense radar providing sensitivity for long range detection and engagement of advanced threats. The X-band radar is a horizon-search radar based on existing technology. The RSC provides S and X band radar resource management, coordination, and interface to the combat system. The Navy expects AMDR to provide a scalable radar architecture that can be used to defeat advanced threats.

The Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) was initially developed to support Theater Air and Missile Defense requirements as part of a next generation cruiser, CG(X), radar suite.

The AMDR will provide multi-mission capabilities, supporting both long range, exoatmospheric detection, tracking and discrimination of ballistic missiles, as well as Area and Self Defense against air and surface threats. For the BMD capability, increased radar sensitivity and bandwidth over the current SPY-1 system is needed to detect, track and support engagements of advanced ballistic missile threats at the required ranges.

For the Area Air Defense and Self Defense capability, increased sensitivity and clutter rejection capability is needed to detect, react to, and engage stressing Very Low Observable / Very Low Flyer (VLO/VLF) threats in the presence of heavy land, sea, and rain clutter. This effort provides for the development of an active phased array radar with the required capabilities to pace the evolving threat. Modularity of hardware and software, a designed in growth path for technology insertion, and Open Architecture (OA) Compliance are required for performance and technology enhancements throughout service life.

AMDR provides greater detection ranges and increased discrimination accuracy compared to the AN/SPY-1D(V) radar onboard today’s destroyers. The system is built with individual ‘building blocks’ called Radar Modular Assemblies. Each RMA is a self-contained radar transmitter and receiver in a 2’x2’x2’ box. These RMAs stack together to fit the required array size of any ship, making AMDR the Navy’s first truly scalable radar.

This advanced radar comprises:

S-band radar – a new, integrated air and missile defense radar
X-band radar – a horizon-search radar based on existing technology
The Radar Suite Controller (RSC) – a new component to manage radar resources and integrate with the ship’s combat management system
AMDR Advantages

1)Scalable to suit any size aperture or mission requirement
2)Over 30 times more sensitive than AN/SPY-1D(V)
3)Can simultaneously handle over 30 times the targets than AN/SPY-1D(V) to counter large and complex raids
4)Adaptive digital beamforming and radar signal/data processing functionality is reprogrammable to adapt to new missions or emerging threats.


AMDR’s performance and reliability are a direct result of more than 10 years of investment in core technologies, leveraging development, testing and production of high-powered Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductors, distributed receiver exciters, and adaptive digital beamforming. AMDR’s GaN components cost 34% less than Gallium Arsenide alternatives, deliver higher power density and efficiency, and have demonstrated meantime between failures at an impressive 100 million hours.

.AMDR has a fully programmable, back-end radar controller built out of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) x86 processors. This programmability allows the system to adapt to emerging threats. The commercial nature of the x86 processors simplifies obsolescence replacement – as opposed to costly technical refresh/upgrades and associated downtime – savings that lower radar sustainment costs over each ship’s service life. AMDR has an extremely high predicted operational availability due to the reliable GaN transmit/receive modules, the low mean-time-to-repair rate, and a very low number of Line Replaceable Units. Designed for maintainability, standard LRU replacement in the RMA can be accomplished in under six minutes – requiring only two tools.

Inefficiencies in radar transmitters lead to large prime power and cooling requirements for radars. The resulting RADAR prime power and cooling needs have a significant impact on radar weight, deckhouse volume, and cost and in turn can drive platform design. These problems are exacerbated for Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) applications requiring long pulse lengths. Power amplifier (PA) inefficiencies are the driving factor for transmitter inefficiencies and improvements in power amplifier efficiency will provide significant Radar and platform benefits.

Plans for the Air and Missile Defense Radar are to leverage research and development investments, integrate sufficiently matured fundamental advanced technologies from technology risk reduction efforts and allies, and incorporate Open Architecture approaches to develop a scalable radar design with major improvements in power, sensitivity, resistance to natural and man-made environments over curren radar systems for multi-mission TAMD (BMD and Area AAW). System design will be accomplished using proven advanced technologies and commercial standards to lower schedule risk and develop a product with the lowest life-cycle cost.

