Tag Archives: SNA

OCT 2: Athena East Innovation Competition

CIMSEC content is and always will be free; consider a voluntary monthly donation to offset our operational costs. As always, it is your support and patronage that have allowed us to build this community – and we are incredibly grateful.
[dntplgn recurring_amt1=”5″ recurring_amt2=”10″ recurring_amt3=”20″ item_name=”Consider donating to CIMSEC”]

If you are in the Hampton Roads area, come join CIMSEC, the Hampton Roads Surface Navy Association, and USNI for a the free-to-attend Oct 2nd Athena East Innovation Competition in Norfolk from 1600-1800 , at the downtown Norfolk restaurant “Work \ Release.”

FACEBOOK PAGE

EVENTBRITE REGISTRATION

From new tools, maintenance processes, software, to new concepts in everything from administration to tactics… This event is to display and engage naval Innovation from the ranks of our institution, in and out of uniform.

There are still plenty of tickets for audience members, and we are still taking idea submissions for the 5-6 innovators who will present to the assembled crowd and our “Shark Tank” board of naval leadership. Send Presentation Submissions to AthenaNavy@gmail.com.

We will have a series of prizes for audience favorites:

1st prize: 1 yr membership to the 757 Makerspace workshop
2nd prize: 6 mo membership to 757 Makerspace
Consolation Prizes: 1 Semester of Improv 101 at the Push Comedy Theater in the Norfolk.

However, the real “so what” (aside from the good company, good food, and good drink) is the opportunity to present your ideas to the folks who can potentially implement it, namely our “Shark Tank” Board.

-CAPT Robert Bodvake – Surface Warfare
-CAPT John Carter – Surface Warfare
-CAPT Sean Heritage – Cyber & Intelligence
-CAPT Jeffrey Sheets – Maintenance & Fabrication
-Professor Jennifer Michaeli: Director of ODU’s Naval Engineering and Marine Systems Inst.
-Brett Vaughn: S&T Advisor to OPNAV N2/N6 and member of TF Innovation Implementation Group

Our board covers ship to shore naval leadership, figures of authority disposed to innovation who are looking to both provide guidance, and find ideas from presenters that are applicable and workable to their organizations. There may well be others in the audience seeking good ideas as well.

Ground Rules: NO “death by PowerPoint” eye-charts or lists – use of PowerPoint is limited solely to pictures to provide a picture of an invention or concept demonstration. Demonstrators are also encouraged to get creative, whatever that might entail. All told, presentations are limited to 5 minutes, with 5 minutes following of questions from the board, and 5 minutes of audience questions.

It’s important to remember: innovation isn’t just fun, it’s a mission requirement. This is a fantastic opportunity to break away from the daily grind – to  grapple with some of the more fun aspects of the maritime profession: looking forward to the possible. Hell, even more than the ideas presented, we can enjoy the discussion had between enthusiastic and different-minded naval professionals over a beer.

Work Release will be offering Happy Hour prices on food and some drinks – so bring your appetite.

InfoPosterSinkPosterMissionPosterWinPoster

Re-Post: Surface Warfare: Taking the Offensive

Guest article by VADM Thomas S. Rowden, USN from June, 2014. Re-Posted during the SNA National Symposium this week.

I am indebted to the leadership of CIMSEC for providing a platform for me and senior members of my team at OPNAV N96 to lay out for readers key parts of our vision for the future direction of Surface Warfare. Captain Jim Kilby started it off with “Surface Warfare: Lynchpin of Naval Integrated Air/Missile Defense”, and Captain Charlie Williams followed up with “Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) – The Heart of Surface Warfare” and “Increasing Lethality in Anti-Surface Warfare (ASUW)”.   Both of these officers were recently selected for flag rank, and the Surface Force could not be more fortunate. Their years of fleet experience in these mission areas uniquely qualify them to lead our force in the future. Together with our continuing mastery of land attack and maritime security operations, the three operational thrusts they describe a Surface Force that is moving from a primarily defensive posture to one on the offense. This is an exciting development, and I want to spend a few paragraphs reinforcing their messages.

The single most important warfighting advantage that the U.S. Navy brings to the joint force is the ability to project significant amounts of combat power from the sea, thousands of miles from our own shores on relatively short notice and with few geo-political restraints. No one else can do this, and for the better part of two decades, our ability to do so was unchallenged. Without this challenge, our mastery of the fundamentals of sea control—searching for and killing submarines, over the horizon engagement of enemy fleets, and long range air and missile defense—diminished, even as the world figured out that the best way to neutralize this power projection advantage was to deny us the very seas in which we operate.

