NAVY NEWS WEEK 38-6

21 September 2018

How the U.S. Is Recovering Oil from a Nuked Warship Prinz Eugen, once the pride of the German Navy, is sitting upside down in the Pacific and threatening to leak. By Kyle Mizokami Sep 17, 2018

U.S. Navy photo by LeighAhn Ferrari, chief mate, U.S. Naval Ship Salvor

The U.S. military is trying to recover the oil form a ship that's been underwater for 72 years. In an interesting twist, it's not even an American warship. The United States captured the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as a war prize after the end of World War II. The Prinz Eugen capsized in 1946 after being nuked—twice—during the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. For decades, experts have feared that the ship's oil might leak into the Pacific. Now the Pentagon is trying to do something about it. The Doomed Fleet It was July 1946, months after the end of World War II, when the U.S. Navy assembled one of the mightiest fleets in history. Led by the aircraft carrier Saratoga and battleship New York, the group also included captured Axis vessels such as the Japanese battleship Nagato and the Prinz Eugen. A doomed fleet of more than 80 warships anchored at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, way out in the Pacific Ocean... and was promptly nuked. Twice. See the video in this 8½ minute clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy6-ZKWCoH0 . Even with WWII barely in the rearview, U.S.-Soviet relations had been turning frosty. Most believed (rightly) that Moscow would get a bomb of its own. The U.S. Navy wanted to know what nuclear weapons would do to warships, so they built this ghost fleet. Operation Crossroads involved two tests, Test Able and Test Baker, each simulating an atomic attack on a fleet at anchorage.

Prinz Eugen flying the Stars and Stripes, January 1946. Getty Images

The German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen was one of the German Navy’s largest ships. Fast and powerful, Prinz Eugen had teamed up with the mighty battleship Bismarck during wartime to sink the British battlecruiser Hood before being stuck in Germany for repairs. The ship was given over to the U.S. Navy at the end of the war, briefly became USS Prinz Eugen (IX-300) and survived both two atomic bomb blasts, with only a broken main mast to show for it. Prinz Eugen survived the blasts, but she became frightfully radioactive. After initial attempts to decontaminate the ship, the U.S. towed the heavy cruiser to Kwajalein Atoll, where she sank six months later. Today the ship is visible just off the coast of Enubuj island, upside down in shallow water, her propellers resting above the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The Hot Tap

The wreck of the Prinz Eugen, with USNS Salvor and tanker Humber anchored above. U.S. Navy photo by LeighAhn Ferrari, chief mate, U.S. Naval Ship Salvor

In 1974, the U.S. Military warned the oil still aboard the German warship was at risk of escaping and should be removed within 30 years. Here’s a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service report on the feasibility of the removal process. According to the report, a major concern is a typhoon damaging the wreck and facilitating a major leak. The hull has sprung several smaller oil leaks over the years. The Navy determined in 1974 that neither Prinz Eugen nor the oil inside the wreck is still radioactive. The oil retrieval process is now ongoing, a joint project of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and the Republic of Micronesia. The U.S. salvage ship USNS Salvor and oil tanker Humber are moored directly above the Prinz Eugen, assisted by the U.S. Navy’s Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates there is approximately 2,767 tons of oil still onboard the ship. (The cruiser was fueled up for the tests in order to simulate the effects of an a-bomb on a fully loaded, combat-ready warship.)

Aboard USNS Salvor, with Prinz Eugen’s remaining propellers visible in background. U.S. Navy photo by Stephanie Bocek

The operation is using the Easy Tapper Hot Tapping Machine Kit to cut into the hull, access the fuel reservoirs, and install a valve system for siphoning away the oil. The oil is then pumped into Humber’s holds. A similar operation was undertaken in 2003 to remove oil from the sunken U.S. Navy oil tanker USS Mississinewa, sunk by a Japanese manned torpedo during World War II. The manner in which the Prinz Eugen settled, upside down in very shallow water, makes it simpler to draw the oil than with other wrecks. The fact that the old cruiser stored most of her fuel in tanks adjacent to the hull walls also makes accessing the oil easier. There are 143 external tanks along the hull wall and another 30 deeper inside the ship. The U.S. military expects the operation to extract the oil to wrap up by the end of October 2018. Source: https://www.popularmechanics.com

China Could Have 4 Aircraft Carriers by 2022: Should the Navy Be Worried? To what end is Beijing building this force? How many carriers will the PLAN ultimately build? Is China growing a carrier force meant to protect its interests or expand them? We simply don’t know—but we will certainly find out. by Kyle Mizokami September 12, 2018 The People’s Liberation Army Navy—more commonly known outside of China as the Chinese Navy—is modernizing at a breakneck pace. Chinese shipbuilders have built more than one hundred warships in the past decade, a build rate outstripping the mighty U.S. Navy. Most importantly, China now has two aircraft carriers—Liaoning and a second ship under sea trials—and a third and possibly fourth ship under construction. With such a massive force under construction it’s worth asking: where does PLA naval aviation go from here? For most of its modern history China has been the target of aircraft carriers, not an owner of one. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s carriers conducted strikes on the Chinese mainland in support of ground campaigns in the 1930s, strikes that went a long way toward honing the service’s legendary naval aviation record. U.S. naval power protected nationalist Chinese forces at the end of the Chinese Civil War, and U.S. Navy carriers conducted airstrikes on Chinese “volunteers” during the Korean War. In 1996 during the Third Taiwan Crisis, the United States deployed a carrier battle group near Taiwan as a sign of support against Chinese military actions. It could be fairly said that aircraft carriers made a significant impression on China.