The total quantity of systems to sustain is 22. Each system includes four fully populated AMDR-S array faces and a Radar Suite Controller (RSC). Each system will have an operational life of 40 years. The O&S Time Horizon is 50 years (FY 2021 – FY 2070). The antecedent system is AN/SPY-1D(V). AN/SPY-1D(V) has fielded 32 systems, each with a planned service life of 35 years. The planned sustainment strategy for AMDR includes post-delivery routine software maintenance, software updates every two years to address new threats and other emergent capability requirements, Commercial Off The Shelf processing equipment upgrades on an 8-year cycle, and a two-level maintenance philosophy (Organization and Depot).


Does Russian Navy operate such S and X band Radars on their ships ?

Navy to Begin Building Longer-Range V-22 Osprey Aircraft

The Navy is in the early stages of building its own variant of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to perform its critical carrier on-board delivery, or COD, mission to move forces, supplies and weapons to forward-stationed ships at sea.

The service plans to procure 44 new CMV-22B Ospreys for the COD mission, replacing the Cold War-era C-2 Greyhound aircraft. The Greyhound is a twin-engine, high-wing cargo aircraft introduced in the 1960s. Since that time, 35 C-2s have been in the naval inventory, officials said.

Unlike the C-2 fixed wing aircraft, which requires a catapult to lift off of the deck of a carrier, the Osprey tiltrotor can both reach airplane speeds of 220 mph and also hover like a helicopter such that it can come in for vertical landings on the carrier deck.

US Navy to begin Testing Powerful 150-Kilowatt Laser Weapon System Soon


US Navy had developed a 30-kilowatt laser and mounted it on the USS Ponce, which was stationed in the Persian Gulf at the time. The laser was part of the US Navy's new Laser Weapon System (LaWS) program, and with a videogame-like controller it had been successfully tested.

In this video, the laser will engage and destroy multiple targets including a drone in mid-air.



The Navy is going to go bigger, much bigger.The US Navy will now be performing tests of a 150-kilowatt laser, in an effort to upgrade capability and eventually to become part of every service platform.

Very limited horizon, maybe 5 miles to 10 miles. Looks like short burst, has to repower. How would it do on 3 inbound missles at 700 mph ? probably badly. Expensive gadget in the budget because of someone at Darpa has a friend in a Lazer company.

Senior US Navy Official: Navy Plans to Ask for Fleet Size Increase by 2020    


The Navy will  ask Pentagon and Congressional leaders to support a significant increase in the size of its fleet as a way to meet fast-emerging threats and changing demands, senior service officials told Scout Warrior.

Navy officials explain that a formal analysis would be needed prior to any formal request to increase its overall fleet size above and beyond the current plan to reach 308 ships by the end of the decade.

“In order to be good stewards of taxpayer funds, we need want to make sure that when we go over to the Hill (Congress) to have those conversations – we need to have that analysis that shows that we need more.  That is what we are going to do within the next year,” a Navy official told Scout Warrior.

Senior Navy leaders, including the service's Pacific Commander and many others have consistently said the number of ships, submarines, aircraft carriers and amphibs is massively insufficient to meet the current demands of combatant commanders around the globe.

Earlier this year, Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, told lawmakers the service was beginning a formal study designed to examine the possibility of increasing the size of the fleet in order to address a fast-changing threat environment.

While Richardson did not indicate what results the analysis might yield, he did say the service may very well need a new force structure alignment. A Navy official familiar with the effort said the new assessment will likely be reflected in the 2018 defense bill budget submission expected early next year.

“I've directed that we open -- recommission -- we restart a study. We take a look at -- you know, what are the current warfighting demands -- the current demands -- the missions that we are tasked to achieve, take into account the updated threat environment and look forward to delivering that new force structure assessment,” Richardson told lawmakers.

