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Naval Today said:

U.S. Navy frigate USS Gary (FFG 51) is scheduled to return to Naval Base San Diego April 17 from its final deployment, where it operated in the U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet and U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations.

During the seven-month deployment, Gary, the embarked “Scorpions” of Helicopter Maritime Strike (HSM) 49 Detachment 4, and a U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachment (LEDET), played an integral role in Operation Martillo.

While supporting Operation Martillo, Gary participated in more than 70 small boat operations and coordinated with several U.S. Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) and surface units to include U.S. Navy and Canadian warships, U.S. Coast Guard cutters, and Panamanian, Colombian, Costa Rican, and Ecuadorian Coast Guard vessels in an effort to share resources and strengthen operations while reinforcing commitment to the region. The team successfully interdicted 13,921 kilograms of cocaine, with a wholesale value of $278.4 million and 18 pounds of marijuana, valued at $17,100.

The ship’s helicopter detachment, HSM-49 Detachment 4 flew more than 700 hours of flight operations throughout the deployment and their return to Naval Air Station North Island April 16 marks the last active-duty deployment of the SH-60B Seahawk. The sundown ceremony for the SH-60B is scheduled May 11 at Naval Air Station North Island.

Following Gary’s return, the ship will begin to make preparations for decommissioning.

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FORBIN said:

Only 5 Perry damn ! fortunately now LCS building accelerates.

Mexico get 2 also, have yet 2 others used as OPV.

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Missile defense ships are in short supply.

Navy officials say the fleet of BMD-capable cruisers and destroyers is far outstripped by unprecedented demand for these shooters. The Pentagon's "unsustainable" BMD strategy lacks the clarity to accomplish the growing mission, needed to counter threats from nuclear-armed countries like Iran and North Korea, they argue.

Combatant commanders last year requested 44 ships in recent years to meet BMD missions, according to congressional data. In fiscal 2016, that need is expected to jump to 77 ships — a tally more than double the Navy's inventory of BMD-capable ships.

"I will not meet that gap," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert told Navy Times on March 24. "The funding that we have today does not meet that gap."

In fact, it is headed in the opposite direction. Budget cuts have forced the Navy to eliminate $500 million in upgrades to five Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The Howard, McCampbell, Mustin, Chafee and Bainbridge will lack ballistic missile defense capability and be unable to use the new Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air technology in coming years.

The admiral responsible for protecting the U.S. from missile threats said another round of across-the-board sequestration budget cuts could impair that mission.

"But as I look at the threats, the most likely and the most dangerous that's getting ready to confront us, I think it's sequestration," said Adm. Bill Gortney, the head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, in testimony March 19 before the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.

Similarly, Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, told senators in March that "the global demand for ballistic missile defense capabilities far exceeds supply."

And the situation is likely to grow worse, according to one key lawmaker.

"We've gone from being able to meet over 90 percent of combatant commander demands in 2007 to meeting barely 40 percent today," said Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower and projection forces. "Clearly we have a serious shortfall in BMD capacity. And that being the case, I am consistently surprised to find this administration fighting tooth-and-nail to inactivate the cruisers that provide the core of the Navy's air and missile defense capability."

Forbes takes issue with plans to upgrade five cruisers with anti-air warfare rather than BMD capability during phased modernization. These upgrades are needed to protect carriers according to Navy leaders, who have couched the decisions as risk management.

"Given how much BMD demand is currently going unmet, I think it would be irresponsible to voluntarily and prematurely reduce the supply of these important assets," Forbes said. "This gap is going to continue to grow unless we get serious about funding our Navy and its air and missile defense capabilities."

The Navy is committed to meeting its BMD missions and sees destroyers as the best assets for advanced BMD upgrades, a Navy spokesman said.

"The Navy's plan to deliver BMD-capable ships to support the national and defense strategies optimizes resources by increasing both BMD capacity and capability for Arleigh Burke destroyers during new construction and through modernization," said Lt. Rob Myers. "We have thoroughly assessed all options to best execute the BMD mission moving forward. From a tactical and affordability standpoint, destroyers will meet the requirement for advanced capable BMD ships."