Image: Reuters.

Today, China has two aircraft carriers: the ex-Soviet carrier Liaoning, and a second unnamed ship, Type 002, currently undergoing sea trials. Liaoning is expected to function strictly as a training carrier, establishing training, techniques, and procedures for Chinese sailors in one of the most dangerous aspects of naval warfare: naval aviation. Despite this, Liaoning’s three transits of the Taiwan Strait and visit to Hong Kong show the PLAN considers it perfectly capable of showing the flag. The second ship, Type 002 (previously referred to as Type 001A) resembles Liaoning but with a handful of improvements, including an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar the carrier’s island and a larger flight deck. Experts believe Type 002 will carry slightly more fighters than her older sibling, up to thirty J-15 jets in all. Type 002 will be the first combat-capable carrier, although the lack of a catapult means its aircraft must sacrifice range and striking power in order to take off from the flight deck. A third ship of yet another class is under construction at the Jiangnan Shipyard at Shanghai, with credible reports of a fourth ship of the same class under construction at Dalian. This new class, designated Type 003, is the first Chinese carrier constructed using a modern, modular construction method. The modules, known as “superlifts” each weigh hundreds of tons, are assembled on land and then hoisted onto the ship in drydock. Large American and British warships, including carriers such as the USS Gerald R. Ford and HMS Queen Elizabeth are assembled using the superlift method. Although there are few hard details on Type 003, we do know some things. The new carrier will forgo the ski ramp method for CATOBAR, or Catapult-Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery. The use of catapults will allow the carrier to launch heavier aircraft with great fuel and weapons loads, making the carrier more effective as a power projection platform. China has reportedly conducted “thousands” of test launches of a new electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS). Not only does an EMALs launch system enable the launch of heavier combat jets, it can also launch propeller-driven aircraft similar to the U.S. Navy’s E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft and the C-2 Greyhound cargo transport. The ability to tune EMALs power levels also makes it easier to launch smaller, lighter unmanned aerial vehicles from catapults. We don’t currently know the size and displacement of the Type 003s, and likely won’t be able to even make an educated guess for another year. They will probably be incrementally larger than Type 002 with an incrementally larger air wing and overall combat capability, though one still falling short of American supercarriers. The new carriers are expected to be conventionally powered and fortunately, China’s EMALS system will not reportedly require nuclear power . At the same time, Chinese designers are believed to be hard at work on a fourth class of carrier, Type 004. According to Popular Science, a leak by the shipbuilder claims the new class, “will displace between ninety thousand and one hundred thousand tons and have electromagnetically assisted launch system (EMALS) catapults for getting aircrafts off the deck. It'll likely carry a large air wing of J-15 fighters, J-31 stealth fighters, KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft, anti-submarine warfare helicopters, and stealth attack drones.” Such specifications will make them the equal of U.S. carriers, at least on paper. Meanwhile, the PLAN is looking forward a next-generation carrier aircraft. The PLAN has twenty-four J-15 multirole fighters, with at least two aircraft lost and two damaged during accidents attributed to the J-15 itself. That’s not enough aircraft to equip two carriers, land-based training units and carriers currently under construction. A future aircraft could be a carrier-based version of the Chengdu J-20 or the J-31/FC-31 , China’s two new fifth-generation fighters. An interim solution could be the so-called J-17, an improved J-15 roughly comparable to the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the EA-18G Growler. The People’s Liberation Army Navy carrier fleet is a rapidly growing force shaping up to be a powerful, flexible tool of statecraft and war. Beijing could realistically have four aircraft carriers by 2022—a remarkable feat of military construction. All of this lead to a number of unsolved questions. To what end is Beijing building this force? How many carriers will the PLAN ultimately build? Is China growing a carrier force meant to protect its interests or expand them? We simply don’t know—but we will certainly find out. Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami. Source: https://nationalinterest.org Toulon Harbour with the Abeille Flandres and the L 9015 Dixmude Photo : Albert de Heer Cammis Marine B.V. (c)