The Reagan-Era Navy

During the Regan years, the Navy grew to more than 500 ships, nearly double the services’ current fleet size which is approximately 285 ships.

A close look at the Navy’s shipbuilding plan shows the service will decommission more ships in the next five years than it will commission. This is happening, in part, because some of the many ships added during the Reagan build-up, such as the Los Angeles-class submarines and Aegis cruisers, are now beginning to retire, analysts have said.

Many lawmakers and analysts have consistently called for a signifcantly larger Navy, citing the Cold War naval posture. However, proponents of a smaller Navy have made the point that today's ships are far more capable and technologically advanced compared to those of decades ago, precluding the need to match the Reagan-era in terms of sheer size. Nonetheless, service officials do say the current threat environment is such that the service will likely seek an increase above the current plan to hit 308 ships.

The Navy’s long-term fleet plan, articulated in the most recent 2016 Navy 30-Year Shipbuilding plan, calls for the service to have 309 ships by 2022 to include: 12 Aircraft Carriers, 97 Large Surface Combatants, 37 Small Surface Combatants, 48 Attack Submarines, 4 Ohio Missile Submarines, 14 Ballistic Missile Submarines, 34 Amphibious Assault Ships, 29 Logistics Force Ships and 34 Support Vessels – bringing the total to 309.

Part of the challenge for the Navy is that the services’ attack submarine fleet will drop from 53 in 2016 down to 41 by 2029. This is one reason, among many, that the service may soon request that it be allowed to increase production of Virginia-Class attack submarines in coming years.

Another problem with the current ship-building trajectory is that, while the service plans to have 97 Large Surface Combatants in 2022 – the number drops all the way down to 82 by 2045, according to the shipbuilding plan.

In 2010, an independent panel of experts examined the 2009 Quadrennial Defense Review and told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, given the range of anticipated threats, a 346-ship Navy was their recommendation.

“We think the challenge is going to get greater, and we don’t see how you can meet a greater challenge with a diminishing number of ships,” Steven Hadley, co-chair of the QDR review independent panel, told the committee in 2010.

These challenged cited in 2010 have indeed continued to get greater as Navy combatant Commanders consistently report an inability to meet request due to a limited amount of assets.

For instance, Navy and Marine Corps officials explain that the greater use of amphibious assault ships is likely as the Marine Corps continues to shift toward more sea-based operations from its land-based focus during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With this trend as part of the equation, Navy and Marine Corps leaders are quick to acknowledge that there is a massive shortfall of Amphibious Assault Ships across the two services. Service leaders have said that if each requirement or request for amphibs from Combatant Commanders worldwide were met, the Navy would need 50 amphibs.

Congress Buys the Navy a $400 Million Pork Ship


In the nearly eight years since the first Littoral Combat Ship was delivered to the Navy, it hasn’t won many ardent fans beyond the Navy, its home-state lawmakers or the employees of the two shipbuilders producing dueling models. The ships’ maiden voyages have been marked by cracked hulls, engine failures, unexpected rusting, software snafus, weapons glitches and persistent criticism of how vulnerable they are to an attack.

“The ship is not reliable,” the Pentagon’s operational test and evaluation director said in a report released in January, only the most recent such judgment it has made. During 113 days of testing on one ship last year, some of the engines and water jets responsible for propelling the ship forward were out of commission for 45 days.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter expressed his concern last December by ordering the overall number of new ships trimmed from 52 to 40, saving billions of dollars. The department's leaders also ordered production scaled back from three to two ships in 2017 and said all the work should eventually go to just one of the two shipyards.

But lawmakers on Capitol Hill—provoked or perhaps inspired by a steady stream of contractor donations and unusually determined Navy lobbying—are now on the verge of ordering the Pentagon to build more than Carter wanted.

A defense appropriations bill moving toward Senate approval in coming days or weeks directs that $475 million be spent by the Navy to procure an extra Littoral Combat Ship next year. The House of Representatives has already passed legislation ordering that $384 million be spent on the extra ship. So it’s virtually certain to happen, a prospect that cheers the Navy greatly but has evoked dismay among the ships’ many critics.

