[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
.
[H.A.S.C. No. 117-10]
UNMANNED SYSTEMS OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 18, 2021
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-340 WASHINGTON : 2022
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut, Chairman
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia
JIM COOPER, Tennessee VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey SAM GRAVES, Missouri
ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
FILEMON VELA, Texas MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine, Vice Chair JIM BANKS, Indiana
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
SARA JACOBS, California JERRY L. CARL, Alabama
Phil MacNaughton, Professional Staff Member
David Sienicki, Professional Staff Member
Sean Falvey, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative from Connecticut, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces................. 1
Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces......... 2
WITNESSES
Stefany, Frederick J., Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for
Research, Development and Acquisition; VADM James W. Kilby,
USN, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfighting
Requirements and Capabilities; and LtGen Eric M. Smith, USMC,
Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command,
and Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration... 4
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Courtney, Hon. Joe........................................... 37
Stefany, Frederick J., joint with VADM James W. Kilby and
LtGen Eric M. Smith........................................ 41
Wittman, Hon. Robert J....................................... 39
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Carl..................................................... 63
Mr. Wittman.................................................. 63
UNMANNED SYSTEMS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces,
Washington, DC, Thursday, March 18, 2021.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:00 a.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Courtney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE COURTNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CONNECTICUT, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION
FORCES
Mr. Courtney. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for
joining us today for a briefing regarding the unmanned systems
in Department of Navy. This hearing will now come to order. I
want to thank all the members joining today in person and on
Webex for hearing on again the Navy and Marine Corps
acquisitions strategies and requirements for UUVs [unmanned
undersea vehicles], USVs [unmanned surface vessels], and UAVs
[unmanned aerial vehicles] that reside within this
subcommittee's oversight.
Again, a little bit of housekeeping. I am going to make
that as brief as possible, and then I will yield to my
colleague, Ranking Member Rob Wittman, for his comments. We
have numerous members of the subcommittee participating
remotely today. Members participating remotely are reminded to
keep themselves on mute until they are recognized to speak.
In addition, remote members are reminded that once they do
start speaking, there is a slight delay in the feed switching
its focus to you. As a result, please include a brief preamble
of some kind before you start into your questions to the
witnesses. Lastly, members and witnesses are reminded that they
should keep their masks on at all times including when
speaking.
During our first briefing this year, we received an
introduction to the Navy's future force structure and the
Commandant's future design plan aimed at returning the Marine
Corps to its original maritime mission. As part of that
discussion, we heard repeated mentions of how unmanned
platforms could support our sailors and Marines, along with
more detailed analysis from the Department's unmanned campaign
framework. I look forward to discussing these capabilities in
the campaign framework more in depth today.
But before we begin, I want to dispel any narrative that
has taken hold in some quarters in Washington that this
committee, this subcommittee in particular and the House Armed
Services Committee also, are universally opposed to unmanned
systems and platforms. In fact, some of our most reliable and
well-known unmanned platforms like the MQ-1 Predator and the
MQ-9 Reaper programs were the direct result of direct
congressional action despite reservations a few years back from
the Department.
Just last year, Congress included $50 million in
appropriations to convert an expeditionary fast transport to an
unmanned surface vessel to help better develop concept of
operations for future unmanned surface vessels. We on this
subcommittee also recognize the advanced capabilities and
potential impacts unmanned platforms could have on the fleet.
We are very supportive of new tasking that could include ISR
[intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], magazine and
resupply support, refueling, and antisubmarine warfare, as well
as anti-mine operations. Each of these missions could free up
manned vessels and allow our sailors and Marines to better
focus on facing threats.
As we head down this new road, which includes larger and
more complex technology, however, I believe we must incorporate
the lessons learned from acquisition challenges like the
littoral combat ship and the DDG-1000 to avoid costly repeated
mistakes. There must be built-in opportunities for learning
between initial research and serial production to ensure that
we proceed pragmatically, effectively, and intelligently.
Our sailors and Marines deserve reliable and capable
platforms to ensure that they remain in the fight. While we can
discuss at length the numbers of ships and fleet makeup needed
to outpace our adversaries, one thing is clear. Unmanned assets
will undoubtedly play a role in that overall number, and the
tools they bring to the fight will be a critical factor in our
ability to execute and succeed.
To examine these capabilities and the future architecture
of the fleet more in depth, we are joined this afternoon by Mr.
Jay Stefany, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for
Research, Development and Acquisition, who has been, again, a
great source of help for our subcommittee over the last couple
years. This is his maiden appearance as a witness and really,
welcome to the subcommittee this morning, Jay. Vice Admiral
James Kilby, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfighting
Capabilities and Requirements, again who is, you know, going to
charge rent in terms of his frequent appearances here. Thank
you again. And the same is true for Lieutenant General Eric
Smith, Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat
Development.
So again, we are grateful to all that these witnesses can
share with us today, and with that I want to turn it over to my
friend and ranking member, Rob Wittman, for any opening remarks
before we begin opening statements from our witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Courtney can be found in the
Appendix on page 37.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND
PROJECTION FORCES
Mr. Wittman. Well, very good. Well, thank you, Chairman
Courtney. Thanks again for your leadership and your vision in
really pushing this forward. This is incredibly important, but
it is incredibly important to make sure that we get it right.
And making sure that we are taking a deeper look into the
readiness of unmanned systems, I think, is one of those high
priorities, and I thank you for your leadership.
I also want to thank our witnesses today. Mr. Stefany,
Lieutenant General Smith, Vice Admiral Kilby, thanks so much
for all of your efforts, for your continued support to make
sure we are going in the right direction. The Navy and Marine
Corps team have a vision of the future and unmanned campaign is
a road map of sorts to get there. I don't think there is anyone
in Congress who doesn't see the obvious benefits of this
unmanned, autonomous capability.
But I fear the zeal to deliver the future could possibly
lead to waste today. It is my estimation there are several
practical acquisition areas that need to be incorporated into
all of these autonomous developments. First, fail big, and if
you do, do it early. We would like to have success, but we
understand this is a very innovative and creative process, so
if there is a failure, we want to make that sure we acknowledge
that early.
We have seen too many acquisition programs that limp along
well past their useful development. For example, the Navy spent
$700 million in 16 years on a remote minehunting system and
this failure has endangered our entire mine warfare capability
and haunts the Navy 5 years after its termination. Navy and
Marine Corps need to rapidly develop prototypes, assess, and,
if necessary, terminate developing programs based on their
assessment and operational capabilities.
Second, start with the end in mind. The Navy needs to
develop an unmanned, long-range, carrier-based, penetrating
strike capability. Yet this nascent UCLASS [Unmanned Carrier-
Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike] program was usurped
to field a far less capable MQ-25 tanking drone. I understand
the need. I understand the timeframes. But we want to make sure
we have the balance between time and developed capability to
make sure we have the long term in mind, not just the short
term.
Commercial sector, number three. Commercial sector should
drive military development, not vice versa. While the Navy and
Marine Corps unmanned capabilities are indeed our future, a
near-term military capability may be elusive. For example, the
Navy's extended range UUV has limited battery life; it needs to
recharge often. Furthermore, the large USV doesn't possess the
engineering plant to provide the desired autonomy. Instead of
developing these capabilities, Navy should be leveraging
commercial technologies for further military application.
Not only is the technology there, but remember, we are
going to be in a resource-challenged environment. The way we
prevail strategically is for us to be able to do more per our
dollar than the Chinese do for their yuan or the Russians do
for their ruble. That is the path forward. Navy should indeed
be leveraging these technologies and I fear that the extended
range UUV and large USV efforts both, potentially, have the
cart before the horse.
And, finally, number four. Command and control of unmanned
vessels is not essential, it is paramount. The development of
unique military requirements needs to be addressed early in the
acquisition process. A few fundamental questions need to be
answered before we start any new unmanned program. They are:
whether a vessel is unmanned or optionally manned; how do we
provide unmanned command and control; how do we implement the
law of armed conflict and avoid autonomous incidental damage;
and how to address anti-tampering, especially if it supports
our latest and greatest missile systems in an over-the-horizon
environment. If we can't answer these basic questions, we
should not start serial production of any unmanned system.
There is no doubt that our future relies on our ability to
expeditiously develop unmanned, autonomous vehicles, but I will
not support a misguided acquisition program that wastes
taxpayers' resources in an effort to deliver this vision. And I
know that we can get what we need in a timeframe that is
necessary and at a price that is the best value for the
taxpayers. We need to be realistic in our technology
assessments, resolute in our desired end state, and adaptable
to delivering key attributes of this vision.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you having this important
hearing. Thanks for all of your leadership on this. Thanks too,
in what I believe is your balanced and thoughtful approach to
making sure that we get this right. And with that I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the
Appendix on page 39.]
Mr. Courtney. Well, thank you, Mr. Wittman. And, obviously,
that approach is something we have talked about a lot, and your
perspective, obviously, is a big part of where hopefully we are
going forward here today.