Exercise ATLASUR all at sea Written by Dean Wingrin, Wednesday, 12 September 2018 Exercise ATLASUR XI 2018, the multinational biennial maritime exercise between South Africa, Brazil and Uruguay, has entered its first sea phase. Having commenced the alongside first phase in Simon’s Town on August 31, sea phase one started in False Bay on 6 September, with integration at sea scheduled to be completed by 9 September. The South African Navy (SAN), as the lead service of the host country, is providing the majority of participating assets. This includes the frigate SAS Amatola, hydrographic survey vessel SAS Protea, submarine SAS Manthatisi and the Maritime Reaction Squadron (boats, reaction force, divers and boarding). Brazil is represented by the frigate BNS Barroso (with an AS350 Ecureuil helicopter aboard) and 1 Platoon Special Forces, while Uruguay is represented by the replenishment vessel ROU General Artigas and a Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) team. The first evolutions consisted of Officer of the Watch manoeuvres. This, Commander Abdul Sayed, Executive Officer of SAS Amatola said, involved “basic manoeuvring of ships in order for them to become accustomed with one another in terms of manning, as well as conducting training for junior Officer of the Watch and Navigation Officers”. The theme for Exercise ATLASUR XI is “Combined we are combating illegal trade (human, drugs and arms).” This, Sayed said, was one of the most formidable threats, not only across Africa, but around the world. “The purpose of this exercise is for us to exercise with the Uruguayans and the Brazilians,” Sayed explained, “As international navies we have this collaborative effort in terms of a common goal. In combating illegal trade, the seaward element is in support of the landward objective.” As a result, there is a small landward contingent involved in exercise ATLASUR XI. A combined South Africa, Brazilian and Uruguayan amphibious marine force made landfall and proceeded along the coastline in support of the exercise. After a night steam by the task force, defenceWeb boarded SAS Amatola via boat transfer in the dark, chilly pre-dawn hours of last Friday. The serialised programme for the day commenced with Amatola and Barroso conducting naval gunfire support, which Sayed explained as “providing area bombardment towards the objective meant to be achieved ashore.” Amatola did not actually fire her main OTO Melara 76mm gun, the Barroso was enveloped in smoke as she fired her 113mm (4.5") Vickers Mk 8 dual-purpose gun. As the same time, Protea detached from the task force to conduct a MEDEVAC, flying a ‘casualty’ ashore via a South African Air Force Oryx helicopter. Amatola and Barroso also conducted an ADEX (air defence exercise) to practise the ship’s ability to counter enemy aircraft. For this purpose, the SAAF provided a PC-7 MkII of Central Flying School, AFB Langebaanweg, to simulate an attacking aircraft. While Barroso remained on her gunnery exercise, Amatola broke away from the task force and continued with the ADEX. Protea then rejoined the task force while the spotters were recovered from their designated area, with the Ecureuil helicopter embarked aboard the Barroso taking the opportunity to fly. All the while, Heroine-class submarine Manthatisi was operating on and under the surrounding False Bay waters, accompanying the task force which then ventured south of Cape Point. In order to celebrate the Independence Day of Brazil, Amatola led the Protea, General Artigas and Manthatisi in a sail past of the Brazilian frigate Barroso, with the crew of the Amatola lining the ship’s side, executing a “Three Cheers.” This was a special moment for two Brazilian naval officers aboard Amatola, who were observing activities during the exercises. Similarly, two South African naval officers were aboard Barroso. Over the next week, additional sea phases will see exercises conducted in the False Bay area and off the Cape West Coast, which Sayed labels “exciting.” Besides additional exercises with the submarine, Sayed described how the exercise control team will inject scenarios to which the task force will react. “The purpose is to test our ability in terms of a real-life scenario in which we will be engaged in combat and how we deal with these scenarios,” he said, “They will test our perseverance to combat these simulated threats.” Navies are no longer solely concerned with traditional conventional warfare and acknowledge countries face a common enemy, such as piracy and human trafficking. Sayed told defenceWeb: “That is the common fit all navies are engineered and geared towards combating, so multinational navies exercise with one another. There are a few hurdles that we need to overcome including the language barrier and different operating procedures.” “The purpose is to afford us the opportunity to train with one another and for us to improve on those skills,” he continued, “So when we are called on by global agencies, we are able to execute functions properly and effectively.” From the South African Navy perspective, Sayed says this ATLASUR series of exercises allows them to “brush up on our standard operating procedures in terms of jointness and multinational co- operation.” Brazilian observers aboard Amatola agreed, noting although international navies speak the same naval language, there are differences in the Standard Operating Procedures between the two navies. Sea phase three, from Monday 17 September, will see the Uruguayans return home, with the South Africans and Brazilians continuing with conventional maritime warfare at sea evolutions. On conclusion of Exercise Atlasur XI on 21 September, the Brazilians will undertake a diplomatic visit to Maputo before returning to Simon’s Town on 1 October for the start of Exercise IBSAMAR, conducted between South Africa, Brazil and India. Given the severe budgetary constraints under which the SA Navy has to operate, many question the future viability and operational efficiency of the SA Navy. So the last word should go to Sayed: “Yes, the South African Navy is definitely up for the job and up for the task at hand.”Source: http://www.defenceweb.co.za