The extra spending is a direct repudiation of the secretary of defense, putting the Navy back on track with its original three-ship production schedule for 2017—and pushing the decision about the fate and total size of the LCS fleet off to the next president. (end of excerpt).

Navy Fleets Unable To Fix $500M Ship Maintenance Shortfall On Their Own


The Navy fleets have a $500-million ship maintenance budget shortfall leftover from last year that they cannot pay for on their own. Any existing budget slack is already stretched too tight – meaning that $500-million shortfall will likely be pushed into the next year, U.S. Fleet Forces Command officials told USNI News.

The Pentagon budgeting process forces Navy leaders to predict their spending needs two years out – and a lot can change in two years. Previously, though, there was enough margin in U.S. Fleet Forces’ other accounts – ship operations, air operations and combat operations – to help cover unexpected cost increases in the ship maintenance account. Now, USFF executive director and chief of staff Mark Honecker said, there is little to no slack in the fleet’s budget – so the combined $500-million shortfall in ship maintenance funding U.S. Fleet Forces Command and U.S. Pacific Fleet faced at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2016 has barely shrunk, forcing the two organizations to search higher up the chain of command for money or continue the cycle of postponing maintenance work.

“What’s happened this year that made it a little more challenging is, we’ve gotten much better at pricing out our flying hours account, models have gotten better on the ship ops account, and so those margins that we had, they’re gone,” he said. “And so in previous years we would have been able to address these shortfalls and not defer these (maintenance) availabilities within our own account, but this year’s been a little bit different because we got better at models and then we also took a couple-hundred-million-dollar hit in our flying hour account. So those margins are gone now to solve our own problems.”

“Each year we do have a shortfall, each year we do manage the shortfall,” he continued, but “as budgets get tighter and margins go away, we’re unable to do that just within the fleet accounts, and we have to raise it up a few levels and see where we get resources elsewhere. But even Navy overall, there’s very limited resources and flexibility because there’s shortfalls in other accounts too.”

This year, it appears that without assistance from the Defense Department or Congress, Fleet Forces and PACFLEET will have to push that shortfall forward by deferring the maintenance availabilities of four surface ships and an attack submarine into FY 2017.

Rear Adm. Richard Berkey, U.S. Fleet Forces Command’s director of fleet maintenance, told USNI News that this fiscal year has played out very differently than the original plan called for. Planning for FY 2016 started in the fall of 2013, and several kinds of assumptions – on operational needs, the shipyard workforce, work package scopes and more – have proven wrong.

For starters, Fleet Forces and PACFLEET started the year at a combined $520 million in the hole in the ship maintenance accounts – $76 million and $444 million, respectively, Berkey said.

Fleet Forces’ shortfall was due to one simple event: the attack submarine USS Montpelier’s (SSN-765) interim dry docking period was moved from a public yard, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, to a private yard.

“[General Dynamics] Electric Boat won that contract, and when they won that contract their bid was $76 million higher than what we had anticipated,” Berkey said, noting that it wasn’t unusual for the private yard bid to be higher than the original government estimate. However, the contract was awarded after the program objective memorandum (POM) planning two years ahead of the start of the fiscal year, and also after the detailed budgeting process that starts one year out, creating a FY 2016 bill that wasn’t budgeted for.

The $444-million shortfall at PACFLEET, on the other hand, was much more complex.

The biggest factor was that many availabilities took much longer than anticipated, not due to unexpected maintenance work but rather because modernization work suddenly started driving schedules. “Modernization, in the past, has generally not been a driver for schedule in availabilities – they would have been specific to particular parts of the ship, or particular machinery, or some capability like that. We’re now getting into modernization that really takes the ship apart completely,” Berkey said, citing the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) as an example. The scope and duration of a CANES installation is now well understood, he said, but “they didn’t know until between that budget process and the beginning of the year.”