Surface Warfare must “go on the offensive” in order to enable future power projection operations. I call this “offensive sea control” and it takes into consideration that in future conflict, we may have to fight to get forward, fight through our own lines, and then fight to stay forward. Pieces of ocean will come to be seen as strategic, like islands and ports, and we will offensively “seize” these maritime operating areas to enable further offensive operations. Put another way, no one viewed the amphibious landings in the Pacific in WWII as “defensive”; there was broad understanding that their seizure was offensive and tied to further offensive objectives. It is now so with the manner in which we will exercise sea control.

What does this mean to fleet Sailors? It means that we have to hit the books, dust off old TACMEMOS and begin to think deeply again what it means to own the inner screen against submarines, to hunt down and destroy adversary surface vessels over the horizon, and to tightly control the outer air battle. We need to study the threats and devise new tactics designed to counter them. We need to master the technology that is coming to the fleet—Navy Integrated Fire Control (Counter Air), or NIFC-CA; the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR); the SQQ-89 A(V)15 ASW Combat System; the LCS ASW Mission Module; the introduction of the Griffin missile in the PC class; new classes of Standard Missiles; Rail Gun; Directed Energy. We will need to use these systems and then do what Sailors always do—figure out ways to employ them that the designers never considered.

Going on the offensive is a mind-set, a way of thinking about naval warfare. It means thinking a good bit more about how to destroy that than how to defend this. Don’t get me wrong—we will still need to be able to defend high value units, amphibious forces, convoys, and logistics—but we will increasingly defend them by reaching out and destroying threats before those threats are able to target what we are defending.

We are moving to a concept of dispersed lethality in the Surface Force, one that presents an adversary with a considerably more complex operational problem. It will not be sufficient to simply try to neutralize our power projection forces. While these will be vigorously defended, other elements of the surface force will act as hunter/killer groups taking the fight to the enemy through the networked power of surface forces exercising high levels of Operational Security (OPSEC) and wielding both lethal over-the-horizon weapons to destroy adversary capabilities and sophisticated electronic warfare suites to confound adversary targeting. Especially in the Pacific, vast expanses of ocean will separate the carrier air wing from dispersed surface operations, so the paradigm of the past few decades that suggested the carrier would provide strike assets to supplement the Surface Force is no longer valid. We will leverage air wing capability, but we will not be dependent upon it.

Working in tandem with shore-based maritime patrol aircraft and our organic helicopters, we will seek out and destroy adversary submarines before they threaten high value units or fielded forces. Bringing together the networked power of surface IAMD forces and the mighty E-2D, we will dominate the outer air battle, eliminating threats to the force at range. The Surface Force will seize strategic “maritime terrain” to enable synchronized follow-on operations.

Those who may ask how the current fiscal environment impacts this vision, my answer is that it does so substantially. We will be forced to favor capability over capacity. We will favor forward deployed readiness over surge readiness. We will continue to invest in forward-looking capabilities through a strong science and technology/research and development budget, while ensuring we accelerate those promising technologies closest to fielding and most effective in advancing our offensive agenda.

We will posture more of the force forward, and more of it in the Pacific. While the total size of the fleet will likely decline if current conditions continue, more of it will be where it needs to be, it will be more effectively networked over a larger more dispersed area, and it will be equipped with the weapons and sensors necessary to enable this offensive shift.

I am bullish on Surface Warfare, and you ought to be too. I look forward to continuing this dialogue on the Renaissance in Surface Warfare, and I am proud to be part of the greatest Surface Force in the greatest Navy the world has ever known!

 

Vice Admiral Thomas S. Rowden’s current assignment is Commander, Naval Surface Forces. A native of Washington, D.C., and a 1982 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, VADM Rowden has served in a diverse range of sea and shore assignments.

Sea Control 65: Distributed Lethality Re-Run

seacontrol2With the Surface Navy Association national symposium featuring the topic of “distributed lethality” this week – we are re-running our interview with the boss of the Surface Fleet, VADM Rowden. At the time commander of OPNAV N96 (CNO’s Director for Surface Warfare), future Commander, Surface Forces, and author of the CIMSEC Article Surface Warfare: Taking the Offensive discusses his concepts for Sea Control, the development of LCS, perspectives on DDG 1000, and his plans as incoming Commander, Surface Forces.

DOWNLOAD: Offensive Sea Control Re-Run

Remember, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Stream Radio. Leave a comment and rate five stars!

[otw_shortcode_button href=”https://cimsec.org/buying-cimsec-war-bonds/18115″ size=”medium” icon_position=”right” shape=”round” color_class=”otw-blue”]Donate to CIMSEC![/otw_shortcode_button]