Even if money and manpower were provided, senior service leaders are not sure where the current strategy would have them focus BMD efforts. Greenert and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, in a Nov. 5 memo to then-defense secretary Chuck Hagel, called for a strategy assessment.

The Pentagon's missile defense shields are a network of BMD-capable ships and shore-based installations. The first Aegis Ashore site, located in Romania, is set to go operational this year. In addition, the Navy is shifting four BMD destroyers to Rota, Spain, where they will routinely sail on four-month patrols.

"For the ballistic missile defense need … what is the end state?" Greenert said in his March 24 interview. "We cannot see it there. As we move and build ashore, as we build more shore capability, what is going to become of the afloat capabilities? Just keep building? To what end?"

With an "astounding" ashore capability, "why are we continuing to develop and evolve afloat options?" Greenert asked. "I do not have an answer for that. I do not see it as a sustainment."

Ship and ashore missile radars and interceptors are expensive. Gortney said BMD is "on the wrong side of the cost curve," in an April 7 news briefing. "We're shooting down not very expensive rockets with very expensive rockets, and we need to look at the entire kill chain … and try, through kinetic or non-kinetic means, and through deterrence, [to] keep them on the rail," he said.

There are 33 BMD-capable ships split between the East and West Coasts, to include those that are or will soon be forward-deployed.

The European Phased Adaptive Approach will see four ships homeported in Rota, Spain, by year's end. The destroyers Ross and Donald Cook arrived in Rota in fiscal 2014; Porter on March 27 departed Norfolk, Virginia, for Scotland to participate in Joint Warrior, a United Kingdom-led semi-annual multinational cooperative training exercise, before heading to Rota. The destroyer Carney will head to Spain from its home port of Mayport, Florida, before October.

A 430-acre Aegis Ashore facility will be operational by year's end in Deveselu, Romania, and manned by about 200 U.S. service members, government civilians and support contractors. It will be armed with SM-3 IB interceptors. A second site planned for Poland, scheduled to become operational in 2018, will be armed with SM-3 IIA interceptors.

In the Pacific theater, Benfold will later this year become the first of three destroyers — two from San Diego and one from Norfolk — to permanently relocate to Yokosuka, Japan. Barry will follow in early 2016 in a hull swap with Lassen, which is scheduled to homeport in Mayport, Florida. Milius will arrive in Japan in the summer of 2017.

All three destroyers will get a midlife modernization anchored by the Aegis Baseline 9 combat system. This includes the Mark-41 Vertical Launch System, which can employ multiple types of guided missiles for offensive and defensive operations against aircraft, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, surface ships, submarines and shore targets. The destroyers will also get a fully integrated bridge and commercial, off-the-shelf computing equipment.

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Next year Naval Sea Systems Command will conduct the first at sea test of its electromagnetic railgun, hurling a guided 44 pound projectile and hypersonic speeds off the coast of Florida, NAVSEA officials said on Tuesday.

The BAE Systems designed test weapon will be mounted on the newly delivered Joint High Speed Vessel USNS Trenton (JHSV-5) and taken to Eglin Air Force Base’s maritime test range off the Florida panhandle late in the summer of 2016. The Navy originally planned to use the JHSV USNS Millinocket (JHSV- 3) for the test.

“It’s a naval surface fire support demonstration, the Navy’s first to engage an over the horizon target [with a railgun],” Capt. Mike Ziv, NAVSEA’s program manager directed energy and electronic warfare program office told attendees at the Navy’ League’s Sea-Air-Space 2015 Exposition.

The test will validate the assumptions the Navy has made in the decades-old pursuit of the railgun not only as a long range weapon to support troops ashore but start testing new ideas of using the weapon as an anti-surface warfare (ASUW) weapon, a ballistic missile defense (BMD) tool and as a close in weapon system for cruise missile threats.

NAVSEA outlined the expanded mission set for the railgun — beyond naval surface fire support — in a request for information issued earlier this year.