Additionally, three submarine availabilities were moved from public shipyards into private yards, which costs more. A fourth submarine was moved from the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard San Diego Detachment, which was more expensive but was necessary due to workforce imbalance issues, Berkey said.

The Littoral Combat Ship class has proven more expensive to operate and maintain than was predicted a couple years ago, Berkey said. “I don’t think that’s a secret, that’s a new class of ship and we generally have that for every new class of ship. It’s a little bit more particular on the LCS because of the sustainment model that we have, where we minimize the manning on the LCS with the idea that we would sustain it from the shore with contractors and those types of things. We continue to mature that model and to understand what those real costs are going to be. So we’ve done that with the LCSs out of San Diego, and now moving them to Singapore adds a little bit of complexity to that that we’re still getting our arms wrapped around.”

Workforce challenges at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility that “go back to the sequestration back in FY ‘13” led to delays in an availability for USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and pushed work from FY 2015 into 2016.

And finally, three maintenance availabilities were intentionally moved from FY 2015 to 2016 to deal with a budget shortfall at the time.
Berkey said Fleet Forces ultimately shifted some of its money over to PACFLEET to help address all those challenges – though ultimately the shortfall is about the same size now as it was at the beginning of the fiscal year in October, with Fleet Forces facing a $330 million deficit and PACFLEET a $160 million deficit. That combined total equates to about 6 percent of the total ship maintenance budget for the two fleets.

That the deficit hasn’t shrunk much over the last nine months isn’t for lack of trying, though. Berkey said the Navy had begun awarding firm fixed-priced contracts for surface ships on the East Coast in FY 2016 instead of the old multi-ship/multi-option (MSMO) setup. Preliminary data shows that costs are coming down, freeing up money for the Navy to spend on other emerging ship maintenance work. Fleet Forces was also on track to save in FY 2016 due to the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) delivering in October instead of March 2016 and therefore pushing its selected restricted availability into FY 2017 – though that potentially creates a larger shortfall going into FY 2017.

However, the Navy will be facing a big unplanned bill this fiscal year when carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) returns home from a deployment that was not only extended a month but was also essentially the second in a back-to-back deployment with only bare-bones maintenance work in between.

“What we’re seeing now with the actual testing of equipment prior to the availability, the additional steaming time Truman has, we’re seeing a lot more work now coming into that package,” Berkey said.
“That availability will be much bigger than we anticipated, starting in September.”

So despite an effort to dig out of the funding shortfall, Fleet Forces and PACFLEET find themselves having to push that deficit into the next year – via deferring the five ship availabilities – unless the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense or Congress step in and find the money to pay for that work in this current year.

“We’re still hoping that money can come in, and the beauty of the contract strategy that we use is that if we get money in time we can put money back on contract using FY ‘16 funds, but if we don’t then that requirement then moves over into FY ’17,” Berkey said.
“And when we go into that year, similar to what I said about PACFLEET where they had three availabilities that went from ‘15 to ‘16, there will be five availabilities that move from ‘16 into ‘17 in aggregate between the two fleets.”

Asked if money was the limiting factor or if other reasons may preclude the Navy from carrying out those availabilities this year, Berkey said, “if we were resourced this year, we could award the contracts for those maintenance availabilities, if we got it early enough.

“If we got a check written to us tomorrow, we could award those contracts and not bow wave that work into ’17,” he continued.
“It is executable if resources are provided early enough.”

Budgeting In The Future

Berkey said there are two reasons to be optimistic that, even as planning for air operations and ship operations has gotten more accurate over the years, planning for ship maintenance will become more accurate too to avoid some of the problems PACFLEET saw going into this fiscal year.

First, the Surface Maintenance Engineering Planning Program (SURFMEPP) is already doing a better job of predicting the maintenance needs of specific ship hulls and should continue getting more accurate over the next few years.

