Navy News from Around the World II

The thread must be closed,plz. To open a new thread with new year

Chinese naval fleet completes first at-sea replenishment

DESTROYER WUHAN, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) — A Chinese naval fleet en route to the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia for an escort mission against pirates completed its first replenishment at sea Tuesday.

The fleet, two destroyers and a supply ship, has entered the Indian Ocean after a four-day voyage which set sail from China’s southernmost island province of Hainan.

In the afternoon, the supply ship Weishanhu successfully refueled the two destroyers Wuhan and Haikou with several hundred tons of oil, an operation that an official for fleet support described as “highly efficient.”

The fleet will cruise for about 10 days before arriving in the Gulf of Aden to join a multinational patrol in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes endangered by surging piracy.

The recent pirate attack on a Chinese fishing vessel has raised great concern of the Chinese government and people. Statistics showed that some 1,265 Chinese commercial vessels have passed through the gulf so far this year and seven have been attacked.

The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions calling on all countries and regions to help patrol the gulf and waters off Somalia since June. The latest resolution authorized countries to take all necessary measures in Somalia, including in its airspace to stop the pirates.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/30/content_10583318.htm

We are supposed to be impressed by this? It isn’t even really news.

Sad end of a Type 42

In the photos, the hull of the former HMS Cardiff in Aliaga, Turkey, the hopes of undoes.

While some have defended the purchase of vessels of this class by Brasil Navy, wear them is not very large and it would be worth the expenditure of time and money for their maintenance.

The vessel, which belonged to the lot of Class 2 “Sheffield”, had an enviable record: it was incorporated on 24 September 1979 and was low in the service July 14, 2005, in 1982, was responsible for the overthrow of last Argentine aircraft, participated in the 1991 Gulf War (Operation Granby / Desert Storm) and the Armilla Patrol, during the preparation phase of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Operation Telic / OIF) in 1991, the Lynx helicopter of the organic Iraqi vessel sank two boats with Sea Skua missiles.

Hi Res. pics:

http://www.naval.com.br/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/hms-cardiff-at-large.jpg

http://www.naval.com.br/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/hms-cardiff-beaching-21.jpg

http://translate.google.com/translate?client=tmpg&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.naval.com.br%2Fblog%2F&langpair=pt|en

Chinese naval fleet completes first at-sea replenishment

DESTROYER WUHAN, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) — A Chinese naval fleet en route to the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia for an escort mission against pirates completed its first replenishment at sea Tuesday.

The fleet, two destroyers and a supply ship, has entered the Indian Ocean after a four-day voyage which set sail from China’s southernmost island province of Hainan.

In the afternoon, the supply ship Weishanhu successfully refueled the two destroyers Wuhan and Haikou with several hundred tons of oil, an operation that an official for fleet support described as “highly efficient.”

The fleet will cruise for about 10 days before arriving in the Gulf of Aden to join a multinational patrol in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes endangered by surging piracy.

The recent pirate attack on a Chinese fishing vessel has raised great concern of the Chinese government and people. Statistics showed that some 1,265 Chinese commercial vessels have passed through the gulf so far this year and seven have been attacked.

The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions calling on all countries and regions to help patrol the gulf and waters off Somalia since June. The latest resolution authorized countries to take all necessary measures in Somalia, including in its airspace to stop the pirates.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/30/content_10583318.htm

Warship trials not Daunting

The second of the Royal Navy’s new powerful Type 45 Destroyers, HMS Dauntless, has returned to her home on the Clyde after completing her first set of sea trials with great success.

During the four week period the 7,350 tonne vessel was put through her paces during blustery and wintry conditions, which provided a rigorous environment for testing her Power & Propulsion and Combat System.

The sea trials, conducted by prime contractor BVT, together with MOD, Royal Navy and other industry partners have allowed her to demonstrate her speed and manoeuvrability, performing so well that the crew was also able to complete additional Combat System trials.

Commenting on the ship’s return, the MOD’s Type 45 Programme Director, David Twitchin, said:

“The successful completion of HMS Dauntless’ first set of Sea Trials ends 2008 with a particularly hectic period of activity for the Type 45 programme on the Clyde. In the last four months the first Type 45, HMS Daring, has completed her final set of Industry-led Sea Trials and has been Accepted off Contract.

“The fourth Type 45, HMS Dragon, has been launched, and now HMS Dauntless has completed a very successful set of initial Sea Trials. This year has witnessed the Joint Industry/MOD team delivering unprecedented success on a major warship programme.

“This is down to the hard work, dedication and innovation of the Joint MOD, RN and Industry team closely working together at all levels to overcome problems and achieve a common goal.”

BVT’s Type 45 programme director, Angus Holt added:

“The Type 45 programme has already achieved one major milestone this week, but to achieve another in less than 48 hours is unprecedented.

“This is a great achievement and I am delighted that HMS Dauntless’ trials have been such a great success.

“The team work between BVT, MOD, Royal Navy and sub-contractors has ensured that despite the many challenges set, she has returned to Scotstoun on schedule, with all trials achieved.”

