FITZGERALD TO GET NEW RADAR
Mr. T.M. found this one, and it raises more questions than it answers about the recent incident of the ramming of the USS Fitzgerald off the coast of Japan. Apparently, Lockheed Martin is slated to replaced the warship's radar:
Lockheed Martin to replace USS Fitzgerald's SPY-1D AEGIS radar
The article doesn't really spell out what exactly is meant by "replace":
Lockheed Martin has received a $15.5 million modification to a previously awarded contract for the restoration of the damaged USS Fitzgerald.
The awarded procurement is for beginning repair work on the Fitzgerald after its collision with a civilian cargo ship June 17 that killed seven U.S. sailors. The work provides for the delivery, installation and testing of one SPY-1D radar array, water cooling systems for the radar system and power cables.
LM RMS will share in the responsibility of the repair. The work will be performed in Moorestown, N.J., Clearwater, Fla. and Oswego, N.Y. with an expected completion date of October 2019.
The AN/SPY-1D phased array radar is the primary component of the AEGIS Weapons System mounted on Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
Does this mean that the old radar, which was damaged in the ramming, is to be replaced by the same system, or an entirely new "upgraded" one, or a different system altogether? The questions occur because the damage to the vessel was significant and it is conceivable that the radar system was so badly damaged that it needs replacing.
However, as I've pointed out in previous blogs, the Fitzgerald was also followed by the John McCain ramming a few weeks later, and both followed the two USS Donald Cook incidents, one in the Baltic Sea and the first in the Black Sea, where apparently Russian aircraft were able to jam or shut down the system, and the reporting of those incidents suggested a kind of "selective" system jamming capability. It could be the case that in the wake of the Donald Cook incident, the defense contractors began an analysis of the incident and came up with modifications to the radars that are designed to offset whatever technologies might have been in play in all these incidents. If this speculation proves to be true, then one should expect to see contract announcements for similar upgrades to be made over time throughout the entire US fleet.
There's another possibility lurking in the background here, though. Recall that in the case of the USS Fitzgerald, one crew member reported feeling "mystification," a term which could be taken in any number of ways: mystification over why the event happened, or even mystification over the explanations for it. In the original reporting, we weren't told about the context of this crewman's remarks. In the absence of such information, I speculated that the crewman might have been recording his feelings at the moment, and that these possibly might have been related to some sort of "mind manipulation" technology in play that day. One aspect of at least the Fitzgerald and McCain incidents is that thus far there has been little to no reporting on the other aspect of these incidents, and that is the crews, not on the warships, but on the ramming vessels themselves. The silence here is deafening, and suggestive that there is much more to these incidents than meets the eye.
In any case, the Fitzgerald is getting a new radar system, and this means the McCain is likely slated for one too. But the real indicator of what might be going on in these incidents is whether or not ships that have not been rammed or the victim of such incidents will get one too. If so, then there's more to those incidents than meets the eye.
See you on the flip side.
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Joseph-
I have to say upfront I’m an admirer of your great work and appreciate your research. There’s some interesting information I obtained through military connections within my family regarding the USS Donald Cool. You remember the SU-24 flyover that paralyzed the ship? What was speculated and proven it was carrying an electronic-warfare pod on the bottom called the Khibny device, I believe the spelling is correct. That was the device that disabled the ship. Here’s where it gets interesting, you can correct me if I’m wrong here but in late 2015 or early 2016 do you remember the shoot down of the SU-24 over the Syrian border on behalf of Turkey? They had SAM sites that could have easily taken that jet down. That was an American operation. We know that the SU-24s have that EW pod on the bottom so we had to have line of sight targeting on the jet to ensure that the device was attached, that’s why we had the Turks murder the rescue operation to get that device and to reverse engineer it.
Now we are seeing the new radars being used from those ship collisions. Its my presumption that those cargo ships might have been retrofitted with that same device on them. You’ll remember and again correct me if I’m wrong but in early 2016 there was another close flyover of the Donald Cook and like magic the ship was immune to another EW attack. The SU-24 came within 25m (12 times if my memory serves me correct) of the bridge which would indicate that they had to switch to analog to simulate the attack on the ship. Meanwhile and this is where my information comes in we subsequently killed their digital fire controls hence them simulating the attack in analog and the close flyby at the same time we were simulating attacks on the jet using R2D2.
It should be noted Russian Aircraft have both vacuum tube analog fire controls and the newer synthetic digital overlay.
Anyway thought you might find that interesting.
Sorry didn’t mean to report that I was seeing if I could correct my grammar. I’m on a cell so it makes it hard woth autocorrect.
USS America needs a new radar. Steamboat Willie must upgrade.