Traditionally, the Navy has used missiles to intercept targets but the railgun promises similar results for less money.

“There’s a tradition that every time an enemy throws a threat at us our counter to that threat is one order more of magnitude expensive than the threat costs. This is a technology where we’re engaging threats at similar probabilities of kill for a cost that’s about two orders of magnitude less,” Ziv said.
“Looking that the missions sets the railgun will be able to achieve the ship or land based facility, it will be able to store a lot more rounds and consummate a lot more engagements than a traditional missile-type system.”

NAVSEA is also working with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to create a modular railgun system for both at sea and on land.

The Florida test will place a static floating target at a range of 25 to 50 nautical miles from the test ship and fire five GPS guided hyper velocity projectiles (HVP) at the target as the final part of 20 planned firings for the railgun at the Eglin range.

“It’s an over the horizon engagement. We’re firing on a ballistic trajectory and guiding into intercepting that target,” he said to reporters following the briefing.

“Eventually when we have a little bit more advancement in the projectile there will be some ability to communicate with [the round].”

As the program develops, the Navy is zeroing in on about 10,000-ton sized guided missile cruisers and destroyers as the anticipated platforms to field the weapons.
NAVSEA is currently conducting an in-depth study of including the railgun on the Zumwalt-class (DDG-1000) guided missile destroyers for the first platform for the weapon.

Earlier this year, Vice Adm. William Hilarides indicated his preffered option would be the third Zumwalt — Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) — currently under construction at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW).

The

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on the 16,000-ton ships– powered by two massive Rolls Royce MT-30 gas turbines and two smaller Rolls-Royce RR450 much more electrical power than the current crop of U.S. destroyers and cruisers.

“They all believe that’s the right ship but I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves we do need the right analysis to say ‘yes’,” Ziv said.
“I plan to have that study done by the end of this fiscal year.”

The eventual goal is to have an operational 32 megajoule weapon that would be capable of firing a guided round almost a hundred nautical miles by the mid 2020s.

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Jura said:

describes the need for more BMD-capable ships ... questioned by Admiral Greenert (?)
BMD mission demands outstrip fleet's capabilities

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US Navy fighter develops passive target ID for ships

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Washington DC
Source: Flightglobal.com - 20 hours ago[/URL]

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developed the EA-18G Growler mainly to jam radars, but the US Navy has been quietly developing its onboard systems to perform a critical new role in attacks on surface vessels.

A formation of three EA-18Gs has demonstrated the ability to precisely determine the location of a target from dozens of miles away without using radar, says John

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, director of electronic attack for Northrop

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.

Instead the EA-18Gs use Northrop’s ALQ-218 receivers to pick up emissions from an enemy vessel, Thompson says. Each of the three aircraft in formation will detect the signal at a slightly different time. Using a processing technique called time difference of arrival, computers can calculate a weapons-quality geo-location of a target by measuring those tiny differences in timing, he says.

The existing datalink on the EA-18G is not fast enough to share the signal information between the three EA-18Gs, so the Growlers use the wideband

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tactical targeting network technology (TTNT).

Such a capability means that the EA-18G can find a target without giving its own position away by using a radar, which transmits signals that can be detected. The ALQ-218 is a receiver system, so can collect target information discretely at standoff range,

In the past, similar receivers have been used to detect targets using older processing techniques, such as long baseline interferometry. But those processes were not accurate enough to precisely locate the source of the emitter, so it would be necessary to move closer to establish positive identification or use a radar.

The US Navy first demonstrated the new technique during a live experiment in 2013, Thompson says. An improved version of that capability will be demonstrated again a fleet experiment later this year called FLEX 2015, he adds.

The navy has tasked the contractors to focus the system initially on surface vessels, but it can be expanded to other types of ground or air targets, Thompson says.[/URL]

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Scratch said:

The US Navy has, more or less quietly, inserted a new technology into it's F/A-18G Growler aircraft. Thanks to signal detection systems and new, hig speed data-link capabilities, the jets are now capable of producing weapons grade targeting info off of vessel's emitted electronic signals.

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