HMS Dauntless is in very good shape and ready to commence preparations for her second set of Sea Trials, due in July 2009, which will focus on Combat System testing and Acceptance activity.

Notes to Editors

1. HMS Dauntless is affiliated with Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
2. She was launched in January 2007 at the Govan shipyard.

Programme highlights at the end of 2008 for the Type 45 programme on the Clyde include:

1. HMS Dragon, the fourth Type 45 was launched on the Clyde on November 17.
2. HMS Daring, the first ship in the Type 45 programme, was officially Accepted Off Contract (AOC) by MOD from BVT, on 10 December 2008 and has commenced 12 months of MoD controlled (Stage 2) trials and integration activity.

Interesting facts:

* The Type 45 has twice the range (in distanced steamed) than the current class of Royal Navy Destroyers, the Type 42.
* Her 152m length is equivalent to more than 16 double-decker buses and she is as high as an electricity pylon.
* Her onboard power plant can supply enough electricity to light a town of 80,000 people.
* Her fuel tanks have a volume equivalent to approximately half that of an Olympic swimming pool.
* The hull structure is made of 2800 tonnes of steel which is more than the weight of the Blackpool Tower.

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/environment/fullDetail.asp?ReleaseID=388274&NewsAreaID=2&NavigatedFromDepartment=True

Aiming high: Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense

In March 1994 the US Navy (USN) conducted two experimental firings of Standard Missile Block III ER Terrier missiles, each modified with a third-stage kinetic kill vehicle (KKV), against Aries theatre ballistic missile targets representative of a ‘Scud’-type missile.

The first, flight test FTV-3, was performed on 6 March from the Wallops Flight Facility Test Range in Virginia; it was followed on 28 March by FTV-4, launched from the Leahy-class cruiser USS Richmond K Turner. Both shots missed. A problem affecting the missile second stage meant that FTV-3 was unable to deliver the KKV into its required intercept ‘basket’; FTV-4 meanwhile got the KKV to within 170 m of its target (against a requirement of 1,400 m) but the KKV failed to transition to internal power because of a battery failure.

Even so, the USN was encouraged, pointing out that the flight tests were more technology experiments than trials of fully developed weapon systems and claiming that the tests had achieved 42 out of their 43 planned objectives, demonstrating critical technologies and proving the feasibility of sea-based theatre ballistic missile defence (BMD).

Fifteen years on, and with several billions of dollars pumped into analysis, simulation and modelling, system engineering and flight testing, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the USN are today deploying a certified sea-based BMD system, leveraging the existing Aegis Weapon System, that has demonstrated its ability to ‘hit a bullet, with a bullet’ in space, repeatedly and reliably.

http://www.janes.com/news/defence/naval/jdw/jdw081229_1_n.shtml

Indian Navy News:

6 warships moved to west coast

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Eastern Naval Command of Indian Navy and the Coast Guard have been placed on a high alert to protect the country’s east coast in the event of a war breaking out with Pakistan.

According to sources, the Indian Navy has moved six of its most powerful warships to the Western Command.

These include the country’s most modern INS Jalashwa and destroyer INS Ranveer. Naval officials have, however, downplayed the development, saying the warships sailed to the west coast as a routine exercise and had nothing to do with the developing situation.

War clouds, which started hovering over the sub-continent following the diabolical terrorist attack on Mumbai, seem to be turning dark with each passing day, giving rise to speculation that India might attack the terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and other parts of Pakistan.

Not losing guard, all major security forces _ Navy, Coast Guard, Central Industrial Security Force and State police _ have put themselves in a state of readiness to face any situation, and to thwart any enemy attack and protect the east coast and all the vital installations in and around this strategically- located city which is home to a major harbour, Eastern Naval Command, several scientific and defence units, steel and thermal power plants, oil refineries, educational and business establishments, etc.

The State police, in association with the Intelligence Bureau, have been keeping a hawk’s eye on the movement of tourists and other people at all important places. The CISF units at the steel plant, airport, NTPC and HPCL and the port are on a high alert.

Visakhapatnam Port Trust sources said that the shipping minister held a meeting with all major port chairmen at New Delhi on Dec 22 and alerted them to get ready to face any situation.

Later, the CISF and Indian Coast Guard units were alerted and told to tighten the security arrangements at their respective units here.

After the Mumbai terror attack, all vulnerable places and establishments have come under strict security blanket.

“If war breaks out between India and Pakisthan, Visakhapatnam is likely to be a prime target,’’ a senior naval official said and recalled Pakistani submarine Ghazi’s misadventure during the 1971 war. When Ghazi intruded into the India waters off Visakhapatnam and was close to causing a major damage, the Indian Navy successfully tracked it and sank it, striking a severe blow to the Pakistani attack capability, the naval official told Express.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/newsrf.php?newsid=10521

The £4billion Airfix Kit: Behind-the-scenes at Britain’s biggest warships

It may look like the ultimate boy’s toy but this scale model – pictured here for the first time – represents the future of the Royal Navy. As work begins on two 65,000-ton aircraft carriers, Live gains exclusive access to the top secret plans for Britain’s biggest and most ambitious warships

