SNA: Just a little more light on the bridge
January 12th, 2010 | Ships SNA | Posted by Phil Ewing
Lockheed Martin’s second big brief this morning was an update on its second littoral combat ship, Fort Worth, which is now under construction at the Wisconsin shipyard where the class-leading Freedom was built. A top Lockheed LCS manager, Paul Lemmo, and a top official with shipbuilder Marinette Marine — who appeared in a live satellite up-link from the hall where LCS 3 was taking shape behind him — gave the presentation.
They detailed some of the differences being built into Fort Worth as compared to Freedom: LCS 3 will have stiffened panels in its water-tight subdivisions, for example, instead of the corrugated metal bulkheads that were built on LCS 1. But even though the original design for the Freedom-class LCS called for the ships to have a bow thruster, Freedom wasn’t built with one, isn’t getting one, and Fort Worth isn’t getting one either.
The Navy has decided the LCS 1 design is maneuverable enough that it doesn’t need a thruster after all, said another Lockheed LCS official, Joe North, so it didn’t ask for one on Fort Worth. One improvement that Fort Worth will get are slightly different bridge windows, to remove the triangular metal pillar that blocks your view if you’re standing amidships in the pilothouse and looking directly forward. Scoop Deck compared it to the split rear window on a 1963 Sting Ray Corvette — which Chevrolet soon discontinued — but North said sailors hadn’t complained about not being able to see ahead.
“The operators have had no problems with this,” North said. “In fact when submariners come on board they tease, ‘Why do you need to see outside at all? You’ve got your instruments.’”
SNA: Just how smart is Aegis BMD?
January 12th, 2010 | Ballistic missile defense Maritime operations Science and technology SNA | Posted by Phil Ewing
Defense giant Lockheed Martin is giving a slew of briefings this morning at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium just outside Washington, and although it has been crowing about its products, officials didn’t want to say too much.
After a presentation about the advanced new variants of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, Scoop Deck asked whether tomorrow’s smarter, more discriminating Aegis BMD could distinguish missile targets from the active countermeasures that worriers say could fool interceptors. As far back as the bad old days of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, aka “Star Wars,” skeptics said that Soviet missiles could fool American defenses by ejecting chaff, balloons, twirling in mid-air, or using other techniques to blind or trip up BMD systems.
Here’s how LockMart program manager Nick Bucci responded:
“We can’t get into details of what the Aegis signal processor can do, but we are trying to expand the threat set to go after more advanced threats as the threat evolves.”
Pre-SNA: Warships’ new menu of missiles
January 11th, 2010 | ordnance Science and technology SNA Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Defense giant Lockheed Martin says its new launch system could enable destroyers, such as the Fitzgerald, and other ships with VLS cells carry a broader variety of weapons // Navy
At this very moment, deep within a certain hotel near Washington’s National Airport, a wonderland is under construction. Workers are setting up scale model destroyers, some of them with tiny SM-3 missiles depicted in mid-launch, complete with pretend flames. Glossy hand-outs — depicting ships, aircraft, and ground vehicles all operating simultaneously around peninsulas, linked together by lightning-bolt radio waves and the words “joint” and “capabilities” — are being arranged in racks. Tchotchkes — from logo-pens to computer-monitor calendars to mousepads to rubber-band rockets to wind-up dancing men — are being taken from boxes and stood in rows like toy soldiers.
In short, organizers are putting together the Surface Navy Association annual symposium, where Navy-types and contractor-types and reporter-types — including your pals from the Deck — rub elbows for three days talking about the state of the surface force. We’ll be there to bring you all the updates here on the blog and in Navy Times, and there’s already some interesting news from one of the pre-show briefs given Monday by defense contractors.