In Talks With Navy, Raytheon Suggests Making New Zumwalt Destroyers Missile Defense Ships
Raytheon Co. [RTN] is disappointed that lawmakers in Congress may cut funding needed to develop the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) because it is in development, since those cuts would delay the program just when terrorist and rogue state missile threats are increasing, the newly installed leader of Raytheon missile programs, said in an interview today with Space & Missile Defense Report.
Taylor W. Lawrence, president of Raytheon Missile Systems, also said Raytheon has a proposal on the table with the Navy to make the emergent Zumwalt Class DDG 1000 destroyers missile defense ships missile defense platforms.
Currently, the Navy sea-based missile defense is centered on advanced Arleigh Burke Class (DDG 51) destroyers and Ticonderoga Class cruisers equipped with the Aegis weapons control system by Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT], along with the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor by Raytheon.
Lawrence noted that the Zumwalt Class destroyers have stealth capabilities, able to move in close to enemy shores without being detected by enemy radar.
“The good thing about Zumwalt is, it’s really the advanced ship, with the advanced combat system, and the advanced components of missiles and everything that bring it together to give it … the best capability that the Navy could have for the next few years,” Lawrence said.
His comments came after the Navy at one time proposed building more than 30 of the Zumwalt Class ships (also called DD-21 or DD(X) or DDG 1000), then scaled that back to 24 to 30, then back to seven ships, and then to just the two ships already under contract, while building eight or more of the older Arleigh Burke Class ships. The Navy said Arleigh Burkes have missile defense capabilities that are critically needed to counter terrorists and rogue states.
Without building those extra Arleigh Burkes, the Navy still would have more than 60 of those ships, and more than 20 Ticonderoga cruisers. Some 18 of them have been upgraded to Aegis missile defense platforms, and others could be.
Since then, however, the Navy has said it wishes to build a third Zumwalt, and then some more Arleigh Burkes.
Navy surface ships are build by General Dynamics Corp. [GD] unit Bath Iron Works, and by Northrop Grumman Corp. [NOC] unit Ship Systems.
“The thing we’re talking about right now is even more over and above some of the capabilities that is in its [the Zumwalt] current requirements … specifically about missile defense,” Lawrence said.
“Is it a missile-defense-capable ship? And our answer — and we put proposals on the table — is, it could be.”
A Zumwalt missile defense system would be equipped with the same family of missiles that Raytheon built for the Aegis system, Lawrence added.
But, he added, the Zumwalt “would be a far more capable missile defense ship.”
Additionally, he said, “our proposal says let’s do some things that basically enhance the missiles so that they’re compatible across, say, the Aegis system and the Zumwalt Class and then even our coalition partners.”
That would be accomplished, he said, by putting a data link on board the ships that “could talk to either one … can talk to Aegis, talk to Zumwalt, talk to our coalition partners. We think that that’s really the future. You make the missile interoperable across all those configurations. If you do that, then if the Navy chooses to make Zumwalt a missile-defense-capable ship, it becomes very easy to do — and we think very affordable.”
The Zumwalt combat system could track an enemy missile, and “the Zumwalt could be, then, a missile-defense-capable ship, with an SM-3 [interceptor], or SM-6, by itself,” with a dual data link on the missile.
Thus far, the Navy hasn’t accepted the Raytheon offer, deciding that the Zumwalt “is not a missile-defense-capable ship because they’ve decided, so far, not to buy that capability,” Lawrence said.
But, he said, the same could be said of Arleigh Burke Class destroyers until they are upgraded with the Aegis/SM-3 ballistic missile defense capability. “These are … enhancements to the baseline destroyers, and you can do the enhancement to either one.”
Where all that comes down is a decision as to how many of each type of ship the Navy wishes to procure. “The big debate is, how much of either one do you want to do,” Lawrence said. “We believe that we have a proposal on the table that would make the Zumwalt the most capable missile defense destroyer in the fleet. But [first] you need to do a few things to the [interceptor] missiles, you need to do a few things to the combat system, you need to buy that incremental capability.”
As well, Zumwalts could function well in area air warfare, taking out incoming enemy air threats, Lawrence added.
“You put the SM-2s on board, eventually SM-6s, you got a very, very capable area air warfare defense destroyer,” he said.
The Zumwalt is the destroyer of the future, Lawrence said, able to get in closer to enemy territory without detection and being hit by enemy fire, to address emergent threats posed by rogue states.