So it looks like there is a joint statement that the
witnesses have put together and I guess, Mr. Stefany, if you
are in the center seat, I guess you are up in terms of the
floor.
STATEMENT OF FREDERICK J. STEFANY, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF THE NAVY FOR RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND ACQUISITION; VADM
JAMES W. KILBY, USN, DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS FOR
WARFIGHTING REQUIREMENTS AND CAPABILITIES; AND LTGEN ERIC M.
SMITH, USMC, COMMANDING GENERAL, MARINE CORPS COMBAT
DEVELOPMENT COMMAND, AND DEPUTY COMMANDANT FOR COMBAT
DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRATION
Mr. Stefany. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Courtney, Ranking Member Wittman, distinguished
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss the Department of Navy's
efforts to develop and field unmanned systems that will provide
the Department continued and decisive warfighting advantages
that are required to deter and defeat our adversaries. As you
mentioned, sir, joining me today are Vice Admiral Jim Kilby,
our Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Systems, and
Lieutenant General Eric Smith, our Deputy Commandant for Combat
Development and Integration. I will be making a single opening
remarks for all three of us, sir.
We thank the subcommittee and all of Congress for your
leadership and steadfast support of the Department of the Navy.
Your efforts to fully fund the fiscal year 2021 budget provide
the Navy and Marine Corps team the stability and predictability
to build and sustain the naval force that is required to
execute the National Defense Strategy. For over 245 years, our
Navy and Marine Corps team has operated forward, protected the
interest of the United States and our citizens, supported our
allies and partners, and has created stability that allows free
and open access to the global commons.
Today, given the rapid pace of military and technological
advancements, our adversaries are closing the capability gap
and are challenging our forces with advanced weapons systems.
Our Navy and Marine Corps team can no longer assume we will
control the seas that have allowed free and open access. As
President Biden highlighted in his Interim National Security
Guidance, the world is at an inflection point and the United
States must renew our enduring advantages so that we can meet
today's challenges from a position of strength.
As part of renewing our advantages, the Navy-Marine Corps
team is harnessing America's technological and industrial
expertise to provide us the capabilities and capacity to
continue to deter and, if required, defeat our adversaries. The
Department's recently released Unmanned Campaign Plan outlines
a critical element of our renewed advantages.
Unmanned systems have and will continue to have--be a key
enabler of our distributed force, lethal, scalable, connected,
and cost effective. That is why the Navy is developing a range
of unmanned systems to augment our traditional forces and
proven, relevant platforms. The hybrid force of the future will
provide the Navy and Marine Corps team the necessary
capabilities and capacity to operate in day-to-day competition
as well as the high-end fight, allowing us to maintain the
advantage over our adversaries. This hybrid force is aligned to
the Navy's operational concept of distributed maritime
operations and the Marine Corps operating concept of littoral
operations in a contested environment, which both are in turn
aligned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs joint warfighting
concept. Time is not on our side. We recognize we must harness
America's ingenuity and industrial might to start building that
future force now. Although we have that sense of urgency, we
are mindful of our past technical challenges.
We also remind that we also have achieved successes where
we field proven unmanned aerial and underseas systems. We are
looking at future capabilities as previously mentioned, like
the large unmanned surface vessel, the extra-large unmanned
undersea vehicle, and the Marine Corps remotely operated ROGUE
[Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary] Fires
vehicle, with a critical eye to balancing technology with
practical applications through early prototyping and
experiment.
This approach will inform the enterprise on projected
costs, schedule performance, and sustainment requirements as
well as fleshing out policy, legal, and battle force
interoperability topics before we establish a formal production
program of record. We know we must take a deliberate path to
fielding these emerging systems and we are committed to build a
little, test a little, and learn a lot.
Although we know we have a whole host of technological and
policy challenges to solve, we are confident we will succeed.
We thank you for your strong support this committee has already
provided our sailors and Marines, and we thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today. We look forward to
answering your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Stefany, Admiral
Kilby, and General Smith can be found in the Appendix on page
41.]
Mr. Courtney. Well, thank you, Mr. Stefany. And again, just
for the record, I want to ask that the Unmanned Campaign Plan,
which was developed as, you know, concurrent with today's
hearing, be entered into the record. Without objection, so
ordered.
[The information referred to is available online.]
Mr. Courtney. And again, each member's office should have
gotten a copy of that, you know, it was distributed by
subcommittee staff and if there is a problem with that just
certainly let us know. So I am going to reserve in terms of my
questions, and so at this point I would yield to Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And,
gentlemen, thanks again for joining us.
Mr. Stefany, I want to start with you. And I had mentioned
in my opening statement that the Navy had spent over $700
million on a remote minehunting system. My concern is that the
program went on, I think, entirely too long, we didn't take
lessons learned, and we sacrificed needed capability for the
promise that something better would be coming along.
I think that those things all have potential pitfalls and I
want to get your perspective on how do you believe the Navy
plans to rapidly assess new developments, to look at lessons
learned, quickly incorporate them, and make decisions as they
go forward with unmanned systems to make sure that we
understand it. If we are going to fail, let's fail early, let's
not waste a lot of resources, and let's move on to something
else that maybe holds more promise. But also not continue to go
on chasing technology, because as you know, we never catch up
if we chase technology.
Mr. Stefany. Thank you, sir. So to start off with, the
technology that is being employed in whatever we are doing we
need to understand, and we may not fully understand both the
technology and the reliability of that technology in that
previous program you mentioned. So part of our effort now is to
build one or two prototypes of something, whatever the
capability is we are looking at, and then get it out, use it,
get it into the sailors' and Marines' hands so we can see if it
is reliable, if it is going to meet the intent that we are
looking for, make sure our engineering community is also
heavily involved in making sure it really will have that tried-
and-true capability and reliability when we get it out there.
And if we see a need, potentially do both land-based as
well as at-sea testing of whatever that capability is before we
then come back to a formal program decision and actually start
building in quantity. And I think taking that pause to make
sure we actually have the sailors and Marines operating and
getting their feedback--did it do what we really wanted it to
do--and make sure the engineers have a say in there that, you
know, it is not just technologists, it is the engineers saying,
yes, that actually can work and will be reliable. So, we are
going to put that into our practices. We have things called
gate reviews and program reviews where we bring the senior
technical authority and others in as well as the fleet in to
make sure that we are reviewing that kind of information before
we make program decisions to go forward.
Mr. Wittman. That is great. I think that is the key. Get it
in the hands of sailors and Marines. Get it in the hands of the
fleet. Let them push it and try it and figure out what works
and what doesn't. Use digital twin technology to get immediate
feedback, make changes. I think that is exactly the path that
we need to be on.
Vice Admiral Kilby, last year, the Navy proposed a 32-cell
vertical launch system on a large unmanned surface vessel. And,
you know, Navy has looked at, too, what is going to happen with
proposed divestments in vertical launch systems whether it is
SSGN [guided-missile submarine] or cruisers. And I guess my
question is, you look at the value of vertical launch systems
but why do you believe that the large unmanned surface vessel
is the best platform versus the tried-and-true platforms that
we have today?
I understand the balance between legacy platforms and new
technology, but explain to me why you think the large USV is
the best platform, and if it is, how do we transition to where
we don't have a gap? I think that is the big key. I don't think
any of us here are saying, hey, let's hang on to legacy systems
longer than what we need to. The key is, is making sure we
don't hit that trough where we take one system out and then
don't have the other one fully developed and operational, so.
Admiral Kilby. So, Representative Wittman, thanks for that
question. I think you hit the nail on the head. Our analysis
over the last several force structures has led us to believe
that a hybrid force, as Mr. Stefany indicated in his opening
remarks, is the way we should cost effectively pursue a future
force architecture.
So to your point, the VLS [vertical launching] system, the
Mark 41 VLS system, is a remarkably reliable system. So our
thought going forth, if we can create this hybrid force where
we can operate unmanned surface vessels with a magazine
capability that will rotate and support the force, seems to be
something we should pursue. There is a lot of devils in the
details here as you have indicated. There is HM&E [hull,
mechanical, and electrical] reliability and certainly we need
to do land-based testing. There is COLREGs [Collision
Regulations] compliance that we need to pursue to make sure
those vessels safely operate.
To Representative Courtney's comment, if they are carrying
our most precious magazines, how can we ensure they can get to
the fight and return and do we have to have some kind of escort
requirement and does that make sense? All that is in play in
your comments. But the idea here is, as we look at ships that
are now going to reach their end of service life, and I use the
cruisers as an example because I am a cruiser guy. I love them.
But we have gotten a lot of mileage out of those cruisers and
we are starting to see fatigue--hull, mechanical, and
electrical fatigue beyond the combat system, which has been
remarkably updateable because of the work that Admiral Meyer
did when he created the Aegis system.
