The US Navy (USN) is assessing how best to recapitalise its fleet of Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers (CGs) and eventually Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers (DDGs), the naval staff's surface warfare head told IHS Jane's on 7 January that he is seeking modular weapons and radar systems to provide long-range offensive punch, as well as multilayered defensive capability.
Rear Admiral Peter J Fanta, director of surface warfare (N96), said that the USN's future surface combatant effort must glean lessons from ongoing warship programmes, and build upon new concepts and technologies being introduced on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and Zumwalt-class (DDG 1000) destroyer.
The US Navy is preparing to build Flight III destroyers, the latest version of the Arleigh Burke class that has been under construction since the 1980s, and just began at-sea tests of the first of the Zumwalt class stealth destroyer, a design conceived in the late 1990s. The US Navy is also planning for next generation surface warship designs, dubbed the Future Surface Combatant, currently scheduled to begin procurement in 2030.
Open Architecture and Modularity defined
Open architecture (as defined by Admiral Fanta) means the Navy owns the data rights and can hire somebody to go build a new system using those data rights. They know the interface points, they know how those machines talk to each other. They say “This is your spec, go write these specs” or go write this software into your code so it plugs into mine and they don’t have to spend a billion dollars changing your code every time they want to upgrade the ship.
Modularity (as defined by Admiral Fanta) means not necessarily plug-and-play modules but being able to upgrade when technology allows me to upgrade at a reasonable rate. They can describe the next set of weapons, sensors, engineering components, hull designs that all allow them to go build that next ship. That’s more what they are going for than a particular hull design. They are looking for a family of ships that can do more than one thing, because every time they build a single-mission ship it tends to get decommissioned before its life expectancy. That’s really what this capabilities-based assessment and analysis of alternatives and everything else the Navy doing is driving us to.
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Reposted via Next Big Future
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