Welcome to the CavasShips Podcast with Christopher P. Cavas and Chris Servello…a weekly podcast looking at naval and maritime events and issues of the day – in the US, across the seas and around the world. This week…It was a busy week – one in which we visited one of the Navy’s smallest new ships, and where we got a look at the beginnings of one its largest.
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This Week’s Naval Round Up:
A keel ceremony was held August 27 at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia for the aircraft carrier ENTERPRISE CVN80, third ship in the Gerald R Ford CVN78-class. The event marks the point in construction where major elements of the ship are brought together and erected in the graving dock where the carrier is being built. Construction of the ship actually has been going on for some years, as components were being fabricated as far back as 2017. Olympians Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles are cosponsors of the New E.
SA christening ceremony of a different sort was held August 23 at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland when officials informally named the MARINER, the latest medium-sized unmanned surface vessel. Based on a standard commercial fast supply vessel design, the MARINER is fitted with systems to autonomously operate its propulsion and navigation systems. The MARINER is the third of four so-called Overlord USV prototypes. The vessel will head to Port Hueneme, California, where the Navy is building a $7.4 million facility as a base for unmanned surface and underwater vessels and systems.
On a more ominous note, the US Coast Guard cutter OLIVER HENRY was unable to obtain permission from the Solomon Islands government to make a visit to the capital of Honiara on Guadalcanal. The Guam-based OLIVER HENRY is on a routine illegal fishery patrol of the southwest Pacific region. The US Coast Guard asked for permission to visit the port – a routine stop on such patrols – but received no response. Social media reports indicate a similar situation recently confronted the British patrol vessel HMS SPEY. China signed in May signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands government, and the silent response to these routine visits seems to be a response. The Solomon Islands government has so far declined media requests for an explanation.
In Europe, the Russian missile cruiser MARSHAL USTINOV passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on August 25 to leave the Mediterranean Sea, where it had been sent in February to cover the Russian invasion of Ukraine along with its sisterships VARYAG and MOSKVA. MOSKVA was sunk by Ukraine in the Black Sea, while VARYAG and the MARSHAL USTINOV remained in the Mediterranean. The USTINOV was trailed by the US destroyers COLE and BAINBRIDGE as it passed through Gibraltar, presumably heading back to its Northern Fleet near Murmansk.
On the same day, August 25, the aircraft carrier USS GEORGE H W BUSH, cruiser LEYTE GULF, and destroyers FARRAGUT and TRUXTUN transited the Gibraltar Strait eastbound to enter the Mediterranean, where they will relieve the HARRY S TRUMAN strike group. It’s the first time in quite some time that two US carrier groups have been operating in the Med at the same time. The TRUMAN group deployed in early December from the US east coast, but due to the Russian invasion spent the entire cruise operating around the central regions of the Med, including the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. US Sixth Fleet in Europe also revealed this week that two of the US Navy’s four missile and special operations submarines were in the European theater – the FLORIDA near Crete in the eastern Med, and the GEORGIA near the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic.
The Florida-based littoral combat ship USS SIOUX CITY called at Fredericia, Denmark on August 24. The port is at one of the two entrances to the Baltic Sea, where the USS KEARSARGE amphibious ready group and destroyer PAUL IGNATIUS have recently been operating. SIOUX CITY left her homeport of Mayport in April and, after two months of operating in the Persian Gulf and Central Command operating area, has been in the European theater since the beginning of August. The cruise is the first Freedom-class deployment to the Central Command and European Command areas.
Cavas Squawk:
Earlier this month during our visit to Austal USA’s shipyard in Mobile, Alabama we heard a lot about their latest expeditionary fast transport, the APALACHICOLA. Outwardly it looks pretty much the same as the twelve Spearhead-class ships that preceded it. But inside it has some surprisingly unique features. The ship has been fitted with an extensive system developed by L3Harris and Austal to give the ship an autonomous capability – the ability to operate unmanned with no humans onboard.
The ship has been undergoing a series of sea trials to demonstrate and validate its autonomous features – all installed because of a one-time Congressional plus-up of about $70 million. We weren’t able to tour the ship during the visit simply because of timing – she was out on another sea trial, this one extending as far as off southern Florida – a significant location because the ship would be operating in a high-traffic area that would test its autonomous navigation facilities. From the reports we’ve heard, the system has been performing well, and the APALACHICOLA, as I speak is the largest unmanned ship in the western hemisphere, by far.
But apparently that status won’t last long. The ship is to be delivered to the Military Sealift Command before the end of September, and the unmanned installation will be removed, as the Navy has no requirement for it.
That seems like an inordinate and deeply short-sighted decision. APALACHICOLA is several times bigger and more sophisticated than the much-touted unmanned installations on the vaunted Ghost Fleet. The ship is much larger than the MARINER unmanned surface ship we just saw, which is a smallish vessel of about 673 metric tons full load. The APALACHICOLA by contrast is nearly 2500 tons, four times the size. MARINER is classed by the Navy as a medium USV, while the APALACHICOLA is a large unmanned surface ship.
It’s true the Navy didn’t ask for this demonstration, and that L3Harris and Austal are hoping the service is impressed with their system – which actually they already are, as the fourth Ghost Fleet USV now under contract by the Navy is being built by Austal with L3Harris’ autonomous system.
There is a lot the Navy is doing with its Medium USVs. It would seem there is a lot more they could be doing with this existing, paid-for large ship. To hear all the rhetoric from service leaders, unmanned ships like this – the APALACHICOLA, not the smaller ships – will play significant roles in a future US Navy fleet.
There is still time to halt the removal of the autonomous systems before the APALACHICOLA is delivered to become just another logistics ship. Those systems should stay in place and the ship added to the unmanned development squadron based at Port Hueneme, California.