At first sight it looks like a giant Airfix model, with every detail carefully replicated, from the tiny fighter jets and helicopters to the unique twin ‘island’ control towers complete with a captain and commander to survey the deck. Even the 30mm anti-aircraft guns and the long-range radar have been painstakingly reproduced. At more than five feet long, the model is a carefully crafted reminder of our glorious naval past carved out of grey plastic.
Such vast aircraft carriers may once have been a badge of pride, but now you can’t help but feel they are merely lumbering relics of the Cold War or even the Empire, which have surely had their day. After all, the UK abandoned the idea of aircraft carriers in the late Seventies when our last big carrier, the HMS Ark Royal, was scrapped.
But this long hunk of plastic represents a work in progress. It sits proudly in the lobby of the design headquarters for the Royal Navy’s latest grand project. It’s a 1:200 scale model of what will be the two biggest warships Britain has ever launched – the 65,000-ton HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince Of Wales.
Each ship will have nine decks topped by a vast flight deck and will tower six metres taller than Nelson’s Column from keel to masthead.

‘Cover the flight deck with grass and it would be a par four,’ says one of the design team.

They will carry 36 state-of-the-art Joint Strike Fighter stealth jump-jets and four helicopters each, and be able to get 24 planes airborne within just 15 minutes.
‘All the major navies in the world are now building them,’ says Dr Lee Willett, head of the Maritime Studies Programme at the Royal United Services Institute.

‘The Russians have one of their big carriers, the Admiral Kuznetsov, back at sea and have stated that they plan to build 12 carrier battle groups. The Chinese and the Indians are also under way with plans, the Japanese are building a destroyer that will act as a helicopter carrier and the US are working on new-generation carriers.
‘We’re an island nation and we have global interests so we need these four acres of moveable sovereign airfield that we can deploy wherever we want, whenever we need them.’

What the building of the carriers also shows is that Britain is running out of friends.
Willett says, ‘The world is an unstable place and, post-Iraq and the global war on terror, access to other nation’s territory or airspace is more difficult.’
Former naval officer and now author Lewis Page agrees.

‘Friendly nations are hard to find and it becomes even harder once you have taken over local air bases, which are then vulnerable to attack.

‘But there is a way to avoid giving yourself a logistical nightmare and becoming a target. Without having to ask anyone you can put an aircraft carrier 15 miles offshore in international waters and carry out operations from there without a single person needing to set foot on land or a single supply convoy coming under fire.
‘And you won’t need to go through any diplomatic hoops.’
Despite the persuasive arguments, our two supercarriers have had a long and painful birth. The decision to build them was announced in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, but the official signing ceremony only came a decade later, in July this year.
Now the Defence Secretary has announced the carriers will be further delayed – they are not expected to be ready for final delivery until 2016 and 2018.
Meanwhile, work continues at Rosyth dockyard on the Firth Of Forth to expand the granite sides of the massive Number One dock. It is here that the final assembly of the carriers will take place – or at least, that’s the plan.
But there are troubled waters ahead for this huge project, which still has the potential to go spectacularly wrong. Britain has never put together a ship in this way, on this scale, and there are fears over whether we have the commitment or the skilled workers to build the vessels to order and on time.

There have been criticisms of cost-cutting measures, concerns linger over whether the engines will work and, just to add to the uncertainty, the planes it is hoped will fly off the carriers have yet to be built.

From the outside it looks like any other nondescript provincial HQ, with a few well-manicured bushes and rows of family saloon cars parked neatly in front. But it’s on this unassuming industrial estate in suburban Bristol that the Royal Navy’s latest strike force is being designed.
Live has been given exclusive access to the design team, to watch them at work on blueprints and on computer designs for the new carriers, the UK’s most impressive piece of military kit for decades.
Within the open-plan office there are 180 people, among them 150 designers. I’m introduced to the design team in a meeting room, on one wall of which are pinned rows of detailed diagrams of the nine decks of the CVF (CV is the hull classification for a Carrier Vessel, while F stands for Future). We are prohibited from taking pictures as the diagrams are protected by the Official Secrets Act.
‘The project has been going for ten years and this is the third ship we’ve worked on,’ says naval architect Simon Knight, the project’s Platform Design Director.

‘We spent two years working on a bigger ship but found she was much too expensive, then a year on a smaller ship, but we couldn’t fit in everything we needed. We’ve been working on the CVFs now for the past three-and-a-half years.’
In the past, the team would have had to build life-size sections in plywood, but today most of the design and simulation is done on computers. Eddie Chambers, from Tyneside, is responsible for the intricate CAD (computer-aided design) 3D models of the ship. Built up in meticulous detail, these even show individual pipes and electrical cables.
He offers me a virtual tour of the engine room, then calls up one of the mess halls, complete with tables and chairs.
‘This allows you to walk around the ship,’ he says, ‘and means we can make sure that when we tell the build people to start they’ll know exactly where everything has to go. These ships are going to be huge, the second biggest in the world. Only the Yanks have got one bigger – and it’s good to know that at least we’ll have a bigger one than the French.’