I wrote about the radar ‘upgrade’ aspect earlier:
https://gizadeathstar.com/2017/08/things-make-go-hmmm-uss-fitz-back-usa-repairs/#comment-76111
Pertinent part: (Some version of this may be at the core of the Lockheed Martin article.)
The other ‘inflation’ involved in the cost-figures comes from this page:
https://news.usni.org/2017/07/27/repair-bill-uss-fitzgerald-collision-will-cost-fix-uss-cole-terror-attack
‘Fitzgerald, commissioned in 1995, is one of the earliest Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and was due for a $170-million basic hull, mechanical and engineering upgrade in Fiscal Year 2019, according to modernization information obtained by USNI News. The upgrade is meant to get an additional 10 to 15 years of life out of the hull. However, the Navy will probably elect to upgrade the damaged electronics to the new Baseline 9 standard that allows warships to both target ballistic missiles and fight traditional air warfare threats. That overhaul costs about $270 million. ‘That makes the repair-plus-overhaul several times more expensive than originally planned,’ Clark said.”
So, we may be looking at a ‘crisis of opportunity’ here. The USN gets a ‘free’ upgrade, probably waved-through by the neocon Congress.
—
If this turns out to be a fleet-wide ‘vulnerability’, upgrades will never be made public. Software-vulnerabilities will be ‘patched’ as part of routine update-packages. Hardware-vulnerability work will be touted as ‘maintenance’ fixes. No adversary will be allowed to know the facts.
(Again, this does make me wonder: Why expose such an important ‘card’ for such a small gain? Better to save it for a real battle…)
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there was an extensive breach in the ability of ship and/or crew to effectively defend itself. Further; that instead of fixing/repairing, they’re setting HUMIT and TECHNIC traps to capture intelligence geared to possible scenarios as the what breached their systems. On the TECHNIT side they’re covering known spectrums of the electromagnetic field; on the HUMIT side they’re bring psychics, etc., to capture their analyses. This net would cover extensive areas within the global arena; but focusing the heavy-duty assets within the speculative trouble spots.
The IF is in their not knowing what.
Or, they know what and are debating whether to show their hand with blowing the turnkey dust off the effective technologies and implementing within the globalized electronic battlefield.
Or, they’re going to roll out something that beats them down a notch.
Or, as in scenario #1; they’re just clueless zillionaires.
I just saw your blog and then saw this below article from the USNI (United States Naval Institute). They are the semi official mouthpiece of the Navy as they are located in Annapolis MD at the US Naval Academy.
I think the decision not to update the destroyer is merely a cost saving. The USS Fitzgerald is an Arleigh Burke class destroyer. She is of the original Flight I design which had smaller space for I believe only one Seahawk style chopper.
After fifty or so hulls produced they discovered a deficiency in only having one helicopter and limited aviation machine shop areas. The Flight II and IIA have an two hangers and space to accommodate aviation machine shop
To upgrade to a Flight II is very very expensive as superstructures and hulls need to be expanded and there are plenty of Flight II and IIA’s to protect and escort the carrier and amphibious battle groups. The Flight I is very capable in that capacity
as well. It just lacks air operation capacity of the newer versions.
There is one important thing to point out within this article. The new upgrade to the new Aegis system may not be done but the article states that it is upgrading the system to NEW COMMAND AND CONTROL systems which mean surface threat assessment, the ability to maneuver and steer the ship out of harms way. The USS John McCain is an earlier variant of the Flight II and the USS Donald Cook is a Flight I variant, and most likely does not have the upgraded command and control capabilities. This would mean (They) or whom ever is conducting these attacks may have found a weakness which could and in fact was exploited. Which I think helps prove your theory.
Thanks for sharing this info Frank!
I have knowledge of a weapon that utilizes the same type of guidance as HARM (radar targeting) but they are a small diameter penetrator. Much like what we would use out of a Seaborne EM Rail-Gun… Im not sure I would write off this type of weapon yet.
The article is poorly written but I understand it to state that the SPY-1 radar (honestly, who makes up these comic-book military acronyms?) is being replaced, not upgraded.
The interesting question then becomes, how was it damaged? Physically, during the collision and flooding, or prior to the event by, say, a directed EMP blast?
Ship borne radar systems have two major components. The dish which rotates and the hardware located below decks usually amidships, directly below the dish due to the wave guides. I suspect if there were damage it would have been taken in the hardware.
However, this claim is being made by Lockheed Martin and the Navy. Feel free to believe those sources if you like. Myself I think the reason dockyard mateys are all over that ship is something else is being removed or replaced and this is a cover story.
Colour me skeptical.
Robertus
One might wonder about the effects on crew of all that EMF-producing equipment on board a small space like a naval vessel, even under “normal” operational conditions.