This is a roundup of maritime security and national security events that our readers and members might find interesting. As CIMSEC has a global presence, our events list reflects events from around the world. Inclusion does not equal endorsement – those bolded are most apparently related to maritime security. See one we missed? Email our Director of Operations at operations@cimsec.org.
July 2016 – Yaounde Meeting and Operationalization of Interregional Coordination Center (ICC) for Maritime Safety and Security in Central and West Africa
Comics and Conflict is not for the casual comic book fan. So if you are curious about Namor’s superpowers, or when the Hulk first appeared, well, look elsewhere. What it does do, and does well, is tell us how wars have influenced comic books, and how comic book heroes have reflected our culture – for better or for worse. Recently I had the chance to ask Professor Scott a few questions about his book and comic book culture today.
Professor Scott, thanks for joining us. Congratulations on writing an interesting book on the history of comics and war from WWII to post-9/11. It’s encyclopedic in scope, truly. How did this project come about?
This project started from two different areas. I remember reading a lot of comics as a kid when I was at a friend’s house, specifically the old DC war titles: Sgt. Rock, G.I. Combat and Unknown Soldier.My brother also started collecting the little GI Joes in 1982, and I started reading the comic book from Marvel that went with it – that in and of itself was a genius marketing move – so there has been an interest in comics for a while. However when I was in college my collecting days halted for a bit. More specifically, I was teaching at a design college in downtown Chicago when 9/11 occurred. I had been teaching a class in the history of propaganda, and was always looking for extra material, especially from a cultural perspective.Captain America was one of the first characters to tie into US military doctrine, while being part of a cultural medium, comic books.Anyway, I was reading a newspaper article not long after the event and had read about the creators at Marvel who were writing a specific issue that dealt with the attack.This was the now famous “all black cover”Amazing Spiderman 136.I was at a comic book shop picking that one up, and had noticed a Captain America graphic novel with a Nazi logo and the shop owner noted that Captain America was being brought back to fight terrorism.So I picked up these issues when they were published and used them in the class.Later on I was taking a graduate class in Cultural history at Loyola and the comics became the basis for the paper.
I noticed in your book that a lot – if not all– of the pictures of comic books are from your personal collection. How many comics do you have in your collection? Which one is your most valuable comic?
I have about eight long boxes worth, plus a couple dozen of trade paperbacks (reprints into one volume) and graphic novels (stand alone stories) as well. It’s pretty extensive and a pain in the butt to move! I have a lot of older ones (actual comics from WWII entitled True Comics, another entitled War Heroes, America Is Ready and Boys and Girls can Help Uncle Sam Win the War) but most were purchased for the stories and are not great as far as collectability is concerned. I would say that the most expensive comic item I own is most likely Remember Pearl Harbor, which was published right after Pearl Harbor. I also have a comic-related lithograph of Captain America which was done by Jim Steranko to raise money for 9/11 victims which was a bit expensive to me. I don’t buy a lot of them for their value and I certainly don’t own anything worth Sotheby’s interest. I also have a few items done by comic book artists for the military. I have a restricted comic training book for the UMUC entitled Tokyo Straight Ahead, and a couple of Joe Dope posters and some Army Motors journals, all done by Will Eisner.
“Tokyo Straight Ahead,” Courtesy of Cord Scott.
In your opinion, who were the comic book heroes (or anti-heroes) that represented major conflicts in U.S. history? Why?
While many were incorporated into the US war effort early on, Captain America is still the oldest and biggest one directly tied to military conflict.While a lot of famous characters were brought into the war effort in WWII, Cap was really the most successful one that endured.There have been some great ones that are gone now.My personal favorite was Mr. Liberty, later Major Liberty, a mild mannered history professor who is turned into a superhero by the spirits of America.Cap was used briefly in the Red Scare of the 1950s.The Hulk was a take on nuclear testing.Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, was an arms manufacturer that dealt with the Vietnam War prior to official US involvement.The Punisher was formed by his experiences in Vietnam – he was introduced in 1974 and was an anti-hero.There are more but these would be the most direct.
As for characters that have been icons, Sgt. Rock was the big one.He was introduced in ’58, and was around for 30 years as a continual character.As a side note, the late Joe Kubert not only did work on Sgt Rock from the beginning but also worked on PS Magazine which features comics to show periodic maintenance in the US army.Sgt Fury is still around but has morphed over the years from war hero to spy.