Intelligence group predicts US will solidify its presence in South China Sea US private sector intelligence company Stratfor has tipped that the US will solidify its naval presence in the South China Sea in the latest bout of US-China rivalry. In its third quarter forecast, Stratfor also tipped that US President Donald Trump will continue to pile the tariffs on Chinese goods. That could certainly have a flow on effect to the Australian economy. And familiar threats will resurface from the Korean Peninsula as US- North Korea talks stumble. Stratfor, based in Houston, Texas, produces annual and quarterly forecasts of global affairs and claims a high success rate in getting it right, based on its reading of geopolitics and global trends. In its latest forecast, Stratfor said the US will solidify its naval presence in the South China Sea and continue building up defence and economic ties along China's periphery, from Taiwan to south-east Asia. And in response, Beijing will continue strategic efforts to improve its relations with its neighbours. “China will hold its first shared naval drill with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China and the Philippines will make progress on maritime management and on joint South China Sea energy exploration,” it said. “However, countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia will continue to pursue defence and economic partnerships with the US and Japan to balance against China. China is currently participating in its first joint naval exercise with Australia, with a PLA- N frigate working with Australian and other warships in Exercise Kakadu 18. As President Trump approaches the midpoint of his presidency, he will take his controversial trade policy into more extreme territory in the final quarter of this year. China is already bracing for more US economic pressure as trade talks between the two giants stall. Stratfor said the war of words with North Korea was unlikely to degenerate into a full-blown military stand-off this quarter. South Korea, China and Russia will sustain engagement with Pyongyang to stymie Washington's maximum pressure tactics, it said. “Beijing will still keep the door to dialogue open, sticking to its offer to buy more US goods and to liberalise select sectors, but it will not cave to US demands for deeper structural reform. That means more tariffs ahead,” Stratfor predicted. Stratfor said having completed the first phase of its tariff assault on China, Washington would follow through with a threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. “Though the US administration could modify the tariffs list to try to soften the blow to American consumers, it has demonstrated a tolerance for incurring industrial and consumer costs in pursuit of its tariff policy,” it said. Source: Defence Connect

Should the U.S. Navy Buy Non-Nuclear Submarines? Backers claim the Pentagon would get more bang for its buck, but the Navy disagrees.

Japanese Soryu class submarine. Photo: Toshifumi Kitamura / Getty Images

It was 1990, and it was the end of an era. The U.S. Navy decommissioned the attack submarine USS Blueback, the last non- nuclear attack submarine in U.S. service. Nuclear subs have distinct advantages over their conventionally-powered cousins, but they also take a long time and a lot of money to build. As China’s Navy ramps up, is it time for America’s shipyards to build diesel electric submarines again? A new article in The National Interest takes up this issue. The article claims that for every Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine it buys, the United States could build five diesel electric submarines of the Japanese Soryu-class (above). If this were true, then the sheer number of submarines the U.S. Navy could field that way would be a major deterrent to China in the Pacific. There would be enough U.S. subs to mass at choke points throughout the western Pacific, an intimidating prospect for a country like China that has never prosecuted anti-submarine warfare before. But the U.S. Navy’s submarine force has been an all-nuclear fleet for 28 years, and frankly the Navy likes it that way. Nuclear power is prestigious. Nuclear power guarantees unlimited range, with a submarine’s only limiting factors being food and crew morale. The ability to speed across the Pacific or Atlantic directly into action, without needing to stop and refuel, is a powerful capability. There are other advantages. Nuclear submarines can be considerably larger than diesel electric boats and thus fitted with more non-attack capabilities (unmanned undersea vehicles, spy gear, or room for combat divers and SEALs). That's because no matter how big the sub gets, it doesn't have to take on proportionately large amounts of voluminous liquid fuel. Nuclear submarines also can stay submerged for very long periods of time, although the new generation of diesel electric submarines can stay submerged longer than ever before. One of the problems with non- nuclear subs is the need to rely on bases. Although few people talk about it, the fact is that in the event of a real war with China, every major military base from Okinawa to Guam will be bombarded with conventionally-armed ballistic missiles. Their goal: to destroy the springboards of American power into China’s backyard, pushing the Americans all the way back to Hawaii. Some missiles would get shot down, but others will get through. (This isn’t just limited to a war with China. You could overlay the same scenario over Europe with a hypothetical conflict with Russia.) Thus, in the event of war with China, it is quite likely that non-nuclear American submarines would lose their forward bases—which was the point of building them in the first place. The nearest places they could rearm and refuel would probably be Australia and Hawaii. A diesel boat with a burning Yokosuka naval base in its periscope and a quarter tank of diesel fuel is going to be in a lot of trouble. A nuclear- powered boat is not. In the event of a surprise attack by a major adversary, America’s forward-deployed nuclear-powered submarine fleet may be the only ships that survive the first day of war. This is not to say diesel electric submarines don't have their uses. They are useful to operate close to enemy waters, for one thing. But those submarines arguably already exist in the form of the submarine forces of our allies Japan and South Korea. The U.S. Navy could live with diesel electric submarines if the White House and Congress force them on it, but there are still compelling reasons to stay all-nuclear. Even if we could get five non-nuclear subs for the price of one nuclear one. Source: Popular Mechanics