So we are looking to pivot to this different force
architecture and we think that this hybrid force is the means
to go do it. We certainly have to have those test points. And
to your point, if that is not a viable solution, I believe just
based on my own experience with the Mark 41 VLS that will not
be the sticking point. It will be the autonomy to go configure
it to stimulate that magazine to conduct that engagement. And I
think our first view was, let's start at the relatively simple
end of this from a strike or a stimulated fire capability, vice
a reactionary ballistic missile defense capability which is
much higher on the complexity level.
So that is our view on how we would kind of start pivoting
the force to this new architecture. And, of course, involved in
that is the frigate program, and how we would treat our other
large surface combatants, DDG Flight III and follow-on systems,
to create this greater aggregate capability. That is the
rationale behind the force structure assessments and the future
naval force structure study we did with the Office of the
Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff and the Marine Corps.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Rob.
Okay, now we will turn to Mr. Langevin, who I know did come
in by Webex. I don't know if he is still with us.
Mr. Langevin. Yes. I am here, Mr. Chairman, yes. Can you
hear me okay?
Mr. Courtney. Actually--okay, great. I couldn't hear you at
first, so okay, the floor is yours, Jim.
Mr. Langevin. Okay, can you hear me now?
Mr. Courtney. It is a little faint, if you can get closer
or speak up a little louder.
Mr. Langevin. Okay, I will try speaking up a little bit
louder. I am on my Bluetooth which should provide the best
sound but, Admiral, I hope you can hear me. Admiral Kilby, I
wanted to, first of all, thank you for your service. I wanted
to thank our witnesses for your testimony today. Admiral, how
is the Navy working with innovative organizations like the
National Institute of Undersea Vehicle Technology to expand
capacity and leverage advances being made in the academic and
dual-use technology space?
Admiral Kilby. Sorry. Thank you for that question,
Representative Langevin. I think we are just at the beginning
of figuring out how to harness that innovation from
organizations like AUSVI [Association for Uncrewed Vehicle
Systems International]. We are participatory--participants in
their annual conference. But understanding how we take a new
idea and contract it, incorporate it, and test it, and then
dovetail it back into our programs of record is something Mr.
Stefany and I are talking about, so I think we must embrace
that.
We are actively taking briefs from companies like Saildrone
to understand their technology and their methodology and their
autonomy, and we have brought in several members from industry
to talk about the campaign framework, which Representative
Courtney referred to, as well as the underlying classified
programs and milestones to achieve those to help us understand
how we can connect this ecosystem.
I will give you the Reader's Digest version of the Unmanned
Campaign Plan, and it is that when CNO [Chief of Naval
Operations] asked me to look at this last summer, we have
been--this document is a result of about 7 months of
introspection, and the high-level conclusion is we were focused
on platforms too narrowly and not looking at the enabling
technologies that will bring those all to bear in this force.
So I agree with you, Representative. We need to keep that
door open and look for those opportunities to look at what
industry is doing.
Mr. Langevin. Okay. I guess you didn't exactly mention
Naval Agility or SBIR [Small Business Innovation Research] or
other Navy innovation incubators. What do you think
organizations like this put into your efforts?
Admiral Kilby. So I will ask Mr. Stefany to come in, but I
think platforms like NavalX and our tech bridges are already in
place for us to energize and start bringing those ideas in.
But, Mr. Stefany, any thoughts on that?
Mr. Stefany. Yes, that is our--we are in the process of
revamping how our Office of Naval Research works with our
warfare centers in that early stage of science and technology
[S&T] to make sure our priorities for what we do with SBIRs and
other early S&T type programs, grants, things like that, are
focused on the CNO and the Commandant's top priorities and, of
course, unmanned technology as well as autonomy are those
priorities.
So hopefully you will be seeing from us soon a different
flavor, a more focused effort in our S&T grants and projects
and our SBIR programs, sir.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Vice Admiral Kilby or, and Lieutenant General Smith, how
are the Navy and Marine Corps working to develop a future
workforce of tech-savvy sailors, Marines, and civilians?
Obviously, this younger generation are digital natives; they
are growing up with technology. But how are we leveraging that
for the workforce of the future?
Admiral Kilby. Thanks, sir. I will start and I will pass it
to Eric. We in the Navy have transitioned to these development
squadrons. We have a UUVRON [Unmanned Undersea Vehicles
Squadron One], which is an undersea, underwater vehicle--I am
sorry, undersea vehicle squadron which helps introduce those
technologies in that domain, and we have recently stood up a
surface development squadron in San Diego to introduce the
surface vessels into exercises.
Recently, that squadron stood up an unmanned operations
center just to understand what it would take to C2, or command
and control, the Strategic Capabilities Office's vehicles as
they transited from the gulf coast to the west coast, and it
was really just an effort on our part to understand what is the
manning and expertise required to do that.
So I think there will be a lot of things we need to look at
from a maintenance perspective. Do we need to stand up a new
NEC, Navy Enlisted Code, or do we need to have a different
rating for unmanned vehicles perhaps? Perhaps enginemen might
be able to maintain diesels on unmanned surface vessels.
So we have really got to understand creating that expertise
within the Navy in the civilian force from a maintenance
perspective and a management perspective and then uniform from
an operation perspective. But that work is undergoing and those
development squadrons are a way to scope that effort out and
understand them.
Mr. Courtney. So, unfortunately, Mr. Langevin's time has
expired, but we will hold that thought maybe a little later for
General Smith. So next up is Congresswoman Hartzler. The floor
is yours.
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you for your testimony. I have been looking
forward to this hearing. This is really exciting stuff and has
so much potential. So I have been enjoying reading about and
learning more about the platforms. Vice Admiral Kilby, once the
MQ-25 is fielded, do you expect it to strictly serve as a
refueling asset with limited ISR capabilities or do you see an
opportunity to incorporate strike as a future mission set?
Admiral Kilby. So, ma'am, thanks for that question. I think
the MQ-25 has great promise for us. As you have indicated, our
initial focus is to introduce this platform and get it
introduced into the air wing where it can serve its role
initially in tanking and limited ISR from that perspective. But
where we are focusing on is launching, landings, moving it
around on the deck, bringing it up, taking it down in the
hangar bay, how do we position those assets and how can we
support the air wing.
So step one, get fighters out of the business of refueling
fighters and use the MQ-25 to do that initially close aboard
the carrier, but eventually at range. But there is some payload
capacity in that vehicle that we think has great promise for
us. So I think initially we would transition to ISR, but in an
air wing of the future view, I think, and talking to Admiral
Harris and Admiral Whitesell who is our ``Air Boss'' for the
Navy, we think we could get upwards of 40 percent of the
aircraft in an air wing that are unmanned and then transition
beyond that.
So I think the logical step would be trying to follow a
logical crawl-walk-run. Let's figure out how to handle it in
the air wing, let's move to ISR, maybe electronic attack,
strike, and then other things as complexity grows across that
mission set. But I think the MQ-25 will most certainly provide
promise to us because it will be able to perhaps exceed the
endurance of a manned aircraft.
Mrs. Hartzler. Yes, and it is definitely needed. It doesn't
make sense to be using our F-18s for refueling, for sure. So
the MQ-25 T1 prototype I understand is doing very well in the
flight test at the MidAmerica [St. Louis] Airport which, of
course, is in Missouri. Not my district, but we are still
watching it and very excited about it.
The MQ-25 is already flying with the government's aerial
refueling store and there are plans to conduct air refueling
operations with an F-18 as soon as next month, I hear. So,
because the MQ-25 is designed with a tremendous range
advantage, as you referenced, and is already designed to carry
internal and external weapons, how does the Navy plan to grow
MQ-25 capability to counter China's capability in the Pacific,
beyond what I know you have already shared a little bit about,
moving it to ISR. Is there anything else you want to share on
that?
Admiral Kilby. I guess I want to share the--I want to keep
coming back to this enabling technology piece because there is
going to be a control center on the carrier for unmanned air
vehicles. But, ultimately, in the future, let's say there is a
refueling area for a strike or some other mission area. It
would be great if a pilot, a manned pilot, saw weather or we
saw weather and we could divert and move that and not have to
go to the carrier to do that control.
So I think an aspiration for us is the control, the manned
and unmanned teaming in the future between these vehicles and
not have to go back to the control center. But I think most
certainly we have got to start with the control center and get
that right. And there is a relationship here with Project
Overmatch and the network to control these aircraft and ships,
quite possibly in the denied area where I might have to have
low probability of intercept communications and look at some
other ways vice overhead the carrier that are more secure.
Mrs. Hartzler. That is going to be interesting to see how
that all develops, because right now they are totally manned
control but then eventually that would, there may not be the
line of sight, and so an aircraft in the air then would take
over control, right?
Admiral Kilby. Correct, potentially.
Mrs. Hartzler. Yes.
Admiral Kilby. That is a vision for us.
Mrs. Hartzler. It is a big one. Now aren't you having a,
let's see, the Office of Naval Research will test early Link 16
software modifications in Boeing's advanced simulation lab very
soon, so where are you at in the communications realm here?
