US Navy Pursuing Upgraded Railgun, Higher-Power Laser Gun By 2020

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Navy Pursuing Upgraded Railgun, Higher-Power Laser Gun By 2020
Navy Pursuing Upgraded Railgun, Higher-Power Laser Gun By 2020 - USNI News

One of two electromagnetic railgun prototypes on display aboard joint high speed vessel USS Millinocket (JHSV 3) in port at Naval Base San Diego on July 8, 2014. US Navy photo.

The Navy is pursuing a multi-pronged approach to fielding energy weapons by the end of the decade, with the hopes of upgrading its 30 kilowatt laser gun to 100 kw or more, and giving its electromagnetic railgun a higher repetition rate.

Rear Adm. Bryant Fuller, chief engineer at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), said in a panel presentation at the Directed Energy Summit, hosted by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Booz Allen Hamilton, that both follow-on technologies should be in the hands of sailors in the fleet by 2020.

The Navy sent a 30 kw Laser Weapon System (LaWS) to U.S. 5th Fleet on the interim Afloat Forward Staging Base USS Ponce in September 2014, where it has proven it can augment ship self-defense as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for better maritime domain awareness, Fuller said. LaWS was only supposed to stay out for a year, but despite the harsh environment in the Persian Gulf, it has performed well and fleet leadership agreed it will stay operational as long as Ponce remains at sea – until Fiscal Year 2017 or longer, he said.

“Sometime in the very near future” the Navy will award a development contract for the larger follow-on system, a laser gun of 100 to 150 kw. That weapon will go out to sea for a demonstration by FY 2018, he said, keeping in line with the goal of transitioning technology from the lab to the warfighter as quickly as possible for operational testing.

The other half of the Navy’s push to deliver energy weapons to the fleet is the electromagnetic railgun. A manual-load version will go to sea on a Joint High Speed Vessel next year, but the Navy is already working on a version that would allow for 10 shots per minute. This “rep rate” version, despite challenges including thermal management in the barrel, is expected to go to sea by FY 2019.

“Get it to sea, see how it operates in a marine environment and put it through its paces,” Fuller said.

During the conference, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the Navy had been working on directed energy since the 1980s but needed to find ways to move technology along faster to keep up with global threats.

Frank Kendall, under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told USNI News at the same conference that the Navy’s multi-prong approach is the best way to ensure rapid fielding.

Despite a new emphasis on speed to market in the Pentagon’s newest Better Buying Power guidance, “there’s no magic that’s going to allow us to go much much faster; but in some areas, we’re probably going to want to take more risk and maybe use multiple approaches to try to get to the same place and try to move the technology forward as quickly as we can,” he said. He added that a roadmap of directed energy weapon efforts has several technologies reaching the demonstration phase within the next five years, which he believes is the right pace.

Once the Navy reaches the higher-powered laser gun and the more operationally useful “rep rate” railgun, the service will have to figure out how to deploy them. Fuller said the Navy just wrapped up a feasibility study on the Zumwalt-class DDG-1000 destroyers, and leadership will be briefed on the results soon. Other studies, including one on the Arleigh Burke-class DDG-51 destroyers, are ongoing. The results will help the Navy identify where to put these weapons when they first go out to sea and what challenges they may face – with power conditioning and integration being a big concern for the Navy at this time, Fuller said.

The railgun may also make an appearance in Army ground units. Army Brig. Gen. Neil Thurgood, program executive officer for missiles and space, said at the same panel presentation that his service would like the railgun to address the short-range ballistic missile threat. The Navy is taking the lead on development but the Army is already working on doctrine and tactics, techniques and procedures for using such a weapon. It will help the Army conduct missile defense with more rounds shot off faster, that can hit incoming missiles farther out from their target, and at a lower cost per engagement, Thurgood said.

The Navy, in addition to developing the railgun itself, is working on a hypervelocity projectile (HVP) that will support both the railgun and conventional 5-inch guns. The GPS-guided round will fly at hypersonic speeds, but the Navy is still working with the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office to close the fire control loop between the gun and the projectile. The Army would benefit from this work even if it chooses to use a different gun design than the Navy’s ship-based weapon.

 

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FAIRFAX, Va. — The 30 kilowatt (kw) laser deployed aboard the USS Ponce has proven so valuable that it will remain in the Persian Gulf as long as the ship is there, Navy officials said July 28.

“We’ve really been happy with the results of the Ponce, we’ve learned a lot,” said RADM Bryant Fuller, deputy director for ship integration at Naval Sea Systems Command. “We planned to have it out there for a year. But Fifth Fleet likes it and wants to keep it,” so the laser will stay.

Fuller and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus joined officers and scientists from the Army and Air Force in saying that after decades of unfulfilled potential, the military is “on the cusp” of fielding combat ready directed energy weapons that can help maintain the technological advantage that is being threatened by potential adversaries.

Addressing a Directed Energy Summit at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Tysons Corner, the officials said directed energy weapons also can get the country on the right side of the cost equation in defensive systems compared with the relatively cheap weapons adversaries can use.

Mabus noted that a shot from a laser that can stop an aircraft, a small attack boat or a cruise missile costs less than a dollar, compared with a missile launch that can cost $1 million or more.

Fuller said the laser on Ponce has shown its value not only as a defensive weapon, but as a surveillance system, with powerful optics that can identify objects far beyond visual range.

Based on the success of the laser on Ponce, Mabus said the Navy is about to award a contract for a 150 kw laser that could be fielded by 2018.

Fuller and Mabus also cited the progress the Navy has made in its electro-magnetic railgun, which can propel a non-explosive projectile at hypersonic speed with a range of more than 100 miles, compared with the 13-mile range of the Navy’s standard 5-inch guns.

Fuller said the railgun project was working on two tracks, one to increase the rate of fire of the gun to 10 shots a minute, while controlling the heat produced by the massive electrical charge, and developing a hypersonic projectile that can be guided by Global Positioning System.

Mabus said the Navy will test the railgun at sea next year aboard the joint high-speed vessel USNS Trenton “to validate its use on a mobile platform.”

Speaking later, Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, also emphasized the value of directed energy weapons to help counter the anti-access, area-denial systems being fielded by potential adversaries, including China.

“We really need the kind of capabilities that directed energy weapons can give us,” Kendall said.

Despite the progress in laser systems, Kendall noted there still are technological challenges, including getting the powerful systems into small enough packages to be useful as a weapon and overcoming the atmospheric effect on the laser beam.

Mabus said the Navy has an advantage in fielding laser weapons because its ships “are big enough to host large, heavy weapons, our gas turbines and nuclear reactors can provide the magnitude of power necessary to make these weapons effective, and we have all the salt water in the world and the air in its atmosphere for cooling.”

Mabus said he will release a “comprehensive” directed energy road map this fall “that charts our course for research, development and fielding of high-power radio frequency weapons, lasers and directed energy countermeasures. And I will follow it up with my guidance to the Program Objective Memorandum for FY18, which, importantly, establishes a resource sponsor and a program of record.”

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