{"id":84655,"date":"2019-01-14T14:30:57","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T14:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/01\/14\/the-future-of-the-us-surface-fleet-one-combat-system-to-rule-them-all\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:29:30","slug":"the-future-of-the-us-surface-fleet-one-combat-system-to-rule-them-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/01\/14\/the-future-of-the-us-surface-fleet-one-combat-system-to-rule-them-all\/","title":{"rendered":"The future of the US surface fleet: One combat system to rule them all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 As the U.S. Navy\u2019s surface fleet<\/a> moves into 2019, a radical shift is coalescing among its leaders: a move away from a model that has driven the way the service has built its ships for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Navy built its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers<\/a>, installing the Aegis combat system<\/a> into the hull meant a large suite of hardware \u2014 computers, servers, consoles and displays \u2014 designed and set up specifically to run Aegis software. Any significant upgrades to the suite of systems already installed, or to the Aegis system in general, required cutting a hole in the ship and swapping out all the computers and consoles \u2014 a massively expensive undertaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what\u2019s more, Aegis isn\u2019t the only combat system in the fleet. Raytheon<\/a>\u2019s Ship Self-Defense System runs on many of the amphibious ships and the Ford-class carriers. Both classes of littoral combat ship run different combat systems, one designed by Lockheed Martin and the other by General Dynamics. And in regard to the ships themselves, there are multiple, siloed systems that don\u2019t feed into the main combat system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Navy leaders get their way, that\u2019s going to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the surface fleet wants is a single combat system that runs on every ship, and runs everything on the ship, and that doesn\u2019t mind what hardware you are running so long as you have the computing power for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal here is that if a sailor who is trained on a big-deck amphibious ship transfers to a destroyer, no extra training will be necessary to run the equipment on the destroyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an imperative going forward \u2014 we have to get to one, integrated combat system,\u201d Rear Adm. Ron Boxall, the chief of naval operations\u2019 director of surface warfare, said in a December interview at the Pentagon with Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boxall describes the current situation to an integrated combat system as the difference between a flip phone and an iPhone. When buying a flip phone, most of the hardware and software are already included, leaving you with a limited ability to upgrade the phone. And if you want to run more advanced applications, you need a new phone. Instead, Boxall wants the combat systems to run like the iPhone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor us to get faster, we either have to keep going with the model we had where we upgrade our flip phones, or we cross over the mentality to where it says: ‘I don\u2019t care what model of iPhone you have \u2014 7 or X or whatever you have \u2014 it will still run Waze or whatever [applications] you are trying to run,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) launches a Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) during a live-fire test of the ship’s aegis weapons system. Over the course of three days, the crew of John Paul Jones successfully engaged six targets, firing a total of five missiles that included four SM-6 models and one Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) model. (U.S. Navy photo\/Released)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On a ship, that means that if the Navy adds a new radar, missile or laser, the software that runs the new equipment is developed as an application that interfaces with the single integrated combat system, the way Waze integrates with the iPhone or Android software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has the benefit of having everything linked into the central nervous system for operators in the combat information center, sonar control, on the bridge or in the ship\u2019s intelligence-gathering center. It also means that new systems are quickly integrated, skipping the expensive process of ripping out old servers and consoles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it means the companies that develop the myriad combat systems in service today \u2014 say, Raytheon or Lockheed Martin \u2014 won\u2019t have a lock on developing software for Navy ships because the Navy wants the combat system to be developed with interfaces that are accessible by outside application developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to continue down the path to be more aggressive and get a lot more competition in the open-architecture space,\u201d Boxall said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t call it completely open, but as open as we can be, and then share that with people who can, if they are properly classified and secured, they should be able to come into a common space and apply their expertise to develop products that we may or may not want to buy. That\u2019s where I\u2019d like to get to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t