Admiral Kilby. So right now, we are still focused on the
centralized control and we are--this is all part of the MQ-25's
mission. Where is that space on the carrier? How do we conduct
those communications with that aircraft? How do we maneuver
that on deck? So I would say we are at the early stages of that
and piping and setting up that carrier through installation to
be able to conduct that work. That is independent of the
vehicle testing and refueling that you indicated.
So, to me, we are in the 2024 to 2026 timeframe to deliver
that capability, and then we need to start rapidly looking at
what is next and how do we increase the range and capacity of
that air wing to do what the nation needs it to do.
Mrs. Hartzler. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Mr. Courtney. Okay. All right, thank you, Vicky. Next up is
Mr. Norcross from New Jersey.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Mr. Courtney. Don, can you speak up a little louder?
Because again, the audio is----
Mr. Norcross. Yes.
Mr. Courtney [continuing]. A little quiet.
Mr. Norcross. Vice Admiral Kilby, I want to drop back and
take a little bit higher view of our unmanned systems and what
drives the decision on what you are going to pursue, you know,
the highest priority and how it is driven. Is it the maturity
of the technology because you have so many assets which
virtually so many of them can go unmanned? Is it the
technology, the maturity of it? Is it somehow the security of
the personnel or how high of a risk it is? Is it the cost? Is
it that we are saving costs down the road? Or does it come to
the risk?
So, how do you decide, with all the assets, what you are
going to pursue and what are the drivers behind that?
Admiral Kilby. Sir, yes. Thank you for that question,
Representative Norquist--so sorry, Norcross. The framework of
the Unmanned Campaign Plan is really highlighting this
overarching leadership and management of this program, so there
is a lot of competing priorities in that space. I would say
there are some vehicles we have that have been very mature and
operated with autonomy and increasing autonomy over time, but
those are smaller vehicles like Mark 18 unmanned, undersea
vehicles that support our explosive ordnance teams or our
oceanographers.
So, understanding from a higher level how these all fit
together is an area that we need to work on, and we need to
focus on, so I wouldn't say it is one priority, it is all those
priorities. Certainly, we need to focus on the hull,
mechanical, and electrical reliability for our surface
platforms. Can they do the mission duration that we expect them
to do based on our analysis? Can a vessel operate for that long
and conduct that mission with redundancy? And I know we are
going to talk about that more in the hearing. But there is a
security aspect to that too and there is a training aspect to
that too.
So, I wouldn't say it is one priority that is driving us.
What has put us on this vector though is this desire to get at
a hybrid force and it is threat-driven. We are being driven
there by our adversaries to try to create a more complex force
that give them problems that they have to solve. So, I think we
have to get over all those things, sir.
Mr. Norcross. Just to follow up with that point is, what
you start and when you start it for those needs, we understand.
At what point is there an assessment that we are just not ready
for that, sort of getting back to Mr. Wittman's approach is,
when do we decide it is not ready and we will have to take
another bite at this? Just as important as what you start.
Admiral Kilby. Yes, sir. Thanks for that question. I would
say, let's just take one example that is going to be coming up
here shortly. It is the XLUUV [extra large unmanned undersea
vehicle]. That vehicle, we are pursuing that vehicle because we
have operational needs from a combatant commander to go solve a
specific problem. That vessel really hasn't operated.
The XLUUV is, as you know, a migration from the Echo
Voyager from Boeing with a mission module placed in the middle
of it to initially carry mines. We need to test, get that
initial prototype built, and start employing it to try to see
if we can achieve the requirements to go do that mission set.
And I think to the point so far made several times, if we can't
meet our milestones, we need to critically look at that and
decide if we are pursuing--we have to pursue another model or
another methodology to get after that combatant need.
But in the case of the XLUUV, we haven't even had enough
run time with that vessel to make that determination yet.
Certainly there are challenges with that vehicle though.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Norcross. Next up is Mr. Kelly
from Mississippi.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think this is the
future, but I agree with Ranking Member Wittman, is we need to
be prepared to fail and fail fast. We also have to keep a close
eye on our industrial base and make sure that we are committed
once they produce these products that we don't change the scale
or the scope of what we are committed to buy in the future. And
I use an example, Northrop Grumman does the Triton. And last
year, or the fiscal year 2021 budget was going to cut both
aircraft or both unmanned systems and not put them in, and
Congress, thankfully, put back one. That is a great partnership
between Australia and the United States.
I also have the MQ-4 Triton, the MQ-8C Fire Scout, the LUSV
[large unmanned surface vessel] which Huntington Ingalls is
involved in, the Sea Hunter which Leidos is involved in, the
MQ-9--in all these programs do you foresee any issues that
would prohibit us from going with the plan that the Navy has,
or Marine Corps, General Smith, do you see any future things
that would cause a reduction in the production of any of these
models that I just mentioned? And if I need to go back over
them, I will.
Mr. Stefany. No, sir. I think we are familiar with all of
those that you brought up. On the first one I will give an
overview and then I will go to General Smith and Admiral Kilby.
On the Triton, as mentioned by Admiral Kilby before, that
fleet, that fleet or COCOM [combatant command] feedback is a
critical thing that we are considering as one of our factors
and so we receive feedback on an improved mission set. And so
we decided to take a little pause to make sure that we get the
technology for the new mission set in place before we start
building more. And that is not that we were going to stop, we
just, it was feedback from the fleet that we needed that extra
set of mission capability.
Mr. Kelly. Yes, and I just do, I mean, I personally don't
think that one, in INDOPACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command], I
don't think one Triton is sufficient to surveil what we need to
in that AOR [area of responsibility], especially considering
how important that has become and our partnership with
Australia. So, I just ask that--we understand there is an
industrial base and we can't start and stop those guys, because
number one it drives up costs for us and number two we lose the
workforce and lose capabilities. Second, are there any--
cybersecurity is going to be really key, and are there any key
elements of cybersecurity for future unmanned naval operations
that they should consider in the defense industrial base while
preparing or creating new technology?
Mr. Stefany. So cybersecurity is critically important and
we have a set of standards that the Secretary of Defense's
office has put out and sent to us and to industry to make sure
that we are meeting at least certain levels of cybersecurity in
everything we do. These items, all these unmanned systems will
be connected through Project Overmatch, this overall network of
networks that will have cyber capabilities built into it. So we
need to do a better job communicating.
And Admiral Small, who runs our Project Overmatch, has been
out talking to industry, but we need to do it more, you know,
hands-on, talk with industry about cyber requirements overall.
And then I would like to see if any amplification from Admiral
Kilby.
Admiral Kilby. Yes, just two points, sir. Thank you for
that question. I think we need to be very vigorous on our
introspection about our security of our air vehicles, surface
vehicles because we know the adversary is doing that. So we
need to be continually testing and probing our systems to make
sure they are secure. And two, of the broader question, I
think, as we work through and, really, the pacer for us now is
this--is China, so we need to watch what China is doing and if
we need to make an adjustment to our force design we need to do
it and we certainly need to communicate it and seek your
support in doing that moving forward.
Mr. Kelly. Then final question, does the Navy think about
future unmanned subsurface vehicles, subsurface vessels, are
they looking for a large-capacity torpedo firing platform for
autonomous or remote control missions?
Admiral Kilby. Yes, absolutely, sir. That is another degree
of difficulty, but we clearly see value in that in the future
and just watching where things are happening, I think that is a
great opportunity for us in the future.
Mr. Kelly. And you guys are amazing. We need to continue
this program, but we need to understand the risk and we need to
manage the risk of people overtaking the systems, of not having
the right security things, and also of any unintentional
accident based on AI [artificial intelligence] or other things.
But I think this is the future, so I thank you for committing.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Courtney. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Kelly. And
again, thank you for reminding us that plus-up add-back for the
Triton again originated in this subcommittee, and you are
absolutely right about the need to, you know, keep the
production line moving and, obviously, the great teamwork with
Australia.
So next up--again, also I just want to remind people
General Smith is on standby and I know he has some good input
he wants to give, so--and certainly I am going to get to him
when it is my turn, but I now would yield to Congresswoman
Luria.
Mrs. Luria. Well, good morning. And I will start with Mr.
Stefany. In Battle Force 2045, which was released in December,
unmanned surface vessels were a significant portion of the
future fleet architecture. And on February 24th of this year, I
sent a letter to the Acting Secretary and the CNO requesting
the analysis and the data behind this proposed architecture and
also requested that that information be provided to me by March
10th.
I have not received any of that information back yet from
the Secretary or the CNO, and we on this committee want to
provide the Navy what we need for the future and, you know,
expect a good-faith effort on the part of the Navy to provide
the information that we requested in order to inform our
decision making. So I was curious if you could update me on the
status of this requested information.
Mr. Stefany. Yes. Congresswoman Luria, I am very familiar
with your request. The information we have put together, and it
is in our final chop cycle, I have seen it so I know it is
imminent to get to you. We are sorry we missed the March 11th
date, but it will be to you shortly. And I know Admiral Kilby
and General Smith will be looking forward to walking through
that with you once you receive it.