Putting the ship together should be like assembling a Lego model. But with blocks of up to 10,000 tons
No single shipyard in this country has the infrastructure or personnel to construct the entire ship, so the plan is to build them in sections in different shipyards. Work on the lower bow section has already begun in Devon. The other shipyards are set to begin cutting steel in March 2009.
The aft block will be built in Glasgow, the central block in Barrow-In-Furness and the forward section in Portsmouth. The remaining upper sections will be constructed in smaller docks; bids from shipyards are still being considered.
The blocks will then be transported independently to Rosyth to be put together. The integration process is scheduled to take around two years and the plan is that as soon as the first ship floats it will leave and then work will begin on the second.
Putting aside questions over whether the money or political will could dry up before these carriers are completed, simply the practicality of gathering the parts together is a logistical nightmare.
‘Transportation is one of our biggest problems,’ says Knight. ‘Ideally you would build part of the ship in a dock, flood the dock, float the section of ship out and tow it to Rosyth, where you float it into another dock and let the water out so it’s left resting on blocks. You then connect it to the next section.
‘But unfortunately the aft section doesn’t float. We’ve looked at barges to transport it, but there’s only one big enough to take that weight and who knows if that barge will be around when we need her.
‘Alternatively we could put tanks on her to give extra buoyancy – basically enormous floats. But this is risky because we’ll have to tow it from the west coast of Scotland to the east coast

If and when all the pieces do finally meet, then putting the thing together should be like assembling a Lego model. But this is a massive undertaking – each of these gigantic blocks will weigh up to 10,000 tons.
‘Joining these enormous sections together, physically hammering them along a block and then making sure they’re exactly aligned will be a pretty hairy operation,’ says Knight.
The procedure has been carried out before to build offshore rigs, and the Navy is using it for its Type 45 destroyers, but those are small projects compared to these monsters. Each of these blocks will be bigger than a Type 45.
Even if things run smoothly this far, there are no guarantees that the ship will actually move. Simon Knight admits that nervousness will continue until the moment that HMS Queen Elizabeth finally goes into the water.
‘The speed trials, scheduled to take place off Rosyth, will certainly be nerve-racking. You can estimate how well the propellers will drive the ship forward, but until you’re full-scale in the water it’s very hard to know for certain. So when they first launch the ship, I’ll be terrified.’
The £3.9 billion cost for two carriers may seem huge, but they are built to serve for 50 years, and the budget is significantly less than for American carriers – each new ship costs $14 billion (£9 billion).
The project team admits that designing a ship with the desired features to a tight budget has been challenging. The result, they say, is notable more for simplicity and efficiency rather than hi-tech innovation. The most revolutionary element of the CVF design is its highly mechanised weapons handling system, which means a cut in the crew numbers required – from 4,500 on a US carrier (including a team of 150 just to move the weapons around) to 1,450.
One of the first things to go was nuclear power. Most modern aircraft carriers, including the American ships, are powered by an on-board nuclear reactor.
‘This is a brand-new ship, so getting through all the safety aspects of nuclear power would have been hideously expensive,’ says Knight.
Instead, like modern cruise liners, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince Of Wales will be propelled by electrical motors, powered by two Rolls-Royce gas turbines and four diesel generators. The diesel generators are more economical and used for general cruising, but when you need to get somewhere fast or need more headwind to help the planes to take off then you switch to the gas turbines.
Money has also been saved in side armour protection, though Knight insists this was a strategic rather than a budgetary issue.
‘The CVF’s first line of defence is the frigates and the new Type 45 destroyers around us,’ he adds. ‘Our only self-defence is close-in weapons systems and small guns. Instead, what you have on the ship is 36 of the most lethal aircraft ever made.’
That would be fine except that the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jump-jets requested are still in early flight tests and engine problems mean they will not even attempt vertical take-off until next year.
‘It’s much easier with an existing aeroplane,’ says Aviation Design Manager Gary Davey. ‘Our ramp design has already been completed but the JSF’s undercarriage is still evolving.’
Areminder of the worth of aircraft carriers as mobile airfields was provided by the Falklands War in 1982. HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes had been built as ‘through-deck cruisers’, to carry hunter-killer groups of Sea King anti-submarine helicopters, which were capable of tracking down and destroying Soviet subs in the north Atlantic should the Cold War ever spill over into open conflict.
The four or five Sea Harrier planes also aboard were simply there to protect the ship from attacks by other aircraft. But then the ships were hastily reconfigured to carry eight Harrier jets in the Falklands crisis, and they proved invaluable in getting air power over their targets.
In these turbulent times, ‘power projection’ is once again considered a necessity. As complications over finding host nations and even getting agreement on using air space grow, so does the value of the carrier, which has been vital in the ongoing war in landlocked Afghanistan.

‘That started out as a carrier-based operation,’ says Dr Willett. ‘Finding shore bases can be politically difficult, and there’s also the question of whether they are of a sufficient standard. Upgrading them can be politically difficult and expensive. Carriers have proved their value in humanitarian and relief operations as well as in combat roles, and they remain a very flexible political and military asset.