What was the Golden Age of comics? For someone who follows comics closely, do you see a resurgence in comics that might portend a second Golden Age in comics? I mean, for example, Comic-Con attendance is growing yearly. And Marvel and DC comic movies will be, in all likelihood, some of the highest grossing films in the future.
I see a continued interest in comics but I personally don’t think that there will be a second Golden Age.There are too many competing forms of entertainment.However, I do think that comics continue to thrive as they bridge the literary aspect and the visual realm.Think of them as storyboards for the movie creation.They also provide ideas for video games, action figures and the like.Let’s be honest, who hasn’t thought about what powers they would like to have?There is escapism involved.
I enjoyed your discussion about the resurgence of comic books after the Cold War. In particular, you discuss Captain America v. the Punisher. How do these two characters embody different parts of American culture, and how were they used in comics to do so?
Cap and the Punisher have been the two aspects of US policy.One, Cap, abides by the moral rules and strives to instill patriotism in others.The Punisher is a man who is driven by the same morality, but doesn’t want the niceties of “civilized war.”Cap never seems to be vicious with his enemies, at least not in the modern sense.Punisher is often frustrated by those limitations.To put it into a very contemporary context, think of it as the discussion of enhanced interrogation techniques.We pride ourselves as Americans as not stooping to the level of our enemies by torturing others for information.Our enemies are not bound by such restrictions.The Punisher is the embodiment of the “ends justify the means.”That said, both characters have had their conversions of sorts, especially when it comes to storylines like Civil War.
If my count is correct, I believe we are somewhere around the 43rd Marvel movie following the release of Deadpool. And really, the majority of movies were made after 2000. Now Marvel is getting ready to release Civil War. But what movie would you want to see them make out of a comic book character that they haven’t yet, and what story line would you want to see?
This is a hard one, as most of the comic book characters I like have been done, although not always well.I would like to see a good adaptation of the Punisher.I recently worked on a book Marvel Comics into Film (McFarland Publishing, 2016) and wrote on the Punisher films.The last film with Ray Stephenson as Punisher came close but still failed in some regards.As for overall characters, I would like to see the Unknown Soldier or Sgt. Rock in a movie version, but only if the writing is good.
As I mentioned, Civil War is getting ready to hit theaters soon. And you talk about Civil War in your book. What made this “maxi-series,” as you call it, so fascinating to comic book fans?
The maxi-series was several comic books that were tied in to an overall arc.The story line was on the overall abuse of power (and superpowers) after a terrorist attack.The plot eventually put Cap and Iron Man on opposite sides of the freedom versus security debate.The creators of the series often noted that this was a way to deal with the real aspects of the fight over the PATRIOT ACT and its intrusion on American society.No one is ever right or wrong on these things but clearly when emotions are riled a lot of decisions can be made that seem good at first, but are dangerous in the cold light of day.Marvel eventually combined the various comics into TPB (trade paperbacks) that allowed everyone like me to read them without having to read each comic individually.
The story also had former villains fighting on the side of right and wrong.A variation of the old adage “an enemy of an enemy is my friend.”So that further complicated issues.Punisher could never see how anyone could work with criminals. In the story lines, the most interesting story is that of Spiderman who goes from one side to the other as he starts to realize that things at first glance are not all that wonderful under the new system of control.Since Spidey is a teenager, it also played into the fact that there is a bit more emotion and less rationality in the decision making process.
Recently, as you probably know, Marvel released a new Black Panther graphic novel. It was written by National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates and drawn by artist Brian Stelfreeze. It sold big. Something like 300,000 copies. How important is the author to artist relationship in the quality of a book? What writer/artist teams in your opinion are the perfect team in the history of comic books and conflict?
I think that there is a very important correlation between the writers and artists.Black Panther is another important character to Marvel.To be honest I have not seen the new GN.The right combination has great impact.One take on Captain America which I found really interesting in idea but lacking in execution was Kyle Bakers take, Captain America: Red White and Black (2003).It noted that the Super-soldier program that created Cap was originally part of the Tuskegee Experiment, and that the first test cases were black.Unfortunately the artistic style was a detriment to me.Some folks hated it as it was too political or too much of a variation of the theme.For war comics, I would say Garth Ennis and Carlos Esquerra have done some outstanding work on several serious and satirical series.War Stories is what comes immediately to mind.Joe Kubert and Bob Kannigher were good for the old Sgt. Rock, GI Combat and Enemy Ace comics from DC.Jack Kirby and Joe Simon were great not only for Cap, but also the Boy Commandos, and even Front Line.I would say that the best overall teams were from EC when they did the Frontline Combat, Two Fisted Tales and related series in the 1950s.Archie Goodwin did some memorable stuff for Blazing Combat in the 1960s but overall currently it centers most on Garth Ennis as a writer.
