By Geoff Fein

The Navy’s San Antonio-class of amphibious ships brings two big advantages to the fleet, lift and its command and control capability, according to a Navy official.

While the lift capability for the most part is similar to what other amphibs have, it is the command and control assets that set LPD-17 apart, Capt. Bill Galinis, LPD-17 program manager, said during a recent interview with Defense Daily.

The command and control capability is provided throughout the ship primarily through the Ship Wide Area Network (SWAN).

“That’s been one of the areas where we made good progress,” Galinis said. “What this really does, it provides connectivity throughout the ship for different groups, whether they be Marines or sailors, to be part of an operation.”

Having this data transport mechanism, the network, where a Marine can plug in a radio or plug into a troop operation center or tactical operational center, provides great flexibility, Galinis added.

That was a lesson the Navy learned during operational evaluation (OPEVAL), he said.

During OPEVAL, Marines with their full complement of equipment came onboard the USS San Antonio (LPD-17). They were joined by engineers who helped with the integration phase of all the Marines’ communications equipment.

“Once the Marines got on board and understood the layout and capability of the network, they were able to really plug in their equipment where they needed it,” Galinis said.

And Marines were also able to identify spaces onboard the ship where they would like to plug their equipment into, he noted.

“That’s a benefit of this network. The network we have on board is a robust fiber optic based network, so we had the capability to add additional network drops. So it brings that type of flexibility,” Galinis said.

The OPEVAL also led to a plan to upgrade follow-on ships with a more robust system, Galinis added.

“We had an interface problem between the interior and exterior communications networks onboard the ship (LPD-17),” he said. “What it really came down to was a timing problem where you had these two systems competing for the same clock time. It restricted the number of off-ship communications circuits you could have…much below what was designed.”

So how come this issue wasn’t discovered during testing? Galinis said the ship’s communication system was never loaded to that extent. “This is one of the benefits of going through an operational test like this.”

The Navy took the information it got back from the test, assessed it, and developed a requirement to upgrade the hardware and software for those systems to deconflict this problem, Galinis explained.

“I would characterize that as the near-term approach, which got us back to the design capability for the platform,” he said. “Then the longer-term approach is a full upgrade to what we call the Automated Data Networking System onboard…the system that provides that off-ship communications.”

When LPD-17 and -18 return from their current deployments, Galinis and his team will sit down with the operators and get an after action lessons learned to see if there are things the Navy can do better and roll them into new construction ships.

“We will get that sometime in the middle of next year. We will go through that and based on where the ships are…[LPD-] 21 will be ready to deliver if she had not already done so. So [LPD-] 22 and follow would be candidate ships for any change,” Galinis said. “We’ll have to look…does it make sense to incorporate that…or can you wait until after the ship delivers? Some times it is actually less expensive to take delivery of a ship and then make the change.”

LPD-17 is the first ship to have a network with the functionality that SWAN brings, Galinis said.

“The ship control systems, engineering control, damage control, weapons control, combat systems, admin and training…all those different functions reside on this network…on a single network,” he said.

But as is usually the case with technology today, SWAN is an older system that is no longer state-of-the-art, Galinis added.

“The SWAN on LPD-17 today…it’s the older asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)-type technology, that back in the mid to late 90s, when the network was designed, was state of the art,” he said. “We are way beyond that right now.”

The current state-of-the-art networking technology is the Gigabyte Ethernet, more commonly referred to as GiGE, Galinis noted. “We have a back fit plan in place and funded. We just completed [upgrading] LPD-18 during her PSA earlier this year. The plan is to do LPD-17 when she returns next June…[that’s] when her availability is planned for.”

LPD-17 and -18 were probably the two highest risk ships from a network standpoint, Galinis said. “And [LPD-] 17 more so because of the time the network had really been in operation.”

On LPD-17, that network had been operating for close to 10 years, adding in the time it was in operation for testing in the lab, the time in the shipyard while the ship was being built, and then the time since the ship delivered, Galinis said. “So we need to upgrade that network.”

Problems with SWAN were not fully realized until the San Antonio was delivered, Galinis said.

“There were some parts we didn’t have readily available, there was some trouble shooting and tech manual upgrades that we could provide to the ship that would make it easier for them to trouble shoot,” he added. “On LPD-17 it’s a little bit different troubleshooting methodology when you have a network that connects to all of these different systems.”

For example, on a destroyer or cruiser, they might have a federation of networks, Galinis pointed out. “You can isolate your problems a little bit quicker, perhaps.”

Since undergoing her network system upgrade this past spring, USS New Orleans‘ (LPD-18) GiGE has been performing very well, Galinis said.

LPD-19, -20, and -21 also have the older ATM network, he added. “We have a plan to upgrade those networks in the future, all after the ships deliver.”

The San Diego (LPD-22) and follow-on ships will be delivered with the GiGE network, Galinis said.

“We are already looking at the next generation network. In fact we already have some ideas on what that’s going to be,” Galinis said. “We are kind of looking now [at] LPD-25, – 26, -27…what would be the right time frame to cut that in.”

The GiGE technology is kind of like the baseline the Navy can upgrade, Galinis added.

“The upgrade from the ATM network to GiGE was a fairly significant upgrade on the ship,” he added. “The upgrade right now from GiGE to the next generation, at least at this point, does not appear it will be, in terms of production work, as significant.”

The upgrade to the next generation network may be more about changing out some network interface cards and things of that nature, Galinis said.