By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven
The US Navy is arming its entire fleet of Littoral Combat Ships and emerging Frigates with a new high-speed, highly maneuverable long-range ship fired missile designed to track and destroy enemy ships in open sea warfare.
The Naval Strike Missile weapon, able to travel on a range of attack trajectories for improved effectiveness, will be operation by 2021, Navy officials said.
“It will enable long range surface strike” Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Alan Baribeau told Warrior Maven.
Integrating this weapon is a key element of a broader Navy strategic shift, in place now for several years, intended to better arm the LCS for more substantial maritime warfare missions than those for which it was originally intended – due to the rapid rise of advanced near-peer threats. Called the Over-the-Horizon Weapons System, the NSM is intended to add greatly enhanced offensive land and sea attack possibilities.
It is engineered to target enemy ships, small boats and other threats from areas beyond more immediate “line-of-sight” targeting technologies. It has an approximate range of 100 nautical miles.
“All LCS and FFG(X) (Frigate) platforms are planned to receive the OTH-WS. The OTH-WS shipsets will be procured from May, 2018,” Baribeau said.
The first installations, Navy developers explain, will begin in 2020, building upon an recently awarded production deal to a Raytheon Kongsberg industry team.
With an ability to travel close to the surface and at higher altitudes, the weapon is designed to be difficult to defend against, developers explained.
“The weapon does have an advanced seeker and maneuverability. It flies low profile and flies high. It is very survivable in that aspect,” Chris Daily, senior director for Tomahawk and Naval Strike Missile, Raytheon, told Warrior Maven in an interview.
Already in service with Norwegian and Polish military forces, the weapons is ready, quickly producible and “off-the-shelf,” Daily said.
In 2014, the NSM was test fired successfully from the USS Coronado, an LCS.
Advanced Targeting for LCS and Frigate
Longer range sensors will be needed to identify enemy attackers now equipped with long-range precision strike weapons and enable command and control across vast distances of open water and coastal patrol areas.
The Navy vision for the ship further specifies this, saying the “FFG(X) will be capable of establishing a local sensor network using passive onboard sensors, embarked aircraft and elevated/tethered systems and unmanned vehicles to gather information and then act as a gateway to the fleet tactical grid using resilient communications systems and networks.”
Along these lines, the Navy’s FFG(X) Request for Proposal identifies a need for a netted sensor technology called Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC).
CEC is an integral aspect of key emerging ship-defense technologies aimed at “netting” sensors and radar technologies in order to better identify and destroy approaching threats such as anti-ship missiles, drones and enemy aircraft.
“CEC is a sensor netting system that significantly improves battle force anti-air warfare capability by extracting and distributing sensor-derived information such that the superset of this data is available to all participating CEC units,” a statement on Raytheon’s data sheets explain.
Naval Strike Missile Arms Navy Frigate for “Blue Water” War
The Naval Strike Missile is also a key component to the service’s emerging multi-mission Guided Missile Frigate designed to to sense enemy targets from great distances, fire next-generation precision weaponry, utilize new networking and ISR technologies, operate unmanned systems and succeed against technically advanced enemies in open or “blue” water combat, according to service statements.
The service is now refining and analyzing design, sensor and weapons concepts for the new Frigate as it moves into a formal Conceptual Design phase after awarding a major contract.
Naval Sea Systems Command chose five shipbuilders to advance designs and technologies for the ship, awarding development deals to General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Austal USA, Huntington Ingalls, Marinette Marine Corporation and Lockheed Martin.
The Navy expects that new weapons and sensors will better enable the ship to destroy swarming small boat attacks, support carrier strike groups, conduct dis-aggregated operations, attack enemies with an over-the-horizon missile and engage in advanced surface and anti-submarine warfare, according service statements released several months ago as part of an industry request.
The Navy hopes to expedite development to award a production contract in 2020 and ultimately deploy the new ship in the early to mid-2020s. For this reason, bidders were required to submit designs that have been “demonstrated at sea” and already paired with a shipyard for rapid production, according to the service solicitation.
Service developers seem to be heavily emphasizing sensor networking, weapons integration and targeting technology as it navigates this next phase of development.