Here’s a hypothetical. Let’s say I’m interested in reading comics but I haven’t picked one up in a long time. I’m in the military. And let’s say I haven’t been in a comic book store in ages. Once I enter a comic book store I realize I’m surrounded by cardboard boxes and lots of plastic. So…if I want to buy a few comics that deal with serious themes – like loss, leadership, justice, sacrifice, history – where do I begin? What questions should I ask?
Man, that’s an interesting question.I suppose it would depend on what genre one is looking for.If one wants pure war stories, I would go with War Stories.Living here currently in Seoul (I teach for UMUC to military personnel) there are TPBs of War Stories on sale in the BX.The military has embraced certain aspects of the role of comics.Marvel does an AAFES (Army-Air Force exchange system) comic book give away every year at PXs.The Navy did a graphic novel that dealt with the role of medics and corpsman in The Docs.Ernie Colon and Sid Jacobson did a comic for Military OneSource on the readjustment to life in the States and on PTSD, entitled Coming Home.I would say ask the clerks if they have any suggestions.There is such an industry behind it now that there is also the monthly trade catalog that features upcoming titles.Mostly I just look and try to find what looks interesting to me.If one gets an interest in war or military comics, then they could peruse the back issues but this can get pricey, especially if one wants to start getting into the series.I would also suggest looking first at the libraries.The Graphic Novels section in any library has a lot of titles that are TPB, GN or other bound compilations.It was how I started some of my work on Civil War.Then finally one could purchase Comics and Conflict, and then harangue the author for suggestions (HAHAHA).
The Atlantic magazine recently published an interesting piece about comic books and “The Canon.” Simply, people get really grouchy when directors and writers start messing with the facts about comic book characters’ backgrounds, their history. As the author says, this frustration, this sense of ownership by fans, it’s born out of love. Which I believe. But what are your thoughts on this? From your study, have comic book characters simply, in many instances, been reinvented, that they do change over time? That there is really no one way to see a character?
This is always a source of contention for purists.For example, I personally loved the take on Nick Fury as portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson.But because he was originally white (started out as a Kirby and Simon creation – Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos), some hated this version.I can understand some fans wanting to stick with the original formula but if it’s done well, it can be interesting.If it’s not done well, then I get mad like everyone else.I have read some interesting takes on characters.I loved the re-envisioning of Superman inSuperman: Red Son, written by Mark Millar for example.The premise was that Superman landed not in Kansas in 1938, but hit in the Ukraine.The new Superman had a hammer and sickle in lieu of the “S”.Now I’m not a communist but I thought that the story line was interesting.However, some fans wrote in and were furious that he could take an American icon (he’s Scottish, by the way) and bastardize it.I actually remembered reading the original Superman #300 storyline that Millar premised the newer update on.Cap’s reinvention, Iron Man’s transformation to War Machine or Iron Patriot were also takes on this.Comic books, like the movies often have different writers and artists over the years.Everyone wants their own take on the character.Then again, I don’t always agree with how things turn out.
Superman: Red Son/Wikipedia
Why do you think so many people buy tickets to see a blockbuster film starring a comic book character, yet they wouldn’t be caught dead in a line at Barnes and Noble with a new copy of Doctor Strange? There seems to be, still, a cloud that hangs over comics, that these are children’s books. Is this true? Has this always been the case?
This has been an issue for a lot of folks.Comic books were born in a time in American history when there were not as many outlets for folks.As the original comics were simply re-published Sunday cartoon sections, they were seen primarily for kids.This didn’t mean that adults didn’t read comics as well.During WWII, the average age of a reader was pre-teens, 12 I think.But by the 1960s the readership went up a bit, and so some enterprising companies started to write stories to appeal to teen readers. This was why Spiderman was such a hit: he was a teen like his reader base.