For Sea Control, First Control the Electromagnetic Spectrum September 11, 2018 Damien Dodge Sea Control Topic Week By LCDR Damien Dodge Rapidly maturing electromagnetic technology will revitalize U.S. Navy combat potential and enhance opportunities to establish sea control. As the new National Security Strategy aptly illustrates the United States is faced with resurgent great power competition. Simultaneously, the Joint Operating Environment of 2035 portends a future influenced by the proliferation of disruptive and asymmetric capabilities engendered through global advances in “science, technology, and engineering” expanding the innovation horizons of “robotics, Information Technology, nanotechnology and energy.”1 The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment reinforces this view and highlights aggressive competition due to adversary advances in high-impact dual-use technologies. The creation of Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) center in Beijing and China’s recent testing of its “quantum satellite” followed by its rumored fielding of an at-sea railgun offer practical demonstrations of this outlook.2 Furthermore, retired Marine General John Allen and Amir Husain envision “hyperwar,” in which the future battlespace will churn with cross-domain action and counteraction at speeds nearly eclipsing human capacity for comprehension and reaction.3

Operations Specialist 2nd Class Matthew Jones, from Victorville, Calif., stands watch in Combat Direction Center aboard the forward- deployed aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73). (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Jennifer A. Villalovos/Released)

Within the context of this near-future operating environment, current maritime Information Warfare (IW) capabilities, such as those contributing to Signals Intelligent (SIGINT), Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW), Electronic Warfare (EW), and communications, do not afford sufficient operational agility or adaptability to gain advantage over or exploit the weaknesses of adversaries. Adversaries that are bent on projecting overlapping and reinforcing domains of combat power near their national shores could overwhelm and exploit seams in current Navy electromagnetic-dependent capabilities. Given this challenging, hypercompetitive environment the Chief of Naval Operations’ Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority confronts this problem head-on. The CNO seeks to “strengthen naval power at and from the sea” and also to “advance and ingrain information warfare” capabilities across the Navy. This is to enable maritime commanders to achieve objectives through multi-domain maneuver and control “in a highly ‘informationalized’ and contested environment.”4 Additionally, the “Surface Force Strategy: Return to Sea Control” echoes the CNO’s direction by promoting “Distributed Lethality,” which advocates for “increasing the offensive and defensive capability of individual warships, employing them in dispersed formations across a wide expanse of geography, and generating distributed fires.” This is complemented by Defense Department officials advocating for human-machine teaming and an explosion in fielding unmanned systems. Finally, this accelerating competition compels the CNO to advocate not only for a larger fleet, but also one which “must improve faster” where “future ships… [are] made for rapid improvement with modular weapons canisters and swappable electronic sensors and systems.”5 Fortunately, rapid advances in technology, beyond solely enabling adversaries, can also support the CNO’s vision for the Navy – especially one primed to rapidly integrate and learn. With the advent of new designs for antennas and Radio Frequency (RF) components, the evolution of Software Defined Radios (SDR), and more practical instantiations of Artificial Intelligence (AI), these technologies can now be innovatively combined to operationalize envisioned, but not yet fully realized, IW and EMW warfighting capabilities. The capability nexus formed by these swiftly maturing technologies affords the Navy an unparalleled opportunity to maintain cross-domain battlespace decision superiority while outpacing and seeding uncertainty within an adversary’s decision cycle. To achieve this, the Navy must leverage longstanding research investments and aggressively transition these technologies from Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) programs, Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) initiatives, Office of Naval Research (ONR) workbenches, and warfighting center laboratories into fully integrated naval systems. These transitions will provide warfighters the needed tools and decision aids to dynamically control their electromagnetic signatures, provide optimal and low probability of detection communications, deliver more effective Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities, revitalize signals intelligence collection, and engender greater freedom of action across the electromagnetic spectrum. This enabling electromagnetic superiority will present expanded opportunities for maritime commanders to seize sea control at times and places of their choosing. Emerging Options and Tools in the Electromagnetic Domain Antennas and RF components accomplish many functions on a navy ship. These functions are traditionally performed by dedicated single-role RF apertures and components which operate radars, transmit or receive communications, establish tactical datalinks, collect adversary communication signals, and detect or electronically frustrate threat sensors. This stovepipe approach to accessing and influencing the electromagnetic spectrum has created warships bristling with single- purpose antennas awash in scarcely manageable electromagnetic interference (EMI) and subject to individualized, byzantine maintenance and logistic support tails. This situation is a contributing factor to the complexity of the Navy’s C5I architecture afloat, which VADM Kohler admitted requires a 50-person team at the cost of one million dollars to make a Carrier Strike Group fully effective