“The FFG(X) small surface combatant will expand blue force sensor and weapon influence to provide increased information to the overall fleet tactical picture while challenging adversary Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking (ISR&T) efforts,” Naval Sea Systems Command FFG(X) documents released several months ago said.
The “blue force sensor” language is explained by Navy developers as integral to the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations Concept which, as evidenced by its name, seeks to enable a more dispersed and networked attack fleet suited for dis-aggregated operations as needed.
Also, by extension, longer range sensors will be needed to identify enemy attackers now equipped with long-range precision strike weapons and enable command and control across vast distances of open water and coastal patrol areas.
The Navy vision for the ship further specifies this, saying the “FFG(X) will be capable of establishing a local sensor network using passive onboard sensors, embarked aircraft and elevated/tethered systems and unmanned vehicles to gather information and then act as a gateway to the fleet tactical grid using resilient communications systems and networks.”
Along these lines, the Navy’s FFG(X) Request for Proposal identifies a need for a netted sensor technology called Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC).
CEC is an integral aspect of key emerging ship-defense technologies aimed at “netting” sensors and radar technologies in order to better identify and destroy approaching threats such as anti-ship missiles, drones and enemy aircraft.
“CEC is a sensor netting system that significantly improves battle force anti-air warfare capability by extracting and distributing sensor-derived information such that the superset of this data is available to all participating CEC units,” a statement on Raytheon’s data sheets explain.
Current analysis is no longer restricted to the idea of loosely basing the “hull design” upon the LCS, as was previously the case, Navy officials say.
Designs for the ship no longer merely envision a more “survivable” variant of an LCS. Previous FFG(X) requirements analyses conducted by a Navy Frigate Requirements Evaluation Team examined the feasibility of making the ship even more lethal and survivable than what previous plans had called for, Navy officials have explained in recent months.
Existing plans for the Frigate have considered “space armor” configurations, a method of segmenting and strengthening ship armor in specified segments to enable the ship to continue operations in the event that one area is damaged by enemy attack. Discussions for Frigate technologies have included plans for an MH-60R helicopter, Fire Scout drone and ship de
fense technologies such as SeaRAM.
The Navy already plans for the new Frigate to be integrated with anti-submarine surface warfare technologies including sonar, an over-the-horizon missile and surface-to-surface weapons, which could include a 30mm gun and closer-in missiles such as the HELLFIRE.
Navy plans for the FFG(X) also call for advanced electronic warfare tech along with both variable depth and lightweight sonar systems.
Lockheed Martin photo
In addition, Navy developers explain ship will be configured in what’s called a “modular” fashion, meaning it will be engineered to accept and integrate new technologies and weapons as they emerge. It certainly seems realistic that a new, even more survivable Frigate might be engineered with an additional capacity for on-board electrical power such that it can accommodate stronger laser weapons as they become available.
The Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations Concept builds upon the Navy’s much-discussed “distributed lethality” strategy. This strategic approach, in development for several years now, emphasizes the need to more fully arm the fleet with offensive and defensive weapons and disperse forces as needed to respond to fast-emerging near-peer threats.
Part of the rationale is to move back toward open or “blue water” combat capability against near peer competitors emphasized during the Cold War. While the strategic and tactical capability never disappeared, it was emphasized less during the last 10-plus years of ground wars wherein the Navy focused on counter-terrorism, counter-piracy and things like Visit Board Search and Seizure. These missions are, of course, still important, however the Navy seeks to substantially increases its offensive “lethality” in order to deter or be effective against emerging high-tech adversaries.
Having longer-range or over-the-horizon ship and air-launched weapons is also quite relevant to the “distributed” portion of the strategy which calls for the fleet to have an ability to disperse as needed. Having an ability to spread out and conduct dis-aggregated operations makes Navy forces less vulnerable to enemy firepower while. At the same time, have long-range precision-strike capability will enable the Navy to hold potential enemies at risk or attack if needed while retaining safer stand-off distance from incoming enemy fire.
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— portions of this story, appearing as relevant news background, were included in previous Warrior Maven reports —
Kris Osborncan be reached atKri[email protected]