Mrs. Luria. Well, great. Well, thank you for that update
and I look forward to that opportunity to discuss that
background. I also recently reviewed the Unmanned Campaign
Plan. I was really disappointed in what I saw as a lack of
substance in the plan. I thought it was full of buzzwords and
platitude but really short on details. And with the recent
acquisition program failures that we have had on the last
several ship classes, rightly, those of us on this committee
are skeptical of the Navy's ability to shepherd this new
technology into employable assets that contribute to the
lethality of our forces.
When could we expect on this committee to see more granular
detail on these unmanned programs? And specifically, Admiral
Kilby, in the provided written statement you indicated that the
surface development squadron developed a USV CONOPS [concept of
operations] in January 2021. Do you intend to provide that
document to this committee?
Admiral Kilby. Thanks for that question, ma'am, and I
appreciate your perspective on the framework document which was
really just a strategic document to kind of focus the naval
service on the imperative to get after that. But I agree with
your comments. There is a underlying campaign plan here which
ties the programs together, so we can certainly come over and
walk that through with members. But that work will never be
done, because we will be constantly updated with programs and
tests and if we reach a milestone, we will need to adjust or
not adjust if we decide to walk away from that program. So to
me that is a body of work that is enduring and evolving at all
times.
To your CONOPS question, I can get that over to you. It is
a classified document, I believe. Let me just talk about CONOPS
a little bit. It is Rev [Revision] 1 and it was released in
January. We are already working on Rev 2. The idea is we will
update this annually as we move forward and not wait to get to
perfect but give a document to the fleet that they can use in
our exercises and we can test ourselves.
And that first test will be in April. Not first test, but a
next test will be in April when we run a PACFLT [Pacific Fleet]
exercise off San Diego to test some of these across all our
domains. So I would expect an annual update on that for the
foreseeable future, ma'am.
Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you. And I think the biggest
question I have, and I have had this discussion with several
members on both sides of the aisle, is that, you know, it is a
fleet to do what? We are really trying to understand the CONOPS
and, you know, the proposed missions of investing in these
unmanned vessels.
Also you stated that the Navy's LUSV will be a high-
endurance vessel based on commercial specifications capable of
weeks-long deployments and transoceanic transit. Additionally,
you stated autonomy is the linchpin to unlocking the potential
for the Navy's future manned and unmanned maritime vehicle
fleets to execute missions. During the transit of the Sea
Hunter from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, just curious, how many
times did personnel have to board the ship to fix mechanical
problems?
Admiral Kilby. Sorry. Ma'am, I believe the number is three,
and there are three interactions from that vessel on its way
over. Some were setting electronic switches and some were
mechanical. The driver of that test was autonomy though--can we
drive the ship, can we control the ship, and can it have some
degree of COLREGs compliance--not HM&E reliability.
So, clearly, we are learning from that. We need to
understand that. I talked to the Strategic Capabilities Office
specifically in preparation for this hearing and one of their
major takeaways is you need to make your HM&E or your
propulsion plan reliable and simple, simple as possible. So it
could be that some of our reliability comes from redundancy.
Maybe we have multiple engines on a propulsion plan and if we
lose one we can continue on in the mission. We don't have to
have an operator go over and reset that.
I am just theorizing that that could be a conclusion we
come to. But we need to take these prototype vessels, learn
from them, and then adjust those vessels to make sure they
require the least amount of operator intervention as possible
and----
Mr. Courtney. Great, Admiral. I think we are going to
follow up with the----
Mrs. Luria. And thank you. My time has expired. I yield
back.
Mr. Courtney. Yes, great. Thank you. And just again for the
subcommittee members, we are working on getting a briefing when
people are back in town on Battle Force 2045 and it is going to
be, again, we are going to have--that is going to happen. And
Elaine is absolutely right. We need to sort of understand the
process and the report better.
Next up is Mr. Gallagher.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you.
Lieutenant General Smith, you are not going to get away
without talking. Could you just give us an update on the ROGUE
Fires program and explain sort of how that fits within the
Commandant's vision, particularly in INDOPACOM?
General Smith. Sure, I can. The ROGUE Fires vehicle, Remote
Operated Ground Unit Expeditionary, is simply a joint light
tactical vehicle that has been stripped of its armor, its crew
cab, and turned into a robotic----
Mr. Courtney. Excuse me, General. Could you move the mic up
a little closer?
General Smith. I can, sir. Can you hear me there, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Courtney. Yes, that is better. Yes.
General Smith. So the Remote Operated Ground Unit
Expeditionary, the ROGUE vehicle, is simply a joint light
tactical vehicle that has been stripped of its armor and its
crew cab in order to provide a robotic vehicle that is
controlled by a, via controller, or it has a LiDAR [light
detection and ranging] system that it can do leader/follower,
so it is paired as a manned-unmanned teaming setup.
You picture an artillery unit that is firing a HIMARS, High
Mobility Artillery Rocket System, but now firing a Naval Strike
Missile. That vehicle--paired, optimally, one manned vehicle,
three robotic vehicles with the command vehicle--would be
inserted, and it is transportable via our organic means. Sling
load exceeds 53K, internally transportable KC-130, obviously
any of our service connectors, LCACs, landing craft utility,
light amphibious warship or traditional L-class.
So that is the Fires platform which, by the way, has been
successfully tested as recently as November, firing a Naval
Strike Missile. And the key for us, sir, if I can, is that it
is an existing platform. Joint light tactical vehicle, no new
technology. Naval Strike Missile, no new technology. We simply
integrated two existing technologies, and that is how we buy
down the risk. That is your Fires platform, immediately
deployable, and can hold adversary ships at risk at ranges of
excess of a hundred miles, in the unclassified setting in
excess of a hundred miles. Does that answer your question, sir?
Mr. Gallagher. That does. And I appreciate how you have all
moved with a sense of urgency on that platform and I just think
it is critical to getting a posture of deterrence by denial in
INDOPACOM.
Vice Admiral Kilby, I was hoping you could talk a little
bit more about the CONOPS for the LUSV fleet. Do you primarily
see these as unmanned ships that can accommodate a crew
temporarily or as manned vessels that can be operated remotely
in times of higher threat?
Admiral Kilby. So, sir, I would like to pursue the former
category, right. And so there is some accommodation if we need
a crew to board them when they are operating, but not a manned
vessel. But we are open for this discussion. We are doing an
analysis of alternative as directed by Congress to go look at
options and I am open to the comeback from that option.
I think the genesis of this was our analysis that we would
use this large unmanned surface vessel at least initially as a
way to get munitions to the front faster and not have to pay
the full bill of a manned ship; so I could augment manned ships
and their magazines with an unmanned surface vessel that would
bring munitions back to that force and operate in conjunction
with that force. So initially, our view was it would be in
concert with a manned ship and that is that manned/unmanned
teaming concept.
Mr. Gallagher. But if you prioritize unmanned in the
design, what does that buy you in terms of, I mean, do you get
additional VLS capability on these ships or what does that mean
in practical terms?
Admiral Kilby. You could get some additional SWAP to do
other things; that is space, weight, allowance, power. You
don't have to pay the integration for the facilities to keep
the crew fed and treated, et cetera. I mean, I have to put a
sickbay on that ship if I am going to be there temporarily and
it is operating with another ship.
So we believe there is some opportunity to save things.
Anytime I have to build that in though, there is not a complete
savings. So in the case of MQ-25, I don't have to have an
oxygen system. I don't have to have an ejection seat. I don't
have to have heating. I don't have to have cooling. So that is
payload I can use for other mission. So, ultimately, that is
what we want to pursue, but we acknowledge that there will
probably have to be some accommodation initially. Over.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you. In the 20 seconds I have left, I
just would offer a statement. It would be great if the Biden
administration is listening, if they moved with a sense of
urgency to nominate a Secretary of the Navy. I mean, this is
our priority force in the priority theater and I think this
committee would welcome such a person. There are many members
of the committee on the other side that would make great
candidates and others in the private sector. So please,
nominate a SECNAV [Secretary of the Navy] as soon as possible.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. And actually shared
that with some of the transition team folks about a week or two
ago. I couldn't agree more.
Next up is Congresswoman Jacobs from San Diego.
Ms. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And this first question is for Mr. Stefany. The Navy plans
to have LUSVs be a platform with high endurance based on
commercial designs and built around a common missile launcher
with an integrated combat system. But, currently, neither
prototype versions are fully compliant with the COLREGs. This
remains a challenge for the Navy given COLREGs have different
requirements based on certain conditions, such as weather. To
be fully compliant, the vessels must be capable of recognizing
these conditions, which they are not capable of currently.
So, I was wondering what the plan is of the Navy to address
this challenge, and what you are doing to prevent us from
making the same mistakes we did with the LCS [littoral combat
ship] program, which I think we all agree was rolled out before
it was ready for primetime because the Navy decided speed was
more important than adequately addressing capability concerns
up front.