Even if it’s not politically desirable to put troops ashore somewhere, you can fly aircraft overhead, use some ordnance against a specified target, or just deliver a warning simply by having a carrier parked offshore.
‘And you can do all this from your own sovereign territory in international waters and no one can tell you that you can’t.’

THE FLOATING AIRBASE • The surface of the16,000sqm flight deck is covered in a grainy,heat-resistant paint,similar to very coarse sandpaper. The entire painted surface amounts to 370 acres – slightly bigger than Hyde Park.

• Two huge lifts, each with a 70-ton capacity, are capable of transporting two aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck in 60 seconds. The ship will be home to 36 Lockheed Martin F-35B Joint Strike Fighters and four EH-101 Merlin helicopters.

• The ground-breaking twin-island layout allows more deck space for aircraft and better visibility of the flight deck. The forward island is for navigating the ship; flight control is based in the aft island.

• The ship’s 29,000 sq m hangar is 150 metres in length and has 20 slots for aircraft maintenance.

• There are 11 full-time medical staff on board managing an eight-bed medical suite, operating theatre and dental surgery.

• An onboard water treatment plant produces over 500 tons of fresh water daily.

• Two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines and four diesel generator sets produce 109MW – enough to power a town the size of Swindon.

• Cabins are spacious and cruise-liner style, with en-suite toilets and shower facilities. Officers and senior ratings have single or two-berth cabins. The maximum number of crew in a cabin is six.

• The carrier will carry more than 8,600 tons of fuel, enough for the average family car to travel to the Moon and back 12 times. This gives a range of up to 10,000 nautical miles.

• Top speed will be in excess of 25 knots, sufficient to cross from Dover to Calais in an hour.

• The two five-blade propellers are each 30ft in diameter – that’s one-and-a-half times the height of a double-decker bus.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1100714/The-4billion-Airfix-Kit-Behind-scenes-Britains-biggest-warships.html?ITO=1490

Marines Eye Littoral Combat Ship for Future Missions

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — The Marine Corps is considering new ways in which it could employ the Navy’s new littoral combat ships.

“We’re working on an assessment of what we can put on the LCS,” the chief of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Lt. Gen. George Flynn, told a recent Expeditionary Warfare conference. “There’s a potential for maybe two or three mission modules.”

The shallow-draft warship that sailors will employ in mine warfare, surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare missions still is in development and testing.

Flynn, who has been aboard both lead ships — the USS Freedom (LCS-1) built by Lockheed Martin Corp. and the USS Independence (LCS-2) built by General Dynamics, told reporters that it was important for him to “see the art of the possible.”

He said the Marine Corps commandant asked him to think about putting a “box of rockets” aboard the ship, which would turn it into a naval surface fire platform. “We still need to talk to the Navy a little bit more about that, but there’s a possibility here. You could use that ship for some of those missions,” he said.

Marines could deploy small units such as platoons or companies aboard an LCS, Flynn said.

“I have seen where you can drive on some amphibious craft on the back of at least one LCS,” he said.

The increased demand for naval support in coastal areas, meanwhile, is creating a growing demand for ships that are even smaller than the LCS. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Thomas Benes, director of the Navy’s expeditionary warfare division, said there is a need for boats that are larger than the riverine units’ 40-foot boats but smaller than the 400-foot littoral combat ship. The Navy does not have such a vessel in its inventory.

In the Persian Gulf, U.S. warships have been targeted by suicide bombers in fishing boats and threatened by Iranian speedboats.

“It’s obvious you need some smaller boat to be able to patrol that area,” Benes said. “We’re taking that on.”

A study conducted last year recommended two types of craft, said Capt. Mark Mullins, deputy director of the division’s irregular warfare branch. One of the options is a patrol-boat size craft and the other is a craft in the 90- to 100-foot range. “There’s definitely some momentum building about doing more in the littorals, to be able to engage the partners with ships that are a lot smaller than what we currently have in our inventory,” he said.

Sailors also need ways to detect the boats and ships coming into a harbor, said Capt. David Balk, assistant chief of staff at Navy Expeditionary Combat Command. With piracy becoming more commonplace, sailors also are looking for technologies to detect small boats and to thwart possible attacks in non-violent ways.

“How do I tell a small boat’s intent approaching our ship? How can I tell when those boats are just looky lou, or if they have evil intent?” Balk asked the industry conference. Sailors would like to be able to identify the type of boat, its intention, and whether it’s carrying any weapons in a rapid fashion because they don’t have time to analyze the data. “We’re not a 15-knot Navy anymore,” Balk said. “We’re a 40- to 50-knot Navy, and the bad guys are close to 25 now.”

Nonlethal weapons are being considered, he said. The command wants to waterproof the laser dazzler used by Marines at vehicle checkpoints in Iraq to stop suspicious drivers without harming them. It also is interested in the active denial system, a millimeter-wave transmitter used for crowd control. There is potential to adapt that weapon and put it on a ship, Balk said.

The command wants a faster way to acquire technologies to counter enemies because it takes them only a few weeks to adapt and respond. “I need continuous feed of the new technology,” said Balk. “I can’t wait five years in a normal acquisition program.”