prior to deployment.6 Also, when new capabilities are fielded, such as the F-35, existing systems are often not sufficiently adaptable to absorb their advanced capabilities. Marine Commandant General Robert Neller highlights this issue when lamenting the Marine Corps’ inability to benefit fully from the F-35’s sensors due to Navy amphibious ships being unable to optimally communicate with the aircraft.7 Additionally, shipboard antenna thickets create a significantly larger radar cross section (RCS), thus illuminating these ships to adversary active sensors. Finally, this collection of standalone systems complicates the ship’s ability to manage its electromagnetic emissions in order to hide from passive threat sensors and often the only option may be a tactically dissatisfying binary approach: gain battlespace awareness and communicate, or hide from the adversary. In contrast to this patchwork approach, more open architecture (OA) and dynamic phased array antennas combined with advanced element-level RF components are improving beamforming parameters. These include very low sidelobes and extended frequency range dynamics of RF system apertures as revealed by even superficial scans of Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) websites.8 Georgia Tech Research Institute’s agile aperture antenna technology exemplifies these burgeoning capabilities.9 These capabilities could enable various, low-RCS antenna arrays to perform and synchronize a multitude of electromagnetic functions – evidenced by the Zumwalt class destroyer’s smooth exterior. Separate antenna array elements could form directional, purposeful transmitting or receiving beams pointing to traditional satellites, CubeSats, Aquila-like aircraft, UAVs, or other warships while other array elements establish links or sense the environment.10 These various arrays and elements would be kept from interfering with each other by orchestrating their assigned tasks across temporal (transmission timing), spectral (frequency allocation or waveform selection), and spatial (which element and/or beam) dimensions, or some combination thereof. For example, an antenna array on the forward part of the ship could switch duties with those on the aft, thus eliminating cut-out zones and distracting ship maneuvers such as steering a “chat-corpen,” which is slang for a ship heading that will maintain satellite communications (SATCOM). Adjustable transmission power and frequency settings combined with narrower beamforming options may offer additional satellite pointing opportunities or improved low-on-the-horizon aircraft communications, while reducing probability of detection or interception by an adversary. Low power, narrow horizontal beams designed for intra- strike group communications could also multi-statically search for surface contacts – referred to in academic journals as “radar-communication convergence.”11 A majority of shipboard spectrum access and sensing could be performed through a more standardized and harmonious set of advanced interconnected antenna arrays, despite the remaining need for distinct electromagnetic array systems such as Aegis or Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP), which are beyond near-term integration into this concept due to their highly specialized functions. Nevertheless, more capable and dynamic antenna arrays and RF components are a source of increased efficiency, greater operational agility, and a potential aperture to confuse adversaries while maximizing friendly communications and sensing. A necessary complement to advanced antennas and RF components is the flexibility of SDRs and their associated digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities. SDRs can accomplish a wide variety of functions previously relegated to system-specific hardware by using devices such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) and more generalized, or even virtualized, computing platforms.12 Together these systems can generate, process, store, and share digital data about signals, either for transmission or upon reception. SDRs can generate waveforms electronically-molded for multiple purposes, allowing for backend DSP to differentiate the signal transmissions and, if combined with radar, reflected returns, maximizing the information recovery from each emitted electromagnetic field. Evolving SDR performance is establishing the foundation for advanced capabilities such as cognitive radio or radar. “Cognitive” in this usage simply implies a capability designed to sense the electromagnetic environment and determine times and frequencies that are being underused, offering an opportunity for use by the system, which is also known as dynamic spectrum access.13 The concept was conceived as a way to achieve more efficient use of the commercial frequency spectrum, given its increasing congestion, but it also has obvious military applications. For example, if a frequency-hopping system was detected in an area, then a cognitive radio could hop to a different sequencing algorithm, or if a radar was sweeping the spectrum at a certain periodicity, a cognitive radar could sweep at a synchronized offset and use both returns for a more refined depiction of contacts in the area. There are even proposals where radar can work collaboratively with cellular signals to detect contacts with a low probability of interception.14 This could be a useful capability during stealthy naval littoral operations. Additionally, within the bounding parameters of the antenna arrays and RF hardware components, new waveform generation only requires a software update enabling an SDR to facilitate communications with new capabilities such as the F-35, a newly launched CubeSat, a friendly unmanned system, a newly arrived coalition partner, or a recently invented low probability of detection waveform designed to defeat the adversary’s latest sensing algorithm. The more ambitious and final ingredient necessary to achieve improved IW and EMW capabilities is a form of AI designed for electromagnetic applications and decision support. It is obvious from the contributing authors to the recent ITU Journal