The New Electric Navy
By Scott Clay, Bishop & Associates Inc.

With the acceptance of the new budget and the Quadrennial Defense Review projections for 2011 and beyond, the Navy has set its plans for new ship construction, new materials for their ships, and established pricing benchmarks for new platforms. This is a major change for the service. Another change is the expansion of electricity in all areas of these new ships.

New submarines will be partially built of composites, shipbuilding contracts will be at set costs, and systems that used to be hydraulic or mechanical will now be electric. New intelligence and communication networks are being installed on all the ships. The new fleet carriers will have electro-magnetic catapult systems for launching aircraft, replacing the older steam-powered mechanisms that have served for almost 50 years. Orders are being placed for new F-18G electronic warning aircraft, and upgrades to the remaining EA-6B Prowlers, to keep them in service for another five to seven years. Unmanned aircraft will be built and deployed, as well as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Navy version, with larger landing gear, larger wings, and longer range. Even new technology weapons such as directed energy and other kinetic laser-type weapons will be installed in the new DDG-1000 and other aircraft, to act as anti-missile and anti-aircraft weapons.

Ship propulsion also will move towards more nuclear powered systems, with less reliance on oil-based products. There will also be a refocus on shallow water or “littoral” operations, with more riverine and shoreline patrol and incursion from shipboard. The Navy has also further developed a land-air-sea concept to defeat adversaries, no matter where they are located. All this involves even more electronics, and of course, connectors. The concept will also access cyberspace, and means the use of even more computers in all areas, involving new systems protection, EMI protection, and increased electrical power. There is a request from the administration to review alternative fuels for the Navy’s use, but it appears nuclear power, in long-term use for both carriers and submarines, will be the choice for many of the new ships, including a proposed new frigate, which will be key in fleet defense.

Another key to the Navy’s plans is future ship construction based on fixed prices and total costs. The experience in the past, especially for the Littoral Combat Ships, has been serious cost overruns, and Congress has called the Navy to task on this for future ships. Now costs will be closely monitored, with active targets for the vessels and their systems, especially electrical and electronic, which often can be a major part of cost increases.

In the simulator above, note the use of displays, new  controls, and computers. Gone is the old-fashioned “wheel” or steering gear. Now, a modern electronic control “stick” maneuvers and steers the ship. With this type of control bridge, the use of wire and electronics is more than doubling in new ship construction.

This new type of “electronic bridge” is becoming standard for the DDG-1000, the Littoral Combat Ship, the new Coast Guard cutter, and other ships of the fleet. This growth of electronics extends into the power plants, the command and control centers, the new radar and surveillance systems, and newest countermeasures of various types, for shipboard protection against all types of threats. Also, the expanded power needs for all these systems means more and more wire and heavy duty connectors are needed to run this power to all of these stations within the ship. A modern Nimitz class carrier contains over 800 miles of wire and cable. While this ship is over 1,000 feet long, this same type of ratio applies to smaller ships. Shipyards are becoming cable and wiring specialists. This type of work used to be outsourced, but the major shipbuilders now find it more cost-effective to handle the work themselves. Yards such as the Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia has an entire division that deals with electrical portions of the huge Nimitz class carriers that are built and refurbished at this huge navy construction yard. They are currently completing the George H. W. Bush for service, and have starting laying the keel of the new Gerald R. Ford Class (CVN 78), the newest version of the Nimitz Class ship. The Ford is due to join the fleet by 2015, and it is entirely possible that there will only be nine carrier groups by 2012, as there is great pressure within the Navy and Congress to retire the Enterprise, the first nuclear carrier developed years ago for the fleet. While it continues in service, it is more expensive and needs more service than the newer Nimitz class ships.

The George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) is under construction at the Newport News Shipyard near Norfolk, Virginia. The ship is over 1,000 feet long, and the yard has two especially large docks for servicing and building these ships. There are no other yards in the U. S. large enough to handle the construction of these ships. To the north of this ship, in the adjacent dock, the keel of the Gerald R. Ford, the newest version of fleet carriers is being laid. The Ford is even more revolutionary than the Bush, with even more electric systems and innovations, including moving the entire control tower and command central farther toward the stern of the ship, giving it even more usable deck space than the 4.5 acres on a normal Nimitz ship.

This yard is where the other Nimitz class ships are docked for their service and overhauls. Most of these ships are cycled in for service every three to five years, and the service can take a year or more, depending on what needs to be upgraded or changed. The Theodore Roosevelt, another Nimitz class carrier, is currently undergoing an upgrade that began in 2009, and the project cost is almost $4 billion. Due to the complexity and huge size of these ships, it takes up to five years to build a Nimitz class ship, and the projected cost of the Ford is over $11 billion dollars. So while the numbers of ships being built is small, the costs and content for electronics, wiring, and connectors is very large. These ships are budgeted and planned so far ahead of time that they are rarely cancelled or cut, ensuring that the components needed for them can be assured in build and planning.

Component and connector makers can plan production and volumes based on Navy shipbuilding plans, and there are scores of other connectors that go into the hundreds of computers, displays, electronic systems, and other systems onboard.

Scott Clay
Director Military & Aerospace, Bishop & Associates Inc.
Scott Clay has worked for more than 25 years in the connector and wiring systems markets. He has held various positions in field applications and marketing for Molex, Tyco, Methode, and ITT. For the past 15 years, Clay has focused on the military/aerospace sector, and five years ago formed his own company for consulting and application engineering. He has worked on design-in and electronics on F/A-18E/F, F-22, F-35, C-130J, C-5M, C-27, P-8, A-10, and numerous other aircraft. Some of the Navy programs Clay has participated in are SSN-774 Virginia class subs, CVX, DDG-1000, and the Littoral Combat Ship class. He has extensive expertise in land vehicle systems, and has worked closely with the worldwide locations of GD, BAE, AM General, and other key manufacturers. He is currently working on variations of MRAP, JLTV, upgrades for the Bradley fighting vehicle, M-88 recovery vehicle, FMTV, and other platforms in the wiring and systems areas, plus portions of the future combat systems.