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2009/January/Pages/MarinesEyeLittoralCombatShipforFutureMissions.aspx

Production May Be To Blame For Failed Bulava Test – General Staff

MOSCOW, December 25 (RIA Novosti) – The chief of the Russian General Staff said Thursday that production flaws could be to blame for Tuesday’s unsuccessful test launch of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile.

“Either the military-industrial complex or production itself or design shortcomings could be to blame for the failure,” General of the Army Nikolai Makarov said.

Makarov said the Defense Ministry would thoroughly investigate the reasons for the failure.

The submerged launch of the Bulava ICBM took place from the Dmitry Donskoi strategic nuclear-powered submarine in the White Sea, off Russia’s northwest coast, targeting the Kura firing ground in Kamchatka, the Far East.

“The launch was a failure,” an official at the Belomorsk naval base said. “The crew performed well. The missile left the tube, but went off course due to a malfunction after the first stage separation.”

A Navy commission will investigate the cause of the unsuccessful launch, Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo, a Navy spokesman, said earlier.

The latest test launch was Bulava’s 10th and the fifth failure.

The previous test of the Bulava missile took place on November 28. It was launched from the Dmitry Donskoi submarine in the White Sea, effectively engaging its designated target on the Kamchatka Peninsula about 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles) east of Moscow.

Russia earlier planned for the Bulava to enter service with the Navy in 2009. But a senior Russian Navy official said earlier this month that several more test launches would be conducted next year before a final decision to adopt it for service was made.

The Bulava (SS-NX-30), carrying up to 10 nuclear warheads and having a range of 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles), is designed for deployment on Borey-class Project 955 nuclear-powered submarines.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier said the missile would be a key component of Russia’s nuclear forces.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081225/119171656.html

Russian Navy missile cruiser to visit South Africa Jan. 9-12

MOSCOW, December 24 (RIA Novosti) – The Northern Fleet’s Pyotr Veliky nuclear-powered missile cruiser will become the first Russian warship to dock in Cape Town when it visits South Africa on January 9-12, Russia’s Navy said.

The Navy said in a press release that the Pyotr Veliky will sail down Africa’s west coast and pass the southern tip of the continent to join up with warships from the Pacific Fleet for the INDRA-2009 joint exercises with the Indian Navy. The Admiral Vinogradov, an Udaloy class destroyer, a tugboat and two fuel tankers have almost reached the Indian Ocean, having left Russia’s Far East two weeks ago.

Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo, a spokesman for the Russian Navy, said earlier that Russia currently has three naval task groups on tours of duty in the world’s oceans.

Another naval task force from the Northern Fleet, led by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and including the Admiral Levchenko destroyer, recently left the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, and is heading to the Strait of Gibraltar.

Russia announced last year that its Navy had resumed and would build up a constant presence in different regions of the world’s oceans.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20081224/119147770.html

Related News:

Navy orders 8 new Virginia-class subs

As expected, the Navy announced on Monday a $14 billion contract to buy eight new Virginia-class submarines.

The fixed-price incentive, multiyear procurement contract was awarded to General Dynamics Electric Boat, lead shipyard for the Virginia-class submarines. Electric Boat’s facilities at Quonset Point, R.I., and Groton, Conn., share equally in building the submarines with Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding’s Newport News shipyard in Virginia.

In making the announcement, Rear Adm. William Hilarides, program executive officer for submarines, told a group of reporters at the Pentagon that more than 12,000 companies of all sizes located in 48 states take part in building the Virginia-class subs.

The first of the eight submarines, the North Dakota (SSN 784) — so far the only vessel in the group to be named — was authorized in the 2009 defense act. The Navy plans to ask for SSN 785 in 2010 and thereafter ask for two submarines each in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

The eighth ship in the group, SSN 791, is scheduled to be delivered in 2019.

The new group of subs is referred to collectively as Block III. Previous Virginia-class submarines were authorized in two groups of five subs each. With the new contract, 18 submarines of the class are in service, under construction, on order or authorized. The Navy plans to buy 30 Virginia-class submarines.

According to General Dynamics, the contract immediately provides $2.4 billion to fund construction of the North Dakota and carry out advanced procurement for SSN 785. Significant economies of scale will be realized, the company said, by the ability to purchase materials, parts and components for multiple ships at one time.

The Block III submarines will be the first of the class to be fitted with the Virginia Payload Tubes, a development of the modified former ballistic missile launch tubes in the Ohio-class converted cruise missile subs. Two VPTs in the bow of each of the new submarines will replace 12 vertical launch tubes used for Tomahawk cruise missiles in previous submarines. The 92-inch-wide VPTs each can hold six cruise missiles.

The new subs also will feature the Large Aperture Bow Array of sound-detection gear, replacing the traditional sonar sphere of earlier ships. Hilarides said the LAB Array provides improved passive listening capability over traditional spheres using transducers.

The Navy claims the LAB Array and VPTs, along with more than two dozen other modifications, shaved $40 million per submarine beginning with the 2012 ships.

Hilarides noted the price for the each of the two submarines in 2012 will be $2 billion, calculated in 2005 dollars. Adjusted for inflation, he said, the actual price in 2012 will be $2.6 billion.