SURFMEPP, which was stood up in 2010, has technical foundation papers that look at each class of ship and, based on where a hull is in its lifecycle and what type of maintenance availability it is approaching, outlines what type of work the ship is likely to need. SURFMEPP also maintains ship sheets for each individual hull, monitoring deferred maintenance and other things the engineering community knows about that particular warship.

Berkey said the Navy is about four years into using the technical foundation papers and ship sheets, so most of the ships have come in for an availability but not all have been in for a docking availability – which occurs every eight years or so. Once all the ships have been through a docking availability, where they are more thoroughly taken apart and inspected, SURFMEPP should have a very clear idea of the state of each ship and what to expect for future maintenance periods.

“I see the problem (of work package growth) reducing,” Berkey said, but “I don’t see it ever going away. There is always something that will surprise us when you take a pump off of a foundation that you couldn’t see before and then that foundation is eroding.”

The good news is that the Navy plans for 20-percent work growth when drafting the POM two years out, and they generally can stay within that margin.

“Where we see growth today is still on ships that have not gone through that process, that docking process that I was talking about before, and really getting into the tanks and understanding what those conditions are,” Berkey said, and within the next four or so years the Navy should have cycled all its ships through at least one docking period. He praised SURFMEPP as a “constantly improving process with the goal … to know exactly what the condition of the ship is so we can properly plan for it, order the material and be able to do the work on schedule and on time.”

A second positive for the future is that, after furloughs and hiring freezes in 2013, the workforce size has stabled out, though training continues to be a challenge.

“You can go back to the sequestration back in FY ‘13 where we stopped hiring for a while at the naval shipyards. We had pretty much recovered from the pure numbers of people we need back into the naval shipyards by the end of FY ‘15, but now there’s a training period,” Berkey said, noting that 20 percent of the shipyard workforce was hired within the last year and 50 percent within the last five years.

But the yards have created learning centers to help new hires become proficient at their trades faster, and Berkey said he was confident that cases of schedule delays and therefore cost increases due to workforce challenges – particularly like the case if Nimitz – will be less of a budgeting problem going forward.

As Navy Faces $848M O&M Shortfall, Picking What Maintenance To Skip Is Full Of Risk


A mid-year review of Navy operations and maintenance funding found a $848-million shortfall, forcing the Navy to restrict flying hours, defer five ship maintenance availabilities until Fiscal Year 2017, defer continuous maintenance work for two amphibious ready groups and a carrier strike group – and nearly suspend work at the service’s largest regional maintenance center.

Without enough money to continue at pace through the remainder of the fiscal year, a complex prioritization process began that looked at both lower-priority work that could be pushed back as well as what locations could absorb cuts with the least disruption.

The operations and maintenance shortfall – which totals just two percent of the Navy’s O&M budget but led to some painful cuts – consists of $500 million still needed for ship depot maintenance after work delays and growth in work package scope drove up costs, $255 million for flying hours and $91 million to extend the Truman Carrier Strike Group’s deployment in the Middle East, according to U.S. Fleet Forces Command and House Armed Services Committee documents related to a Navy readiness hearing held today.

“The $848-million shortfall will have no impact to our forces currently deployed, but deferring a number of depot and continuous maintenance availabilities into FY 2017 would likely delay some associated deployments,” Navy spokeswoman Lt. j.g. Kara Yingling told USNI News.
“The overall mitigation actions reduce our ability to respond to crisis, as recovery from our lowest readiness point in many years is slowed. As we move forward, we will closely manage the shortfall over the remaining four and a half months of FY16 and continue to work with the Department of Defense and Congress.”

In some years, a Pentagon-level reprogramming can take money from acquisition programs, or from Army and Air Force budgets, to help make up the funding shortfall. USNI News understands the Navy may not be able to get money from the other services this year to help cover its shortfall.

The Navy began to implement but then rescinded a suspension of work at the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center (SWRMC) in San Diego, which is illustrative of the hard choices the service has to make given the ever-increasing demands on the fleet, the continued congressional budget caps and rising costs of labor.