By the early 2000s the average age of a comic book reader is in its early 20s.More money to burn on comics, but in return they expect more: more violence more language and even more of aspects towards sex.So some folks who walk into a comic book store and expect to read simple wholesome comics may be surprised or shocked.The creators and companies have evolved.The idea that the comic book collection will be the next gold mine is also a bit of a bust.Yes you may see a mint condition Amazing Fantasy #16 (first appearance of Spiderman) go for $600,000 or an Action Comics #1 (first appearance of Superman) go for $1.5 million but for those rarities, most are not worth the vast amount of money that people thought at one time. For me, it was simply using the material to look at aspects of history from a cultural base.I find the stuff incredible and adapted to other fields, like military training.
In your book, you talk a lot about how comics take sides – many were pro-war and many were anti-war. Do you think comics tend to be pro-war or anti-war? Or have they reached a point where they really can tackle the nuances of conflict?
Overall I think that war comics, especially the more recent ones, tend to be anti-war at their core.There have been some that were all heroics, and fantasy (Charleton was a great example of war fantasy) but overall, most of the stories have tried to say that there is always a cost of combat.Even though Sgt. Rock was seen as a fantasy of combat, and some Vietnam troops said that they wanted to enact heroics like those they had read a few years before, even Kubert tried to address the real nature of war and its stresses and violence.Again, I think that the best examples of war comics with a message were those from EC comics in the 1950s.This is the company that made MAD Magazine.Frontline Combat and Two Fisted Tales were written by WWII vets, and many of the stories had a cynicism to it. Some of the stories even tried to dispel the image of combat in film.I am reminded of one story from Two-Fisted Tales entitled “Corpse on the Imjin.”The story is told in a second person format, and describes in detail the concept of a soldier engaged in hand to hand combat.The book is shocking in an era when the comics were still VERY patriotic.This story had the reader (“You feel the breath go out of him as you hold him underwater”) active in the story.It also dealt with the very topical issue of the Korean War, not the exploits of WWII, where the “enemy” was more clear-cut.As I was by the Imjin River last weekend, I couldn’t help but think of that storyline.There are a lot of current comics that deal with the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.There are even graphic novels in other languages that tell of their experiences.I have one in German called Smile and Wave.But the confusion, the frustration and the war experience are not simply good guy wins, bad guy gets his, but it’s one of more layers.I think that comics like that are the best, the most real.
Professor Scott, thank you so much for your time.
Cord A. Scott has a Doctorate in American History from Loyola University Chicago and currently serves as a Traveling Collegiate Faculty for the UMUC-Asia.He is the author of Comics and Conflict: Patriotism and Propaganda from World War II through Operation Iraqi Freedom, published by the US Naval Institute Press.He has written for several encyclopedias, academic journals such as the International Journal of Comic Art, the Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, and in several books on aspects of cultural history.
Lieutenant Commander Christopher Nelson, USN, is a regular contributor to the Center for International Maritime Security. He is currently stationed at the U.S. Pacific Fleet Headquarters in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The comments and opinions above are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.
CIMSEC sat down with Captain Mark Vandroff to solicit his expert insight into the complex world of acquisition and the future of the U.S. Navy’s destroyers. CAPT Vandroff is the Program Manager of the U.S. Navy’s DDG 51 program, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which is the most numerous warship in the U.S. Navy. In the first part of this two part interview series, CAPT Vandroff discusses the capability offered by the SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar, the differences in warship design between the currently serving Flight IIA and upcoming Flight III variants, and the U.S. Navy’s ongoing Future Surface Combatant Study.
This is a big year for your program. It is the fiscal year where you begin procuring the new Flight III destroyers. Can you talk about the differences from the Flight IIA to the Flight III?
The raison d’etre of Flight III is fielding AMDR. SPY 6 is the designation for that radar as it goes on a DDG 51. That radar program may yield other radar technologies because it is very exciting technology. The Flight III gets the AMDR SPY-6 radar onto a DDG 51 platform, replacing the SPY-1 radar currently in use. That radar is a significant, multi-generational leap forward in radar technology. In the same space and roughly twice as much power, it produces over 35 times as much power out. Between the power efficiency and sensitivity of the radar, it is a huge step forward. It also includes other very desirable radar features such as a much improved resistance to advanced counter-radar jamming techniques and the ability to integrate seamlessly through a radar system controller, not only the S-Band SPY-6, but also an additional separate frequency input. It can use the multi-frequency input for better targeting, and a lot of good things happen for targeting and your reaction time by synthesizing multi-band input. We hook up the SPY-6 AMDR, which is a S-BAND radar, with the existing and already planned for DDG 51 X-Band emitter AN/SPQ-9B to get the full radar suite for the Flight III.