Reaching the goal of a $2 billion submarine represented a lengthy effort by the Navy and its shipbuilders, Hilarides said. He commented that to lower ship prices, “Steady, stable and long construction runs are the key to controlling costs in shipbuilding.”

The Navy also worked to the line on what it wants the submarines to do.

“Requirements on the Virginia class have been extremely stable from the beginning,” Hilarides noted.

No new submarine contracts are now scheduled to be awarded for several years. Hilarides said that negotiations for the next group, Block IV, would begin in about 2012.

As for what possible design changes might be incorporated into those new submarines, Rear Adm. Cecil Haney, director of the Submarine Warfare Division, declined to answer. “That would be premature,” he said at the Pentagon. “I want to see more reports from commanders after deployment.”

The submarine-building community praised the new agreement.

“This contract will provide good jobs not just in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Virginia, but in thousands of communities across the country as our vendors gear up for increased production on the Virginia class,” Electric Boat president John Casey said in a statement.

Matt Mulherin, general manager of the Newport News shipyard, said in a statement that the agreement “brings stability to the submarine program, to our work force and to the shipbuilding supplier industrial base for the next decade.”

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/12/military_subcontract_122308/

Russian warship becomes Havana’s top attraction

The Russian destroyer Admiral Chabanenko, which is docked in Havana, is proving to be a major draw for Cubans. It’s the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union that the Russian navy has visited the country.

During first two days of the Russian navy’s visit to Cuba, thousands have been on-board the ship. The queue is still more than a kilometre long.

And on Saturday the country’s top military officers were seen on board the Admiral Chabanenko, as the Cuban chief of staff and the commander of Cuban fleet inspected the ship.

The visit to Cuba, which was labeled as historic by the local media, is a part of the Russian Navy’s Caribbean tour. It participated in a joint exercise with the Venezuelan fleet and sailed through the Panama Canal.

http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/35082

King Sejong the Great-South Korea’s first Aegis destroyer commissions today

South Korea’s first Aegis destroyer “King Sejong the Great” is seen during a commission ceremony at a naval port in Busan, about 420 km (262 miles) southeast of Seoul, December 22, 2008. The destroyer, which is 166 meters long and has a displacement of 7,600 tons, was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. at a cost of one billion dollars, according to the South Korean Navy.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/0axXeUkdv86Wx

SKorea deploys its 1st Aegis-equipped destroyer

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea deployed its first Aegis-equipped destroyer Monday as part of a program to boost its naval forces, the navy said.

The 7,600-ton-class ship is armed with the Lockheed Martin-made Aegis radar and combat system enabling it to detect and trace 1,000 targets and strike 20 of them simultaneously, the navy said in a statement.

The warship is the first of three Aegis-equipped destroyers that South Korea plans to deploy in coming years, according to the navy.

“Our navy … can completely protect our forces from threats by enemy missiles and jets and has obtained precision striking capability,” Jung Ok-keun, the navy chief of staff, said in comments on the deployment, according to the statement.

South Korea shares the world’s most heavily fortified border with North Korea, and naval skirmishes sometimes occur along their disputed maritime frontier.

South Korea launched the Aegis ship in May last year and has been testing its capability before its actual deployment, the navy said. South Korea was the world’s fifth nation to commission an Aegis destroyer after the United States, Japan, Spain and Norway.

The divided states are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Tensions on the peninsula have been running high since a pro-U.S., conservative government took office in Seoul in February with a pledge to take a tough line on the North.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/822558.html

Russia to test launch Bulava ICBM in 2 days – defense source

MOSCOW, December 22 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is to hold another test launch of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile in two days time, a source in the Russian defense industry said on Monday.

“The test launch of the latest intercontinental ballistic missile Bulava, which is due to be held in the next two days from the Dmitry Donskoi [Typhoon-class] strategic nuclear-powered submarine, will not be the final test for the commissioning of the missile,” the source said.

“Next year we plan three or four more launches, including from [Russia’s first Borey-class] strategic nuclear submarine the Yury Dolgoruky,” he said.

The Bulava will not be commissioned without successful test launches from the Yury Dolgoruky, the source added.

The fourth-generation Yury Dolgoruky was built at the Sevmash plant in northern Russia and was taken out of dry dock in April 2007. It is due to be equipped with Bulava ballistic missiles upgraded from Topol-M (SS-27) missiles.

The submarine is 170 meters (580 feet) long, has a hull diameter of 13 meters (42 feet), a crew of 107, including 55 officers, a maximum depth of 450 meters (about 1,500 feet) and a submerged speed of about 29 knots. It can carry up to 16 ballistic missiles.

The latest test of the sea-launched Bulava missile took place on November 28. It was launched from the Dmitry Donskoi submarine in the White Sea, effectively engaging its designated target on the Kamchatka Peninsula about 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles) east of Moscow.

The Bulava (SS-NX-30), developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, is designed for deployment on Borey-class Project 955 nuclear-powered submarines.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081222/119095678.html

Among the 94 different design changes are plans to transition from 12 vertical launch tubes down to two payload tubes similar to what is on the converted Ohio-class submarines (SSGN).Or at least for the first group of them, Batch one from block III?

