By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
Incinerating enemy drones and fighter jets with laser weapons, tracking and destroying incoming anti-ship and ballistic missiles with ship-launched interceptors, jamming enemy radar, targeting and communications with next-generation EW and launching paradigm-changing long-range, over-the-horizon precision weapons … are just a few of the missions intended for the now arriving US Navy Arleigh Burke-class DDG 51 Flight III Destroyers.
The Navy’s first Flight III DDG 51 Destroyer, the USS Jack Lucas (DDG 125), has hit the ocean on its way from Mississippi to Tampa, Florida for Commissioning. Long in development, the new ship is the first in a class of cutting edge new destroyers armed with laser weapons, paradigm-changing, long-range high-fidelity sensors and radar, over-the-horizon ship-fired weapons and new-generations of on-board electricity, cooling and power storage.
The vision for these warships, which has included the integration of an entire sphere of new weapons, computing, command and control and sensing, aligns with strategic thinking outlined by Navy leaders planning for a more distributed, networked and highly-lethal kind of maritime warfare. The intent is to not only add new generations of warfighting technologies but accelerate their development because, as former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday explained it .. “speed matters.”
“Ubiquitous and persistent sensors, advanced battle networks, and weapons of increasing range and speed have driven us to a more dispersed type of fight …. keeping ahead of our competitors requires us to rapidly field state-of-the art systems. Speed matters,” former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday writes in the service’s 2022 CNO NAVPLAN.
There is little question that the “speed” element of this is, in large measure, intended to keep pace with or stay in front of the People’s Liberation Army – Navy’s explosive naval expansion.
To accomplish this, Navy weapons developers have for years been focusing on identifying an optimal balance between integrating upgradeable new weapons quickly and ensuring the best available technologies are built into the ship. This optimal blend is in large measure pursued through a “modular” or “open architecture” strategy through which weapons developers use common IP Protocol standards, interfaces and computing systems to enable a persistently “upgradeable” technical infrastructure. With this approach, software upgrades, for example, can massively improve ship radar, weapons guidance, computing and key technologies such as lasers, EW and AI-enabled command and control. Software upgrades to both the SM-3 with Block IIA and the SM-6, for example, have massive expanded combat capabilities and performance; the larger SM-3 Block IIA has a longer range and improved guidance and discrimination to track and destroy a wider range of targets and the SM-6 has had software upgrades to accommodate a dual-mode seeker enabling the weapon to better adjust course in flight to hit moving targets.
The largest and arguably most significant element of the Navy’s Block III DDG 51 upgrade includes the addition of a breakthrough family of radar systems called AN/SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar. Multiple variants of the SPY-6 radars, with (V)1 being the strongest and most sensitive, are arming Navy warships with the ability to “see” and “detect” or destroy targets nearly half the size and twice the range of previous radar systems.
The SPY-6 family moves beyond existing AN/SPY-1 ship-integrated radar systems and, according to an interesting essay in “Microwave Journal”…”handles 30 times more targets and has 30-times greater sensitivity than the SPY-1D(V).” (“Radar and Phased Array Breakthroughs,” Eli Booker)
Raytheon’s SPY-6 radar transmitter uses a material known as military-grade Gallium Nitride (GaN), a substance explained by Raytheon developers as up to 1,000-times more efficient that the existing Gallium Arsenide used today.
When it comes to application, the SPY-6 radar systems streamline otherwise disparate fire-control and detection technologies; the SPY-6 can cue short-range, closer-in interceptors as well as longer-range ballistic missile interceptors such as an SM-3. This shortens sensor-to-shooter time and offers war commanders a longer window with which to make decisions about which countermeasure is needed. This integration is precisely the kind of defense needed to counter a multi-pronged, coordinated enemy attack potentially combining ballistic missiles with cruise missiles, drone attacks…and more.
Lasers & Aegis Radar On DDG 51 Destroyers
The specific weapons configuration of the USS Jack Lucas is likely still in development, however the ship has for years been a cutting edge test-bed and demonstration platform for new-generations of technologies and weapons. These weapons systems include upgraded variants of the Aegis Combat System, an integrated air-and-cruise missile and ballistic missile defense technology which continues to be improved through software upgrades. the most recent variant, Baseline 10, streamlines functionality to enable a single system to perform air-and-cruise missile defense and ballistic missile defense. The Navy has also been pursuing ongoing TIs, or technical insertions, into the Aegis system to ensure it receives the latest and most current upgrades. Ship-integrated Aegis radar is connected with fire-control to launch interceptors as well as ship-based computing and command and control synchronized to the highly-sensitive new SPY-6 radar system.
US Navy Flight IIA DDG 51 destroyers are now being armed with a cutting edge laser weapon called the High-Energy Laser with Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS), which has been undergoing land and ocean testing and assessments. This means that Navy destroyers will operate with the ability to incinerate enemy drones with great precision at the speed of light, stunning, burning or simply disabling them.
Not only are lasers quiet, low-cost, scalable and precise, but perhaps of even greater significance, they fire at the speed of light. Pure speed, when it comes to ocean warfare, is increasing vital as new technologies enter the sphere of Naval warfare, greatly changing the tactical equation.
Laser Changing Tactical Dynamics
How might ship-fired laser weapons change tactical dynamics and strategies when it comes to Maritime warfare?
Instead of using expensive interceptor missiles fired from U.S. Navy destroyer Vertical Launch Systems, commanders will now have the option to merely stun, or disable a target without completely destroying or exploding it. Reducing explosive effects, such as those likely generated by SM-2 or SM-6 interceptor weapons, can lower the risk of causing civilian casualties with bomb debris or fragmentation should a scenario unfold in a highly-trafficked ocean environment.
Lasers such as HELIOS also bring a substantial optical component, meaning they can act as a sensor to track targets and help with necessary surveillance missions.
Lasers could also in some instances enable surface warships to close in more fully upon enemy positions, given that deck-mounted guns could be supplemented by laser weapons attacking at the speed of light and engineered to pinpoint narrow target areas with precision-guidance technology.
The Navy currently operates more than 80 destroyers and is currently adding more than 10 new, upgraded Flight III DDG 51s with new radar and weapons. However, the servic
e is also deeply invested in sustaining its existing fleet as well, some of which are now decades old.
Within the next 15 years, the navy plans to add at least 30 new DDG 51 destroyers including 22 new, high-tech DDG 51 Flight III warships and eight state-of-the-art DDG 51 Flight IIA destroyers.
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven- Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