Mr. Stefany. Thank you, Representative. That is--I will
start with what our plans are for LUSV as mentioned that the
two prototypes we have that are being operated that we are
about to take possession of from the Strategic Capabilities
Office, we are buying two more that are being built right now
so we will have four of those vessels. And we will be using
those plus the Sea Hunter in experimentation and to get,
basically to get miles under our belt in different conditions,
sea conditions, and different weather conditions, different
environmental and traffic conditions. We have only scratched
the surface, really, with the two vessels we have of the
conditions we might find and we need to learn a lot more and
experiment a lot more before we go in and start the actual
production program. So, but also back to Admiral Kilby's point,
our initial instantiation of this, of these vessels is not to
be fully autonomous. It is to be, you know, a man in the loop
that would be able to do those kind of interactions that are
required and then ultimately work over time to be, you know,
more autonomous and more reliable.
And whether we ever get to a place where we are full
COLREGs compliance or not is yet to be seen. We will have to
work our way through that.
Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. Would any of the other panelists
want to weigh in on this before I go to my next question?
Admiral Kilby. Yes, ma'am, Admiral Kilby. I would just like
to add briefly, I think we would be well served to look at
other industry models here like Google has 250 cars, I
understand, that they drive around that had hundreds of data
sources and control time to understand the complexity of this
task. We need to do the same thing with COLREGs compliance.
So with the Sea Hunter vessel now, they get away from port
with a manned crew, but once they are fair at sea, they
transition and can transition to an autonomous mode. That
doesn't mean they are fully compliant, to your point. So we
have got to understand what the limits are and the restrictions
to safely operate these vessels. And it could be weather
avoidance, it could be a lot of things that we need to work
through, but clearly we have a ways to go here, to all your
points, and we want to be good stewards of the ocean and
operate our vessels safely.
Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. On to my next question. The law of
armed conflict and international humanitarian law governs which
weapons are considered legal in conflict and regulates their
use. And given the pace of technological advancement, weapons
systems with sophisticated autonomous technology that do not
require humans for targeting and firing decisions could soon be
introduced to the battlefield. Since it is no secret the Navy
plans to deploy these unmanned systems in sensitive waters or
even if it is being considered, what precautions are being
taken by the Department to, one, make sure the use of such
systems doesn't inadvertently lead us into a larger armed
conflict, particularly with China or other adversaries; and
two, what legal doctrine is the Department developing around
the use of such systems?
We know, of course, we have dealt with some of these issues
with aerial drones in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, but I
would imagine deploying or potentially deploying unmanned
systems to the South China Sea, for instance, would surely
present a whole new set of potential problems. So I guess, Mr.
Stefany, if you would like to start.
Mr. Stefany. Yes, ma'am. So as you mentioned, we have, as a
Department of Defense, been using lethal weapons for a while
now and so our policy group within the Navy, JAG [Judge
Advocate General] Corps and others, have been working and will
work with the Secretary of Defense's office and the policy
group as well as the administration to set those policies out.
We know it is something we have to do, and we are going to work
through with our Air Force and Army brethren as well because it
is an issue that actually goes across all of the services in
the whole Department of Defense.
Admiral Kilby. Yes, I would just add one piece, ma'am, if I
could. Bringing together this framework and this campaign plan
is to force all that interaction and discussion, where it might
not happen on its own if we had a platform-only approach,
right. If that program manager is worried about delivering that
one thing, he or she may not think of that, so we need to drive
it at a higher level.
To your specific point, the initial instantiation of LUSV
is to not have them operate autonomously in that zone where
they are not under the control of a man in the loop. So while
we want to have reliability and COLREGs compliance and we want
to be very aggressive on that confidence factor, there will be
a man to complete that fire control solution in the loop for
the foreseeable future.
Mr. Courtney. Great. Well, thank you. Speaking about
autonomous systems, the clocks are not in alignment here in
terms of what is on the screen and--but, so we gave you a
little extra time, Congresswoman, and thank you for asking that
question, because no, that is a very important piece of this
discussion and so I really appreciate that.
Next up is the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Carl.
Mr. Carl. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Rear Admiral Kilby, I know that EPF [expeditionary fast
transport] is currently in process of being converted into an
unmanned prototype. What is the status on that prototype?
Admiral Kilby. Well, we appreciate the committee giving us
$50 million to go after that, sir.
Mr. Carl. Yes.
Admiral Kilby. And I spoke most recently with Admiral
Williamson who is the N4 [Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for
Fleet Readiness and Logistics]. He is our head logistics Deputy
Chief of Naval Operations. But I view there is very little
daylight between us in the value we can get out of this, so not
only will we figure out how to handle a dull, dirty, cheap
mission logistically and make our force able to distribute
more, but we will also be able to take the benefit of that HM&E
reliability, the control, the COLREGs compliance that we have
talked about, more vessels doing this is going to provide more
data for us to be a better informed force. And I think that
will pay back to the whole unmanned surface fleet as we move
forward, so we very much appreciate the committee's support of
that.
Mr. Carl. So do I. But real quickly, as a proven platform
in the use of the Department of the Navy, what benefit is the
Navy receiving by using the EPF as a prototype rather than a
brand new acquisition?
Admiral Kilby. So I think, sir, it allows us to get a
running start. That is my opinion. I will yield to Secretary
Stefany, here, for his comments. But to me, because we
understand that vessel and understand the plant and there is
certainly some very good capacity in that vessel from a
logistics perspective, and as you know we are pursuing what I
call an ambulance or a Role II care mission for that ship to be
able to, in great conflict, medevac our sailors and the Marines
and soldiers and airmen at capacity because we have a huge gap
in our force right now, so to me that resuscitate event in the
logistics framework is critical and the EPF will play a great
role in that.
Mr. Stefany. And to add to that, sir, we are using the EPF-
13, a ship that is currently under construction right now, that
is expected to come out in late 2022. So by being able to put
this modification in timeline, if you will, the ship will come
out next year and we will be able to start experimenting with
it much faster than if we, you know, did it from scratch and
were building from scratch, sir.
Mr. Carl. Gentlemen, I appreciate it. I will take my final
time here real quickly. I appreciate you all willing to just
come here and answer questions and I certainly appreciate your
service to this country. And, General, Oorah. And I yield my
time back. Thank you.
Mr. Courtney. Well, thank you, Mr. Carl. And thank you for
again kind of spotlighting the EPF initiative in last year's
NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] in the budget, which
again was a very creative interaction between the Navy and
committee staff who, you know, understood the EPF as a great
vessel and it is almost sort of perfectly set up to be, you
know, again a prototype, and we are going to learn a lot from
that.
So next up is Mr. Brown from Maryland. You are on, Anthony.
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our panelists for attending and presenting
this morning. I just want to ask a few questions about some
specific systems. I apologize if we are covering ground that
has already been covered during the hearing, but I have been
sort of back and forth between hearings.
I think Mr. Kelly had asked about the MQ-4C Triton. It is
my understanding that last year, the Navy deployed two to Guam
as an early operational capability. I recognize that, you know,
the maritime picture is a complex and crowded picture, but I
have heard positive reports on the Triton's Guam operations.
My question is, can you discuss, Admiral, the benefits that
Triton has been providing in its Guam operations, and also can
you describe Triton's impact for the warfighters through this
significant improvement in maritime domain awareness?
Admiral Kilby. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question. So I
think we are learning a lot, overall, from two perspectives.
How would we control these aerial vehicles to provide ISR or
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for the
warfighter. I have seen pictures myself. I won't tell you
exactly of what platforms, but they are very interesting
platforms and Triton provides that connection. So it allows us
to create a more complete picture of what is out there versus
what we think is out there. So to me it is a validation. And
having been an operator in the Pacific, sometimes it corrects a
mis-ID [identification], for lack of a better word, so I think
Triton will add tremendous value there.
To Secretary Stefany's comments, future variants will have
increased capabilities that will add even more to that mosaic
of sensors to provide feedback back to the warfighter. So we
are already seeing great returns. We are learning how to
operate it. We are understanding the limitations now and
addressing those to make sure the future variants of that
provide the most robust capability we can.
Mr. Brown. Thank you.
General Smith, for you, regarding the MQ-9, and since it is
not shipboard, how do you plan to operate them in contested
areas and how will you protect sensitive sensors if they are
landing at austere fields and sites?
General Smith. Sir, the MQ-9A Extended Range, which is the
same platform that the U.S. Air Force currently operates--we
actually operate two of them in the Central Command area of
operations now and ultimately we will procure 16 more for a
total of 18, that is 3 squadrons of 6. The way that that system
operates it is from a friendly base. And that could be
continental United States, it could be Guam, it could be
Hawaii, or a partner nation. It has systems on board that
exceed obviously the classification level of this unclassified
hearing that give it both in-flight protection and protection
from tampering, and that system is incredibly important to us
to pass data across the battlefield. It is the closer of the
kill chain, the maritime kill chain, as we operate underneath
in an alternate precision navigation and timing network.