Block III: The Changes

The most obvious change is the switch from 12 vertical launch tubes, to 12 missiles in 2 tubes that use technology from the Ohio Class special forces/ strike SSGN program. The Virginia’s hull has a smaller cross-section than the converted ballistic missile SSGNs, so the “6-shooters” will be shorter and a bit wider. Nevertheless, they will share a great deal of common technology, allowing innovations on either platform to be incorporated into the other submarine class during major maintenance milestones. Net savings are about $8 million to program baseline costs.

The other big change you can see in the above diagram is switching from an air-backed sonar sphere to a water-backed Large Aperture Bow (LAB) array. Eliminating the hundreds of SUBSAFE penetrations that help maintain required pressure in the air-backed sonar sphere will save approximately $11 million per hull, and begins with the FY 2012 boats (SSNs 787-788).

The LAB Array has 2 primary components: the passive array, which will provide improved performance, and a medium-frequency active array. It utilizes transducers from the SSN-21 Seawolf Class that are that are designed to last the life of the hull. This is rather par for the course, as the Virginia Class’ was created in the 1990s to incorporate key elements of the $4 billion Seawolf Class submarine technologies into a cheaper boat.

The SUBSAFE eliminations, plus the life-of-the-hull transducers, will help to reduce the submarines’ life cycle costs as well by removing moving parts that require maintenance, eliminating possible points of failure and repair, and removing the need for transducer replacements in drydock.

The bow redesign is not limited to these changes, however, and includes 25 associated redesign efforts. These are estimated to reduce construction costs by another $20 million per hull beginning with the FY 2012 submarine.

With the $19 million ($11 + 8) from the LAB array and Vertical Payload, and the $20 million from the associated changes, General Dynamics is $39 million toward the $200 million baseline costs goal of “2 for 4 in 12”. While the changes themselves will begin with the FY 2009 ship, the savings are targeted at FY 2012 because of the learning curve required as part of the switch. Recent discussions concerning an earlier shift to 2 submarines per year would result in faster production of the Block III submarines, but would be unlikely to make a huge difference to that learning curve.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/virginia-block-iii-the-revised-bow-04159/

Any idea how many VPTs the Virginia will have? I’ve seen one, two, and four depending on the drawing you look at. :confused:

And more 8 Virginia class submarines for US Navy

U.S. Sub Contract Awards Expected Dec. 22

U.S submariners and their shipbuilders could get an early Christmas present Monday, when the U.S. Navy is expected to announce the award of $14 billion in construction contracts.

The new submarines are the next eight ships of the SSN 774 Virginia class of nuclear attack subs.

General Dynamics Electric Boat is the prime contractor for the Virginia-class program, with construction split equally between Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding’s Newport News, Va., shipyard and GD’s facilities at Quonset Point, R.I., and Groton, Conn.

The new submarines collectively are referred to as Block III. Funding for the first of the Block III boats, the North Dakota (SSN 784), was included in the 2009 defense budget. The Navy plans to ask for one more submarine in 2010 and two subs in 2011, 2012 and 2013 to complete the new group.

The Block III submarines will be the first to feature the new Virginia Payload Tube (VPT), a large-diameter launch tube based on the reconfigured former ballistic missile launch tubes on the Ohio-class SSGN cruise missile submarines. The VPTs, which can each hold six Tomahawk cruise missiles, replace 12 separate Tomahawk launch tubes built into earlier versions of the class.

The Block III subs also will incorporate the Large Aperture Bow Array, an improved arrangement of sonar and underwater listening devices.

More than a hundred other design changes – many developed under “design for affordability” guidelines intended to reduce costs or improve construction time – are integrated into the new ships.

The new contracts cap a year that saw two U.S. submarines from the same class commissioned in the same year for the first time since 1995. The Newport News-assembled North Carolina was commissioned on May 3 and the New Hampshire, completed at Groton, was commissioned on Oct. 25. General Dynamics also held a keel ceremony for the Missouri on Sept. 27 at Quonset Point, while Newport News hosted a keel ceremony for the New Mexico on Dec. 13.

Delivery of the North Dakota is scheduled for 2015.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3872168&c=AME&s=SEA

U.S. Navy Awards General Dynamics $47 Million for Post-Shakedown Work on USS North Carolina

GROTON, Conn. — The U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat two contract modifications totaling $46.5 million to perform work on USS North Carolina (SSN-777) during its post-shakedown availability (PSA). Electric Boat is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics.

The PSA will include maintenance, repairs, alterations, testing and other activities and will involve more than 500 current employees at its peak. Scheduled for completion in March 2010, the contract has an estimated total potential value of $70 million.

USS North Carolina is the fourth ship of the Virginia class, the first of the Navy’s major combatants to be designed specifically for post-Cold War missions. Electric Boat and its construction teammate, Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, have received contracts to produce 10 Virginia-class submarines.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?session=dae.43599436.1229703233.mGNz3n8AAAEAAGTHVfIAAAAR&cat=3&prod=100799&modele=release

jeez it is just getting worse and worse for the RN when will they realize how far they are going 🙁