Primary Flight III changes.
If it were all that simple I would tell you to talk to my colleague, CAPT Seiko Okano, she’s the SPY-6 program manager. I would not have to do very much and she would just deliver me a different radar. But the radar requires us to do things to the ship to be able to accommodate it.
The radar takes about twice as much power. We had to take the ship from three, 3 megawatt (MW) generators to three, 4 MW generators because we never have three on at one time for purposes of redundancy. We always calculate what would happen if you had to run on two of the three. When we calculate what our battle loads are and can we handle them, we always calculate to whether we can handle them with two of the three generators if one of them is down for whatever reason. That’s how you design a redundant warship.
So when we up the power out of our generators to four megawatts we run into our first physics challenge. When we up the power we have to do one of two things, either increase the voltage or increase the current. At a certain level of current, it becomes difficult and at times unsafe to run a certain amount of current through the kind of wiring we would put on a ship. With what we currently have, if we had to up the power anymore we would be hitting those limits. So we have to up the voltage, which is easily done. We’ve got 4160 volt power on aircraft carriers, on DDG-1000, so we had to implement that for Flight III. There’s a separate 4160 bus for powering the radar, and then we stepped down with transformers for our 450 loads that exist. That allows us to power the radar, and at the same time power the rest of the ship the way it is powered in a Flight IIA. That was the first change and we’ve done a lot of work to make sure that electric plant design will be safe, stable, redundant, and survivable in battle. That’s been the work of the last two or three years, and a lot of work is put into splitting those loads out.We have a 4160 distribution system with the existing 450 distribution system that we could do that with. That was the first ship side technical challenge that I would say now we’re pretty much through. The new generators, the four MW generators, have gone through their critical design review and they’re just now starting production.
Flight III Electric Plant Concept.
The next thing we needed to look at was actually powering the radar. The radar runs off 4160 converted 1000 volt DC to AC. The equipment to convert that and condition it was similar to what DDG-1000 uses, they use that power conversion module on their SPY-3 radar. We competed, it was a full and open competition, we got many bids, and DRS (Diagnostic/Retrieval Systems, Inc) won the work. They came to us with a box that was based on their DDG-1000 design, but had a couple of generations of power monitoring and power conditioning improvement on top of that incorporating lessons learned from the commercial world. That’s been through its preliminary and critical design review and its gone into production now. That gets us power to the radar, and power to the electric grid.
If you think about power what else does the radar need? The radar needs more cooling. A more powerful radar produces more heat. For reference, a refrigerating ton is the amount of cooling I would have if I rolled a ton of ice into this room and let it melt for 24 hours. A DDG 51 today has about 1000 tons of cooling. Once you install the SPY-6 you really need 1400-1500 tons of cooling. When we were starting the early preliminary design, NAVSEA already had an energy saving initiative. It was a plan to take the Navy standard 200 ton plants and equip them with a more fuel efficient compressor, and some other design improvements. All of that’s made by York Navy Systems in Pennsylvania that makes that standard 200 ton plant. NAVSEA works with them, and they are actually in the process now, and there’s a working prototype of the improved 200 ton plant that is putting out over 325 tons of cooling and it is just going through its equipment qualification to make sure the new machine will pass all the Navy standards for shock survivability. We are getting ready to put the initial orders for those to deliver to the Flight III because when you put five of those you get an excess of 1500, and that will give us more than enough cooling to accommodate the new cooling loads. So those have been the key components in changing the ship for the Flight III.
Prototype HES/C 300 rton A/C chiller.