He noted that the Zumwalt has “an incredible reduced signature” that on enemy radar makes the huge ship appear to be “a tiny boat, so it can get a lot closer, so it can project fire power a lot closer in, in some of these conflicts, and we believe there’s an affordable plan to add a missile defense capability to it, should the Navy decide to do that.”
“It could be a lot closer in” to enemy missile launching sites “than anything else we’ve got” in the fleet, he said, and more survivable in close-in scenarios.
Kinetic Energy Interceptor Cuts
Lawrence was asked about a closed-door session of the Senate Appropriations Committee defense subcommittee in which the panel reportedly decided to cut more than $300 million out of the $9.336 billion Missile Defense Agency (MDA) budget request for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009.
While the panel hasn’t yet publicly announced details of the cuts and which programs would be hit, it is clear that some cuts would come out of programs which are still in development and switched to programs that are more advanced.
But, Lawrence noted, if programs such as KEI aren’t given funding during their development, then they never will become advanced.
“We’re disappointed” that KEI might be cut, he said.
Northrop is the KEI prime contractor and contributes electronics and systems integration, while Raytheon responsibilities include work on the interceptor missile that takes down enemy threats.
KEI would use a rapid-acceleration interceptor to take down enemy missiles in their most vulnerable phase, just after launching from a pad or silo, before the enemy weapon has an opportunity to spew forth multiple warheads, confusing chaff or decoys.
The other U.S. missile defense system designed to take out enemy missiles in their boost phase is the Airborne Laser (ABL), involving a heavily-modified 747-400 jumbo jet freighter aircraft contributed by prime contractor The Boeing Co. [BA], laser systems by Northrop Grumman and a beam control/fire control system by Lockheed. Raytheon also contributes to the laser system.
Many military analysts say if ABL as expected uses a laser beam to successfully shoot down a target missile next year, that means KEI won’t become the U.S. multi-layered missile defense shield component tasked with boost-phase duties.
But Lawrence said that isn’t necessarily so. Even if ABL succeeds, which he said he hopes would occur after the time and money invested in it, the MDA may not wish to put all its eggs in one basket. KEI “offers yet another arrow in the quiver,” he said. “You want to have a mix” of fully developed systems in production where performance is a known quantity such as SM-3, and other systems with new concepts in development, he said.
In any event, KEI has a broad range of capabilities, and also could take down enemy missiles in their midcourse or terminal phases of flight, he observed.
“KEI is on the horizon,” he noted. “But you shouldn’t penalize it just because it is on the horizon” instead of being fully developed. “If you do, you’ll never get there.”
Lawrence said Raytheon is hopeful that some lawmakers “will see the wisdom in a balanced portfolio between funding developmental programs and continuing to buy production capabilities.”
He added that “we are certainly talking to them [lawmakers] about it.” Having both ABL and KEI would give combatant commanders “a variety of options … to draw from,” Lawrence observed.
Hamstringing missile defense programs with budget cuts can lead to serious problems, he indicated.
This is far more than a matter of budgets and program timelines, he said.
Rather, the United States faces growing threats from rogue nations, and “those potential threats aren’t slowing down. They’re moving ahead. So we need to continue to develop technology in a pace that’s faster than those potential threats, so we have a capability that can address them.”
North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and detonated one in an underground test. It also has missiles of various ranges, and is developing a Taepo Dong-2 missile that could strike the United States.
Iran is producing nuclear materials despite global condemnation, which Iran claims would be used for electrical power generation but which Western leaders fear would be used to construct nuclear weapons.
Further, Iran has fired multiple missiles in salvo test launches; fired a missile from a submerged submarine; and announced plans for a space program that would involve technologies similar to those of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Finally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be wiped from the map, and that Israel soon shall cease to exist.
Foreign Military Sales
Lawrence also said he hopes allied nations over the coming year will wish to procure missile defense capabilities where Raytheon plays a leading role, under the Foreign Military Sales program. It involves the Department of Defense acting as the conduit between a U.S.-based defense contractor and an overseas buyer.
He cited the Japanese placing Aegis/Standard Missile systems on their ships as an example of overseas interest in missile defense. Japanese leaders at times have expressed concerns about rising missile capabilities in both China and North Korea.
Raytheon has had discussions with European allies, he said, without naming which countries. Any nation that has basic Aegis systems on its ships could be interested in upgrading to a missile defense configuration, he said.
Allies in the Middle East as well are interested in acquiring missile defense capabilities, he said.