special issue, The impact of Artificial Intelligence on communication networks and services that Chinese research and innovation is also trending in this direction.15 While SDRs are powerful tools, they could be improved by orders of magnitude through use of AI algorithms such as those derived from Game Theory and Bayesian mathematics.16 SDRs can perform DPS and waveform generation, but AI or machine learning algorithms can assist in orchestrating enhanced scanning and sensing, thus providing the right signals or portions of the spectrum at the right time to the SDRs for DSP and information extraction. In other words, AI could perform higher-level operations such as altering the application of DSP procedures and determining when and how best to sense and exploit underused, or purposefully below the noise floor, portions of the spectrum. AI could also link the myriad permutations of waveform possibilities to operational objectives such as prioritizing air defense electromagnetic sensor processing and EW protection during an engagement, minimizing adversary emission detection opportunities during a raid, or contributing to adversary uncertainty through deliberately misleading emissions during deceptive maneuvers. Together, these capabilities crowned with practical AI implementations could contribute toward easing many tedious, human-speed and error-prone activities used to achieve IW and EMW capabilities. These human errors include hurried and disjointedly setting emissions control, establishing overly static yet fragile communications plans, divining optimal radar configurations, or communicating haphazardly with coalition partners. Empowered with AI-enabled automation and decision aids, a more integrated and homogenous approach using advanced antenna arrays and SDRs to access and sense the spectrum would vastly improve electromagnetic freedom of action and decision superiority. Thus, if the Navy desires to seize sea control when and where she chooses, first establishing electromagnetic spectrum control is a warfighting prerequisite. Conclusion All worthwhile visions of the future confront challenges and resistance, and this one is no different. Legacy antennas, components, radios, and architecture litter numerous program offices, each with differing objectives. Therefore, the Navy must diligently work to coordinate deliberate whole-of-Navy modernization schemes that leverage open architecture, emphasize interoperability, and prioritize these technologies in pursuit of this vision’s goals. Beneficially, the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division’s Real Time Spectrum Operations (RTSO) and ONR’s Integrated Topside initiative are laboring toward these ends.17 Also, various DARPA activities such as Signal Processing at RF (SPAR), Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC), and Communications Under Extreme RF Spectrum Conditions (CommEx), Advanced Wireless Network System (AWNS), and the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2) together create a rich portfolio of experience and opportunity awaiting renewed Navy focus and attention.18 Furthermore, it will be critical for the Navy to establish an ecosystem, either contracted as a service or as a core, in-house function, in support of continuous SDR software Development and Operations (DevOps) and AI algorithm development.19 This will enable the Navy to continually pace electromagnetic congestion and adversary competition. Agilely designed, open architecture antenna arrays and RF components connected to dynamic SDRs and empowered by AI algorithms can revitalize and ingrain IW and EMW warfighting capabilities across the Navy to allow the force to confidently seize sea control and win in the future maritime battlespace. Collectively, these capabilities could bring about currently fanciful opportunities, such as a strike group secretly transiting at night through fishing grounds using radio communications imperceptibly different from the fishing trawlers. Such a strike group could employ both intra-strike group communications and surface search radar while receiving and sending intelligence via recently launched CubeSats transmitting on waveforms indistinguishable with area freighters’ Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) satellite communication links, thus remaining electromagnetically camouflaged while maintaining battlespace awareness and communications. Meanwhile, cognitively networked strike group assets could passively sense and target the adversary’s emissions, enabling distributed but converging fires from distant unmanned platforms across the area of operations. Electromagnetic control establishes the initial conditions for sea control. Lofty tactics and operations will perform sub-optimally and be disrupted through electronic attack unless the Navy builds a solid foundation in electromagnetic freedom of action. Fortuitously, these technologies creatively combined will lay the keel of advanced naval warfighting upon which future naval success will be built, launching a powerful, tough, and confident Navy into the turbulent waters of great power competition to seize sea control when and where she chooses. LCDR Damien Dodge is a U.S. Navy cryptologic warfare officer assigned to the staff of Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, NATO. He welcomes your comments at: [email protected]. These views are his alone and do not necessarily represent any U.S. or Allied government or NATO department or agency. References [1] Joint Operating Environment 2035: The Joint Force in a Contested and Disordered World, Joint Staff, 14 July 2016, pp. 15-20. http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joe_2035_july16.pdf?ver=2017-12-28-162059-917 [2] Daniel R. Coats, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community,” 11 May 2017, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/SSCI%20Unclassified%20SFR%20-%20Final.pdf and, Reuters, “Chinese quantum satellite sends ‘unbreakable’ code,” Reuters.com, 10 August 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-space- satellite/chinese-quantum-satellite-sends-unbreakable-code-idUSKBN1AQ0C9 