Boeing Eyes High-Flying Torpedo

Navy League

 

By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor

 

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is proposing a new weapon that would enable sub-hunting aircraft to fire at targets from high altitudes, reducing the time between target acquisition and attack.

 

Steven L. Wingfield, manager of JDAM Business Development for the Boeing unit, said the proposed antisubmarine warfare (ASW) weapon for the High-Altitude ASW Weapon Concept (HAAWC), would be launched from the P-8A Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) at an altitude of 30,000 feet and glide seven to 10 minutes to the water entry point, where it would shed its wings and activate a parachute to lower the torpedo into the water to begin its run toward the target.

 

Currently, ASW aircraft such as the P-3 have to make a time-consuming descent from their surveillance altitudes of 30,000 feet to a release altitude of 300-1,000 feet and release a torpedo, Wingfield said. “That descent down to the release point and then the climb back up to surveillance altitude uses a lot of [fuel], reducing orbit and surveillance time. While you are climbing, (it) reduces your ability to surveill, as well.”

 

The HAAWC would enable the P-8 to launch the weapon from a high altitude based on targeting information generated by its own sensors or the sensors of other platforms. This would save time in deploying a weapon, and obviate the need for the aircraft or other ASW platforms to enter threat zones.

 

“I don’t know what the descent rate of MMA will be,” said Steve Morrow, Boeing’s manager for advanced development of naval weapons, “but it’s intuitive that we can probably get a torpedo down from altitude faster than you can get the airplane down.” That would be an advantage in “a fast-reaction attack based on a pop-up radar contact of a periscope,” he said.

 

Wingfield said the HAAWC proposal is a derivative of the new Mk 54 antisubmarine torpedo that entered service in 2004. The Mk 54 is an all-digital lightweight torpedo that marries technology from the older Mk 46 and Mk 50 air- and surface-launched torpedoes with advanced software algorithms from the large submarine-launched Mk 48 torpedo.

 

Stephen G. Sherrick, manager of business development for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, said that last fall “one of the Mk 54 torpedo guys asked us, ‘Hey, can you put a wing on that thing and guide it for us?’”

 

The HAAWC comprises parts from other munitions. An Mk 54 would be fitted with the wings designed for a Standoff Land-Attack Missile-Expanded Response cruise missile to enable it to glide to the target area. The tail assembly would include the guidance kit designed for the Joint Direct-Attack Munition, which contains a Global Positioning System receiver for precision guidance.

 

The HAAWC also could be equipped with a data link to transmit target position updates while the weapon is in flight, further improving the weapon’s accuracy, Wingfield said.

 

The HAAWC concept, with its standoff capability, may offer tactical collateral advantages to offset some of those submarines have in the cat-and-mouse game of ASW. When running silent underwater, a submarine’s sensitive hull-mounted or towed-array hydrophones can detect a helicopter or patrol plane as it flies overhead. In addition, an attack on hostile submarines operating in the vicinity of enemy air-defense ships or shore-based air-defense networks currently would put the attacking aircraft at risk.

 

Boeing “has provided NAVSEA (Naval Sea Systems Command) and the Naval Air Systems Command with a technical feasibility assessment and a [rough] cost assessment to conduct a high-altitude ASW weapon concept demonstration,” Morrow said. The information was provided at the request of those commands, he said.

 

Spokespeople for the two systems commands and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center declined comment on the HAAWC because it is not a program of record.

Lockheed Martin to Demonstrate Antisubmarine Glide Torpedoes

 

By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor

 

The Navy has selected Lockheed Martin’s Missiles & Fire Control sector to demonstrate its concept for an aerial antisubmarine torpedo that can be launched from high altitudes and glide long distances to water entry.

 

The High-Altitude Antisubmarine Warfare Weapons Concept (HAAWC) program will include the demonstration launch of an Mk54 lightweight torpedo from approximately 20,000 feet. Current parachute-retarded torpedoes normally launch from altitudes of less than 500 feet.

 

Advantages of high-altitude launch from a maritime patrol aircraft are numerous. Torpedoes could be launched at standoff distance well outside the range of enemy air defenses, and the aircraft can attack more quickly by launching without having to descend. The accuracy of the drop also is improved by the Global Positioning System in the kit.

 

The torpedo will be fitted with the company’s Longshot wing adapter kit, a self-contained system that includes a flight computer, a global-positioning navigation system and a power source. Upon launch, the wings on the torpedo would deploy and provide lift to glide to the target. The wings would be jettisoned prior to water entry.

 

If produced, the glide torpedo would be deployed on the Navy’s P-3C and future P-8A maritime patrol aircraft.

 

Electric Boat to Develop Shaftless Sub Propulsion

 

The Electric Boat Co. — a unit of General Dynamics — has been selected by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to continue development of shaftless propulsion technology for submarines.

 

Electric Boat will develop concepts for submarine propulsion that will avoid the need for a propeller shaft that penetrates the submarine’s pressure hull, with all of the attendant hull integrity and safety considerations.   

 

The $20 million, 18-month contract was issued under the Tango Bravo program, an omnibus program to examine technologies suitable for the stringent operating requirements for submarines while reducing acquisition and lifecycle maintenance costs.

 

Under Tango Bravo, Electric Boat also is developing externally mounted weapons for submarines and studying ways to reduce submarine infrastructure. 

 

Defense Industry Notes

 

    * Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $198 million Naval Sea Systems Command contract to build a second Freedom-class littoral combat ship (LCS). The ship will be the first LCS to be built at Lockheed Martin’s partner Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport, La., and is scheduled for delivery to the Navy in 2009. Bollinger built a stern module for the first LCS, Freedom, which is scheduled for launch this fall.

    * General Atomics and its team — Boeing, L-3 Communications Pulse Sciences, SPARTA Composites and Jackson Engineering — have been awarded a $9.6 million, 30-month contract from the Office of Naval Research for the technology development and preliminary design of an electromagnetic rail launcher for the Navy’s Innovative Naval Prototype Rail Gun program. General Atomics will extend and mature the technology to provide fire support for Marines at ranges of 200-300 miles inland and at speeds up to seven times the speed of sound. 

    * BAE Systems has begun fabrication of the first F-35B short-takeoff-and-landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter. A partner of Lockheed Martin in the program, BAE Systems is building the aft fuselage of the F-35B at its facility in Samlesbury, U.K., and will deliver it to the Lockheed Martin facility in Fort Worth, Texas, by the end of 2006.

    * Northrop Grumman has begun assembling the center and aft fuselages of the first production Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft at the company’s facility in El Segundo, Calif. In a related development, Boeing was scheduled to rollout the first development EA-18G Aug. 2 in St. Louis.