An early May memo from SWRMC Commanding Officer Capt. Hugh Huck, obtained by USNI News, notes that “due to funding shortfalls in the 1B4B funding accounts, SWRMC will be reducing their contract support levels, intermediate level (I level) repairs, and ability to provide after-hours support (overtime) in specific areas. Although extensive efforts have been expended up to this point in the fiscal year to limit adverse impact to the ships on the San Diego waterfront, fiscal realities have forced SWRMC into this action, starting in this third fiscal quarter and through the fourth quarter of this fiscal year.”

Specifically, the memo called for a stoppage of engineering support to include tank and void inspections, infrared surveys, underway vibration analysis and surface ship availability work certifications. Seven ships would go without needed tank and void and structural inspections, and other engineering work would have been suspended as of May 15.

In June the center would reduce parts and material procurement, and “as funding is expended, repairs to additional systems will be impacted as on hand material is expended. We project that we will not accept any new work after 15 July 2016. Intention is to complete I level jobs inducted prior to 21 June 2016 if parts have been obtained.”

That reduction in parts procurement would mean a stop to all major diesel work, surface ship torpedo tube repairs and refurbishment, air compressor overhauls, communication receiver and transmitter repairs, and repairs to electronic warfare and anti-ship missile decoy systems, according to the memo.

“As funding is expended, repairs to additional systems will be impacted as on hand material is expended. We project that we will not accept any new work after 15 July 2016. Intention is to complete I level jobs inducted prior to 21 June 2016 if parts have been obtained,” the memo reads.

The memo ends with acknowledgements that system command requirements would have to be suspended during this time and that the type commander’s priorities would guide how the SWRMC cuts were carried out, and that though the shortfall was not expected to continue into FY 2017 it would take the first quarter of the new year to reconstitute previous work capacity levels.

By May 17, however, U.S. Pacific Fleet had realigned its funding to fully support SWRMC through the end of the year.

A Navy official told USNI News that the rationale for originally selecting SWRMC to absorb some of the shortfall was that, as the largest of the regional maintenance centers, “the size and capacity of SWRMC make it able to accommodate the funding shortfall.”

“The funding shortfall at Southwest Regional Maintenance Center can be attributed to increasing the size of the government workforce in Fiscal Year 2016 to support higher projected workload in 2017 and later, travel throughout the Pacific to support the deployed fleet, and non-labor overhead costs associated with operating the RMC,” the official explained.
“Some of the funding shortage can also be attributed to the cost of renewing contractor support used to augment SWRMC government workforce. SWRMC released a naval message on 5 May to announce the curtailment of some engineering services typically provided by SWRMC in order to extend higher priority technical support work.”

“SWRMC started the fiscal year with a modest shortfall, but there was a growth in overall requirement due to the assessed condition of our ships and the need to continue the reset in stride,” the official noted.

The Navy has been warning Congress for years that extended deployments since 2001 have led to more severe maintenance problems when ships can finally go into an availability. Insufficient time and funding have led to partial completions of the work in some cases, which then creates bigger problems down the road – for example, tank inspections get skipped and then the Navy has to deal with major corrosion issues later on.

As it stands, the Navy opted to restrict flying hours for Carrier Air Wing 1, which will not deploy until 2019 – potentially stopping all flying for up to four months, U.S. Fleet Forces Command commander Adm. Phil Davidson said at the readiness hearing today. Four surface ship and one submarine maintenance availabilities will be pushed from the fourth quarter of FY 2016 into FY 2017, and smaller continuous maintenance for the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group, the America ARG, and the Vinson CSG – a dozen ships across the three groups – will be deferred into FY 2017 as well.

“Delaying these maintenance periods, pressing them into the next fiscal year, FY 17, the budget currently under consideration, is not optimal, but it effects the smallest number of ships,” Davidson said, explaining the final decision on how to deal with the operations and maintenance shortfall.
“I will not embark on a path that partially accomplishes all availabilities across the entire fleet. That is a dangerous practice that rapidly builds maintenance and capability backlogs that are difficult to recover. Indeed, we are digging out from that sort of policy more than a decade ago.”