But that system has the duration and the range to be
operated from those bases that we do control and still give us
the loiter time that we need to be able to both close the kill
chain and to move that asset around something as vast as the
Indo-Pacific theater. I hope that answers your question, sir.
Mr. Brown. Yes, thanks. And just one follow-up with the
little bit of time remaining. You know, now that the Marine
Corps has decided to procure the MQ-9s, can you explain how you
are going to manage the challenges of making future upgrades to
that system based on the proprietary hold the OEM [original
equipment manufacturer] has on the technical data rights?
General Smith. Sir, I will start and then pass to Secretary
Stefany. It is obviously a General Atomics aircraft, and so it
does come with an open architecture concept that those upgrades
are available. In fact, upgrades, this is the Block 15--I am
sorry, 5 tac 20, 5 tac 2-0 [5-20]. Those upgrades will continue
due to that or based upon that open architecture structure that
that platform has so that it can keep pace with or outpace the
pacing threat.
And as we work back and forth with industry, I will defer
to Secretary Stefany in the time we have--I am sorry for that,
sir--on how we work with industry to make sure that we are
getting everything we need from the proprietary data
standpoint.
Mr. Courtney. Mr. Brown's time has expired, but again I am
sure we will try and, you know, close the loop on some of these
hanging questions.
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Anthony. Next up is Mr. Bergman.
Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one comment on
the campaign framework. It looks like a 21st century version of
the mid-1990s when the Pentagon PowerPoint Rangers became a
force in presentation management, where they developed a slide
where nobody could read it, but it was really cool. Just a
little guidance, okay.
So having said that, since someone had already mentioned
it, I felt it was important to, you know, I am a Marine. Just
keep it simple, keep it lots of pictures, and the point is, get
to the point, and I think we will be fine here. I know this is
a first effort so there is no badness there, just a little
observation. Do we still use the term ``SME,'' subject matter
expert? Is that still a term of art?
Mr. Stefany. Yes, sir. Yes.
Mr. Bergman. Okay. So, is it fair to say in 20th century
terms that the nuclear Navy is as good as it is because the SME
was a guy named Rickover? Okay. And when you think about in
creating the nuclear Navy, you had a person who led that effort
over, roughly, you know, 60 years, if you will, in uniform. Now
I am not suggesting that you need someone in uniform for 60
years, but we do need the ability as political appointees turn
over, as admirals and generals turn over, and even subject
matter experts, usually in the grade of O-4 or O-5, probably
turn over, that because we have a new program and if you wanted
to call the new program and because you had a Navy before the
nuclear Navy, it was just the nuclear Navy, the name of the new
program is Unmanned.
And I would suggest that the way we are going to be long-
term successful in the fight, in other words, fielding the
capabilities necessary, is to create some kind of a long-term
accountability for results within the Department of the Navy,
and probably, you are going to have to look at doing an
exception to the rule of, you know, Goldwater-Nichols and all
of these kind of things to actually create a carve-out, if you
will, for a career path for that individual who, or small, very
small group of individuals, who will shepherd unmanned into the
warfighting capability that we know we need it to be, because
once you get into the industrial base, there is going to be the
give and take and the pulling and tugging there.
So I guess my question is, that given what you see today
within the Department of the Navy in this particular case, has
there been any discussion about how you will create an entity
or a small group that will be here 10 years from now?
Admiral Kilby. I will start, sir. There is certainly, and
we haven't come up with the answer. The way this started is CNO
said, Hey, Kilby, I am uncomfortable with this. Go figure this
out. So we got together and looked at the state of the union,
for lack of a better word. I would tell you that we had a
decentralized approach. We adopted a centralized approach with
[inaudible] N99 [Unmanned Warfare Systems directorate] and DASN
Unmanned [Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Unmanned
Systems], and we abandoned that in 2017 and we were platform-
only.
I think we need another approach which is not to go one way
or the other, right full rudder or left full rudder, but to
have centralized management of this with decentralized
execution at the platform and the domain level from an air
perspective, a surface perspective, and an undersea
perspective, understanding there is going to be cross-
pollination across those domains. So I owe the CNO an answer,
General Smith, and the Commandant, on how we are going to
manage this with the secretariat. But your point is well taken,
sir.
Mr. Bergman. Well, the point is, you know, you know in
uniform you hold yourself and others under your command
accountable, you know, for results. You can delegate authority
but not responsibility. And I believe that again using the
Rickover example, he was responsible and truly that was what
made the nuclear Navy what it is today, so we have a chance
here to repeat history in a good way to find that medium
ground.
And I am over my time and I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Courtney. Well, thank you, Mr. Bergman. I again, think
that is a really interesting perspective and I am not sure if
Rickover, you know, would have been able to accomplish what he
did, you know, in the Navy we have today, but--and we should be
thinking about that as you said when we are dealing with some
new emerging technologies.
By the way, you are welcome to come up to Groton and see
the USS Rickover which is under construction and hopefully you
can join us maybe at the christening.
So I am going to, again I reserved at the outset, and again
I really want to congratulate all the members because I think
we really covered a lot of important topics, many of which I
had sort of on my dance card here.
But General Smith, I wanted to just sort of give you an
opportunity maybe go a little bit deeper where Mr. Gallagher
started where, you know, with all the, you know, really dynamic
change that General Berger is bringing with the future design
plan, and just sort of talk a little about, again, how the
unmanned sort of fits into that vision, because, you know,
obviously, Congress is sort of scrambling to catch up with him,
you know, in terms of, you know, decisions we are going to be
making.
General Smith. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad it
is not just me who is scrambling to keep up with him, so that
makes me feel a little better today. Sir, we exist as a naval
service. We are the fleet reinforce, so we exist to serve, and
to serve the fleets and the joint force commanders. So
everything that the Commandant has directed us to go after is a
way to get after distributed maritime operations and our
portion of that which is sea denial.
As Jim said, Admiral Kilby said, we are not--we are program
and platform agnostic; we are looking for capabilities. So what
we have done with a very few plays in the playbook that we have
to be able to do day or night, austere weather, worst possible
conditions under threat. So the systems that we are looking at,
and they literally are a handful, it is the ground-based anti-
ship missile on top of the Remote Operated Ground Unit
Expeditionary, the ROGUE vehicle. That is one. A long-range,
unmanned surface vessel which now we are going to prototype, we
wish to prototype five Metal Sharks that we will get after, and
that is about a 46, 45-foot boat that is a semiautonomous
vessel that has loitering munitions, that we did some testing
at a classified level that explained how that combined with the
Naval Strike Missile puts a very high-dollar, high-value enemy
platform at risk.
We have also begun to look at systems that--like the MQ-9A
Extended Range that provide that data passage from the most
forward deployed Marines as the stand-in force who are already
in that first island chain; they are literally there today. How
all those things fit together to deny certain sea spaces to an
adversary in order to enable fleet maneuver. So all those
systems that are all basic technology today that we are simply
integrating, those systems combine for that distributed
maritime operation. And again, it is about four very simple
plays that we can--it is long-range fires, it is command and
control, and it is operational maneuver.
If we have those things, we can enable that fleet maneuver
and we can do that under the most austere and worst conditions
possible that are dirty, muddy, and dangerous. We also enable
commanders. Those are tools. They don't replace Marines. They
enable Marines. And they enable that maneuver and enable that
commander to execute in a very aggressive fashion their
contribution to the joint force commander and the joint force
maritime component commander. I hope that in a fairly succinct
fashion----
Mr. Courtney. No, that was excellent. Thank you. And really
helpful to all of us.
Admiral, I again, one question. I just wanted to follow up.
You mentioned again the large unmanned undersea vehicle like
the Orca program, I guess, is, you know, the term it is called.
Can you again just sort of give us what is the state of play
there? It sounded like, you know, maybe we are, and, you know,
maybe for good reason, you know, as per some of our comments
here today that, you know, you want to make sure about some of
its capabilities before we go full steam ahead?
Admiral Kilby. Yes, sir. I will open up and ask Jay to, or
Secretary Stefany, to add his comments. But the complexity of
this mission should not be understated. The fact that we want
to have a large vehicle, undersea, deliver in a clandestine
manner, mines, sounds relatively simple. I have to avoid
fishing nets and seamounts and currents and all the things. I
have to be able to communicate with it.
I have to be able to sustain it. I have to maybe be able to
tell it to abort a mission, which means it has to come up to
surface and communicate or get communications from its current
depth. Those are all complexities that we have to work through
with the CONOPS of this vehicle. In its development though,
there have been delays with the contractor that we are working
through and we want to aggressively work with them to pursue to
get this vehicle down to Port Hueneme so we can start testing
it and understand its capabilities.
And those to me, the challenges will be all of those things
to see too the endurance, the delivery of the payload, the
ability to change mission, potentially, those are all things we
have to deliver to meet the need of the combatant commander.
Did I answer your question, sir?