and, Shelly Banjo and David Ramli, “Google to Open Beijing AI Center in Latest Expansion in China,” Bloomberg.com, 12 December 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-13/google-to-open-beijing-ai-center- in-latest-expansion-in-china [3] GEN John R. Allen, USMC (Ret.), and Amir Husain, “On Hyperwar,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 143, no. 7 (July 2017), 30–37. [4] A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Chief of Naval Operations Staff, Version 1.0 January 2016. Available at, http://www.navy.mil/cno/docs/cno_stg.pdf [5] “The Future Navy,” 17 May 2017, http://www.navy.mil/navydata/people/cno/Richardson/Resource/TheFutureNavy.pdf [6] Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Navy Kludges Networks: $1M Per Carrier Strike Group, Per Deployment,” Breaking Defense, 12 February 2018, https://breakingdefense.com/2018/02/navy-kludges-networks-1m-per-carrier-strike-group-per-deployment/?_ga=2.90851354.1645113230.1518436630- 2104563909.1489661725 [7] Mike Gruss, “Three tech problems the Navy and Marines are worried about,” C4ISRNET, 8 February 2018, available https://www.c4isrnet.com/show- reporter/afcea-west/2018/02/08/three-tech-problems-the-navy-and-marines-corps-are-worried-about/ [8] Examples include: James J. Komiak, Ryan S. Westafer, Nancy V. Saldanha, Randall Lapierre, and R. Todd Lee “Wideband Monolithic Tile for Reconfigurable Phased Arrays,” available http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1041386.pdf and Benjamin Rohrdantz, Karsten Kuhlmann, Alexander Stark, Alexander Geise, Arne Jacob, “Digital beamforming antenna array with polarisation multiplexing for mobile high-speed satellite terminals at Ka-band,” The Journal of Engineering, 2016, 2016, (6), p. 180-188, DOI: 10.1049/joe.2015.0163 IET Digital Library, http://digital- library.theiet.org/content/journals/10.1049/joe.2015.0163 and Darren J. Hartl, Jeffery W. Baur, Geoffrey J. Frank, Robyn Bradford, David Phillips, Thao Gibson, Daniel Rapking, Amrita Bal, and Gregory Huff, “Beamforming and Reconfiguration of A Structurally Embedded Vascular Antenna Array (Seva2) in Both Multi-Layer and Complex Curved Composites,” Air Force Research Laboratory, AFRL-RX-WP-JA-2017-0481, 20 October 2017, available http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1042385.pdf [9] GTRI Agile Aperture Antenna Technology Is Tested On An Autonomous Ocean Vehicle … https://www.rfglobalnet.com/doc/gtri-agile-aperture-antenna- technology-autonomous-ocean-vehicle-0001 [10] Aquila is a Facebook project to develop a high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) solar-powered UAV “that the company envisions one day will provide wireless network connectivity to parts of the world that lack traditional communication infrastructure.” Steven Moffitt and Evan Ladd, “Ensure COMMS: Tap Commercial Innovations for the Military,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 143, no. 12 (December 2017), 54-58. [11] Bryan Paul, Alex R. Chiriyath, and Daniel W. Bliss, “Survey of RF Communications and Sensing Convergence Research,” IEEE Access, date of publication December 13, 2016, date of current version February 25, 2017, Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2639038 available http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7782415 [12] Mike Lee, Mike Lucas, Robert Young, Robert Howell, Pavel Borodulin, Nabil El-Hinnawy, “RF FPGA for 0.4 to 18 GHz DoD Multi-function Systems,” Mar 2013, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a579506.pdf [13] Helen Tang and Susan Watson, “Cognitive radio networks for tactical wireless Communications,” Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Report, DRDC-RDDC-2014-R185, December 2014, available http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1004297.pdf [14] Chenguang Shi, Sana Salous, Fei Wang, and Jianjiang Zhou, “Low probability of intercept-based adaptive radar waveform optimization in signal- dependent clutter for joint radar and cellular communication systems,” EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, (2016) 2016:111, DOI 10.1186/s13634-016-0411-6, available https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5085998/ [15] ITU Journal, ICT Discoveries, First special issue on “The impact of Artificial Intelligence on communication networks and services,” Volume 1, No. 1, March 2018, available, https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-t/opb/tut/T-TUT-ITUJOURNAL-2018-P1-PDF-E.pdf [16] Jan Oksanen, “Machine learning methods for spectrum exploration and exploitation,” Aalto University publication series, Doctoral Dissertations 169/2016, 21 June 2016 Unigrafia Oy, Helsinki, Finland, 2016, available https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/21917/isbn9789526069814.pdf?sequence=1 and Helen Tang, et al. [17] Gregory Tavik, James Alter, James Evins, Dharmesh Patel, Norman Thomas, Ronnie Stapleton, John Faulkner, Steve Hedges, Peter Moosbrugger, Wayne Hunter, Robert Normoyle, Michael Butler, Tim Kirk, William Mulqueen, Jerald Nespor, Douglas Carlson, Joseph Krycia, William Kennedy, Craig McCordic, and Michael Sarcione, “Integrated Topside (InTop) Joint Navy–Industry Open Architecture Study” Naval Research Laboratory, Sponsored by Office of Naval Research, 10 September 2010, NRL/FR/5008–10-10,198 available http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA528790 and, John Joyce, “Navy Expands Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare for ‘Victory at Sea,’” U.S. Navy, 11/2/2017, Story Number: NNS171102-14, http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=103165 [18] See DARPA research at https://www.darpa.mil/our-research and, Helen Tang, et al. and John Haystead, “Big Challenges Ahead as DOD Tries to Address EMSO Implementation,” Journal of Electronic Defense, February 2018 pp 22-25; and DARPA’s SC2 site https://spectrumcollaborationchallenge.com [19] Possibly a sub-ecosystem within OPNAV’s Digital Warfare Office (DWO). Source: http://cimsec.org

Workhorses of the sea

Seafox 5 , departing from Eemshaven. Photo : Roy Riethof Naval Architect Smit Salvage ©