In terms of weight, if you put everything that a SPY-6 uses and everything a SPY-1 uses on a scale they roughly balance. However, SPY-1 forms the signal in a signal generator and then transfers that up to the array, so that signal generator is lower in the ship. Because SPY-6 is an active array, the signal is generated on-array, so that means the arrays are heavier. Arrays go up high so that means the weight goes up high. If you are on a ship you are not crazy about high weight. You want to be like a running back, you want your weight low so it is hard to knock you over. The last thing we did is move some weight around in the ship. We thickened up the hull and the scantlings, which are the ribs of the hull. That offsets the high weight by putting extra weight low, and moves your center of gravity back down. The center of gravity of a Flight III will be roughly where the Flight IIA’s center of gravity is now. We are still concerned about things like performance for flight ops and maneuvering, and what that means for the pitch and roll in different sea states. We have the advantage of Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock’s great new MASK tank where they can do all sorts of different sea states all in one tank. We have the scale model of the Flight III being built out at Carderock and that will go through all its tank testing with an idea to make sure that as we are designing the ship we know where we are for maneuvering the ship.
Those are the big shipboard changes that facilitate the introduction of the radar. It is cool for me as the ship guy to talk about moving weight around to get good center of gravity, or getting the new electrical plant, but all that has to mean something to the warfighter. What the warfighter gets out of the Flight III is that improved radar performance from the new SPY-6 radar tied into the existing AN/SPQ-9 radar and those synthesized together for better performance in the atmospheric regime and the ballistic missile defense regime. It offers tremendous improvement in capability in both of those regimes.
Because AMDR is such a tremendous increase in capability, how does this affect the DDG 51’s growth margins?
That is one of the reasons we looked at things like the extra cooling and the extra power. If you look at where the Flight IIA is, the Flight IIA has about one and a half MW of service life power growth, and about 200 tons of cooling growth. If you added up every load on a Flight IIA today you would get something just over 4 MW of load, and if you put two 3 megawatt generators on the load together to power those four megawatts. You pay an efficiency penalty when you parallel two generators together, so two 3 megawatt generators gives about 5.8 MW of usable power and about 200 KW of the generators fighting themselves at peak. That is about one and a half MW to one and two thirds MW of margin on a IIA today. The Flight III will have a heavier load. A full battle load will be up over 5.5 MW, but we will be well over 7.5 MW when we put two four MW machines online together. We will have another two MW of power. The total cooling reserve will be about 200 refrigeration tons to 300 refrigeration tons.
AMDR system overview.
At this point some people usually ask is 2 MW enough when you look at directed energy weapons and railguns. I can tell you the Navy is reevaluating its historical standards for electrical growth in its future ship design. Will those historical standards be adequate for a future that includes railguns and directed energy? The Flight III will have as great or greater an ability to accommodate that as the Flight IIAs today. Whether or not we need to do something to make that more, and how that would affect ship design in the next ten years, is a question of ongoing discussion, both in the requirements side in OPNAV, and the ship design side in NAVSEA. What are we really going to need, and what does that mean for ship design? That’s the next step.
The Flight III tasking was to get AMDR on and give it the same cooling and power growth potential. Don’t take a step back from the Flight IIA today. I could have put AMDR on Flight III and eaten all the growth, and you would have had a ship with no growth margin. We looked at that extensively because it was the lowest cost option, and discarded that as not responsible. We are going to want to keep these ships around, so keep what we have today as far as margins, and that gave us a certain design and philosophy. I think you will see CNO staff and NAVSEA work together on other concepts of what will we do to grow that some more. But that is the next generation after this Flight III. That will be my relief’s concern to tackle.
What can you tell us about the process behind the Future Surface Combatant Study?
If you look at the way the DoD formulates future requirements, it is called the JCIDS process, the joint capabilities integration and development system, it starts with an analysis, an FCA, a future capabilities analysis. The organization that thinks they might have a future gap, must first analyze what capabilities in a given time frame does a given force structure need to be able to address. From the result of that you write an initial capabilities document and you address an analysis of alternatives. Where we are in that process now is that N96 is running that future capabilities analysis, that is going on now. That is really a requirements evolution, it is not really a technical or acquisition evolution so that is not mine to run.
N96 wanted to be very participative so they have got a team doing it. The team has regular meetings with a couple of oversight councils, one at the captain’s level and one at the flag level. N96 invited a slew of practitioners across the spectrum of operators, acquisition, technical, and budget to get regular briefings on what the teams were doing and get feedback. They thought I was one of the practitioners and I have sat in those meetings. I have seen the work they are doing, and they are doing good work. They are looking out into the future and asking what kind of capabilities will the surface Navy need to contribute to the force in the 2030s, 2040s, and what are we doing today and what modifications do we think we need to make in order to meet those future needs. Those are the questions they are trying to answer.