Davidson said that the risk the Navy takes on when it has less than full operations and maintenance funding “means accepting less readiness across the whole of the Navy, less capacity to surge in crisis and in wartime, or perhaps living with reduced readiness in our ships and submarines that would keep them from reaching the end of their service lives. In any case, recovering from these situations will cost us more in time and money in the future.”

Navy teams up with Coast Guard to build polar icebreaker

Lawmakers are urging the Coast Guard to lease foreign icebreakers until the service can build a new one with the Navy's assistance. Coast Guard officials prefer repairing the broken icebreaker Polar Sea in the meantime.

It would take the Coast Guard more than a decade to build a new polar icebreaker. To try to cut that time in half, it's joining forces with the Navy's well-oiled acquisition machine.

The two services are standing up a joint program office after months of prodding by a California congressman who has called for the Coast Guard to put an icebreaker in the water as soon as possible, whether newly built or leased from another country.

"What I got out of this and the last hearing too — the Coast Guard doesn’t get it," Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told Navy Times on Wednesday, following a hearing of the House Transportation Committee's Coast Guard and maritime transportation subcommittee. "This is going to take massive pushes and changes, even more from Congress. It’s going to take the Navy kind of taking this over."

Hunter, who chairs the subcommittee, envisions bolstering the United States' arctic presence via a new U.S.-built icebreaker acquired through a Navy program and leasing icebreakers from other countries in the meantime. However, the service is adamant that there isn't an icebreaker for rent in the world that would be up to the Coast Guard's military specifications.

The subcommittee and the vice commandant of the Coast Guard have gone back and forth in recent hearings over what the U.S. needs to have a minimum icebreaking capability in the Arctic versus what the Coast Guard needs from a ship in general.

"The Coast Guard operates Coast Guard vessels," Adm. Charles Michel said in a hearing Tuesday, where he spoke alongside Navy acquisition and shipbuilding experts. "This is not a pick-up game for the Coast Guard."

In order to be able to operate as a military vessel, which is what Coast Guard cutters are, Michel said, the icebreakers would also need to be able to assert navigation rights, perform search and rescue and respond to environmental disasters.

"I’m happy to have this dialogue with you on what this vessel is," he told Hunter. "This vessel does not just break ice, just like the Polar Sea and Polar Star do not just break ice."

Currently, the Coast Guard has two heavy icebreakers — the Polar Star and the Polar Sea — and one medium, a scientific research ship called Healy.

Polar Sea is in drydock because it's too old and broken down to operate. Polar Star operates about six months a year before heading back to the yards for repairs. The Coast Guard has suggested overhauling Polar Star to extend its service life or investing money into reactivating Polar Sea to fill the current gap, and an assessment for Polar Sea is due to Congress at the end of the month.

All told, according to Homeland Security Department research, the U.S. needs three heavy and three medium icebreakers to be able to break ice 365 days a year.

Hunter and his fellow subcommittee members, on the other hand, have supported the idea of leasing medium icebreakers from Arctic nations like Finland, an approach that the Coast Guard has been reluctant to pursue.

"You’ve always hated the idea of not owning the ship, but we have a gap here," Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, told Michel. "How are we going to do it if you don’t accept another vessel?"

But there aren't any available that are up to the Coast Guard's specifications, Michel said. And renting is an expensive proposition for an already cash-strapped service, said one expert.

"Generally speaking, purchasing is the way to go," said Jennifer Grover, director of homeland security and justice issues at the Government Accountability Office.

For now, that leaves the Navy's support as the best option. Ideally, said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., the Navy would use its budget and acquisition infrastructure to get the Coast Guard two icebreakers in the next five to seven years.

The two services are working on a memorandum of understanding as the foundation for a joint program office, according to Hunter's chief of staff.

"Part of the realization is that the Coast Guard needs the Navy’s help," Joe Kasper told Navy Times. "Everybody’s losing patience with the Coast Guard."