The question that comes after is more of an acquisition question of which I would expect, both the PEOs (Program Executive Officers) and NAVSEA to be more involved in, and that is the analysis of alternatives. Now that you have told us these are the things you need us to do, what are some of the different ways of doing it, and let’s determine which of those ways might do it best, which ways can do it most affordably. But the future capabilities analysis is where they are at now.
What best practices and lessons learned from the DDG 51 program should inform the Future Surface Combatant Study?
I would put those into two different categories. The DDG 51 program has been successful from a technical standpoint and from an acquisition standpoint. From a technical standpoint, the DDG 51, from its inception, was designed to be flexible, redundant, and survivable. We have proven this, look at the Cole. The ships have taken battle damage and lived to fight another day. The ships have been flexible enough that they were designed in the 1980s and with modification, and sometimes significant modification, could be made combat relevant in the 2020s. The systems engineering of both the design of the ship, and especially the systems engineering that went into the design of the combat system, is good solid systems engineering discipline. Know your requirements, break them down, formulate them, and integrate the pieces back together to provide an end-to-end capability.
To give you an idea, I want to be able to shoot down an air target at a certain distance that is moving a certain speed with a certain level of maneuver. The systems engineer asks how do I design that kill chain? How do I break that down? What capability do I want in the missile, radar, and illuminator? What parts of that kill chain are going to produce which effects in order to get the end effect that you want? From its earliest days back when Wayne E. Meyer had the Aegis program, that has always been a disciplined engineering process. Whether you are talking about the ship’s survivability, mobility, or the ship’s combat capability, that has been a disciplined technical process. That is good for anyone building ships, or anyone building anything, that mind and that process.
On the acquisition side, there are several things I would want a future shipbuilding program to look back at the DDG 51 program and extract. The first one is a real careful, facts-based decision on what parts of the ship were we going to have the shipbuilder do, and what parts would we contract separately where the government contracts GFE (government furnished equipment) and delivers separately to the ship. There have been times when it has been thought advantageous to go one way or another with that pendulum.
Because there is a certain attractiveness, we could have the Navy buy everything and just have the shipbuilder assemble everything. That’s got problems. You can give the shipbuilder the performance spec for the ship and let the shipbuilder buy everything. That’s got problems. You have different problems both ways. The Aegis program, and especially DDG 51, has always been a point in the middle, and very carefully thought out. What do we want the shipbuilder to buy because we want them to be responsible for it, because it is within their wheelhouse and capability. This could be an engine, generator, or a fire pump. Alternatively, this is not in their wheelhouse, it is not within their capability, and frankly I want control over it like a sonar, radar, or a missile launcher.
Those were thought out decisions in the DDG 51 and I have changed some of them during my time as Program Manager in both directions. Times change, industry changes, but we don’t make those changes lightly, and we make them only after a very long analysis of thinking about the capability we are trying to get, and what is the best way to materialize it. We carefully think through what makes sense to contract directly for, what makes sense to contract out, that is called a make-buy, or the GFE/CFE divide. That is one thing I would have a future program look at DDG 51, and the way they made their decisions. Not that a future program would make all the same decisions, ten years from now industry might change and the requirements might change. They might make a different decision, but the process we used to make that decision was fundamentally sound.
The other thing that has always been key in our program is maximizing competition between the shipbuilders, using profit-related offer, at the sub-tier vendors, and using competition wherever it was possible and practical to get competition. Competition gives you good results in acquisition. From between having a good make-buy plan, and using competition as much as you practically can, marry those together and that provides a good foundation for any future acquisition program.
In Part Two, CAPT Vandroff goes into depth on his publications Confessions of a Major Program Manager published in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, and an Acquisition System to Enable American Seapower, published on USNI News and coauthored with Bryan McGrath. He finishes with his thoughts on building acquisition expertise in the military and his reading recommendations. Read Part Two here.
Captain Vandroff is a 1989 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. With 10 years as a surface warfare officer and 16 years as an engineering duty officer, he is currently the major program manager for Arleigh Burke – class destroyers.
Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Nextwar@cimsec.org.
Featured Image: CRYSTAL CITY, Va. (Jan. 12, 2012) Capt. Mark Vandroff, program manager for the DDG 51-Class Shipbuilding at PEO SHIPS, discusses new technology with guests and media during the 24th Annual Surface Navy Association Symposium. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Todd Frantom/Released).