Mr. Courtney. It did, thank you. I appreciate that. I mean,
so the program is still alive, I guess. I just want to make
sure----
Admiral Kilby. Yes, sir.
Mr. Courtney [continuing]. We are sure about that.
Admiral Kilby. Yes.
Mr. Courtney. But it is just again maybe the deployment of
it might be just a little bit----
Admiral Kilby. Absolutely, sir. And I think we are going to
get these first five vessels. And in the spirit of the
committee, we want to make sure we have got it right before we
go----
Mr. Courtney. Right.
Admiral Kilby [continuing]. Build something else. I think
it is scoped out, ideally. We have got to get through those
technical and operational challenges to deliver on the
capability we are trying to close on, sir.
Mr. Courtney. Great. Well, thank you. That is very helpful.
So, I guess we have completed the first round, and we have
time, a little bit of time maybe for a second round, if the
witnesses can stay with us a little bit longer. I am done. My
questions are definitely satisfied. Anyone else, Mr. Wittman?
Okay. And how about on our side, Mr. Brown, do you have any
other questions?
Mr. Brown. I do, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Courtney. All right, why don't you hold? The minority
is up next, and Mr. Gallagher will go first.
Mr. Brown. Excellent.
Mr. Courtney. And the floor is yours.
Mr. Gallagher. Great. So we, obviously, we reduced MQ-25 to
a tanker, but, I mean, given the ranges involved in countering
anti-access and area denial strategies, what is--I guess this
is for Admiral Kilby--what is the Navy's plan to accelerate the
development of a carrier-based, unmanned, combat strike vehicle
that could be launched from a carrier in order to bridge that
gap, and project power ashore? Shouldn't this be a higher
priority than it is right now?
Admiral Kilby. Yes, sir. That is a question we wrestle with
all the time in the Navy trying to make sure we are pacing the
adversary. We are worried about--I am concerned of chasing that
very high-complex mission before I do the foundational building
block approaches to integrating these vehicles in the air wing.
And that is why I suggested, and I am not an aviator by the way
so I want to make sure that I don't, I have that underneath my
responsibilities, the N9 [Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for
Warfare Systems].
But my view is we need to introduce those capabilities with
successive increasing levels of complexity to complement the
air wing that we have today, so we make it relevant to moving
it forward. So I think it will be things like electronic attack
which will be stimulated from another aircraft in this manned
and unmanned teaming.
So I would use maybe an unmanned vehicle to provide jamming
or some kind of other electronic attack means in conjunction
with a manned aircraft to complete a mission in that A2AD
[anti-access, area denial] environment you described. Perhaps I
can provide some surveillance and I can save deck space where I
don't have to have five E-2Ds on the carrier and I could
reorient the air wing to provide capability in the future.
So I think we will ultimately get to your goal because I
will exceed the ability of a manned aircraft of 12 hours to
deliver that mission and I am going to push on that window. So
we certainly have to get there. I don't want to sign up for
that before we have met some of these rudimentary things to
integrate capability in the air wing, and I think the MQ-25 is
our way to start that integration. I am sure I didn't
completely satisfy you in that answer.
Mr. Gallagher. Well, you know, I think the fundamental
problem as I see it is you have the--the manned aircraft don't
have the endurance necessary to do the long-range strike
mission and then, you know, when people point to the teaming
between MQ-25 and F-35, I mean, the MQ-25 cannot, it is not
optimized to fully refuel the F-35s at their operational range.
And even if it were, I think, based on the new capabilities
of the DF-21 anti-ship missile, the F-35 is still--it can't
bridge the distance imposed by the A2AD strategy. I just think
we have a lot of work to do on that and I just want it to be a
higher priority for the Navy.
Admiral Kilby. Yes, sir. Thank you. And I would just add
one other further complicating thing is, I have to increase the
range of my air-to-air missiles to be effective in that as
well, so that is a complement to that endurance aircraft
because they will work together. That aircraft, the closer it
gets to China the more it will be under that C4ISRT [command,
control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance,
reconnaissance, and targeting] network, C5ISRT [command,
control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence,
surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting] network, so we
will have to make sure we are thinking about that whole system,
that capability to include the weapon.
Mr. Gallagher. Another thing a confirmed Secretary of the
Navy could help us think through. So, dear President Biden, if
you are listening, please nominate a SECNAV.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. So I am told that
Ms. Luria is still on. The only other member I saw was Mr.
Brown, but I think--is Ms. Luria still with us?
Mrs. Luria. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I am still here.
Mr. Courtney. Okay. So, Mr. Brown, she was next up on the
list, so I apologize.
Mr. Brown. Absolutely. I understand.
Mr. Courtney. Okay. I would yield the floor to Ms. Luria.
Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you, and thank you for the
opportunity to ask additional questions. I think two things we
have covered today for the surface vessels that are really
important are both autonomy, but then also reliability,
reliability of the HM&E systems.
And I wonder, Admiral Kilby, if you could comment further,
because as we finished up the last rounds of questions, you
know, we talked about the fact that in a transit from San Diego
to Pearl Harbor there was intervention required for operating
the diesel engines. And kind of putting this in context of, you
know, the Navy and the Navy's reticence and sort of cultural
way of operating things has not really been to move to unmanned
or minimal manning and even previous attempts to have smart-
ship capability on manned ships has been very limited. You
know, how are you going to address these HM&E reliability
issues, you know, technology for diesel engines that can
operate autonomously for a very long period of time?
And then just touch on sort of the cultural issue with the
Navy, you know, my experience in the Navy as an engineering
officer of the watch was, you know, still having a clipboard
where logs were taken manually and if parameters were out of
spec they were circled in red and reported. And there is a long
way between that which is the standard operation for most Navy
diesel engines and a fully autonomous system, and it feels like
there is a long bridge to gap there.
Admiral Kilby. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that question and
I appreciate the difficulty here. First, I would just again,
the Sea Hunter vessel is a prototype and not designed with that
full autonomy in mind, though we certainly are yielding a lot
from that including the lessons you highlighted. The three
interventions, right, where I had to go reset a switch because
I hadn't created the electrical distribution system a way to
automatically shift to another source. So we have got to take
those lessons in mind and build it in.
But I still go back to this conversation I had with the
Strategic Capabilities Office, like keep it simple. Don't make
it as difficult as we can, and redundancy is probably a
capability in and of itself. So maybe I require a shaft to have
multiple engines on it so I can still operate and meet mission
if one of those engines fails or fails to switch over. I do
know we are working with the Strategic Capabilities Office
[SCO] and DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] on
how to get after these greater reliability things and I think
land-based testing is clearly a way to do that.
I want to highlight the SCO transit of the Ranger from the
gulf coast to San Diego. There was one interaction where we had
to go replace a belt on a water jet, so perhaps that is not the
best propulsion system. I don't know what is, but maybe that
isn't. If it continues to cause us problems, then we need to
look at something more reliable in those transit schemes. So, I
think we have got a lot to learn but we do have to prize
reliability to your point at a higher level. And the autonomy
piece, I think you are getting at the cultural piece, we want
to do it by ourselves. Are we looking at this autonomy
correctly? Are we unleashing all the potential that exists out
there? I think we have to be very introspective about that
moving forward, to not just do it the way we have always done
it and recreate that system that we are used to, and look at
the opportunity to leverage off of industry. So I think we have
got a lot to learn, ma'am, and your points are valid.
Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you. And, you know, I think that we
are all focusing on this as, you know, a potential way to
expand our capabilities against our, you know, most present
adversary and complicate that with any sort of future potential
conflict with China, and we want to be able to have a
distributed maritime operations concept so there is either full
autonomy, but there is the necessity of in that battle problem
communicating with this vessel for the use of any installed
weapons systems.
And so it is still a big concern for me in what we could
presume to ultimately be a GPS-denied environment and have the
limited ability to communicate with these vessels, how they
would have a utility in that scenario. So I wonder if you could
briefly comment on that in the time remaining.
Admiral Kilby. Yes, ma'am. Thanks. So, I would say there is
a definite relationship between this thing called Project
Overmatch and our Unmanned Campaign Plan. And Project Overmatch
means ideal--deliver the network that can support manned and
unmanned vessels in a robust, resilient manner in an area where
I may be denied communications.
So to your point, I have got to go from a point-to-point
mentality to a service mentality where I can use multiple
networks to provide data. Admiral Small is a direct report
program manager to Secretary Stefany and the CNO and the
Commandant, frankly, because the Marine Corps is involved in
Project Overmatch, to make sure that we are delivering this
incremental system to satisfy our needs. So, I know I am out of
time, but I would love to talk more about this connection
between Project Overmatch and our unmanned system because there
is a relationship there that has to happen to bring it to a
full fruition.
Mr. Courtney. Great.
Mrs. Luria. Okay. Well, thank you, Admiral Kilby and the
other witnesses, and I look forward to learning more about
that. Thank you.
Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, Ms. Luria.
And now, Mr. Brown who has been patiently waiting, the
floor is yours.
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this is a
follow-up on Representative Gallagher's question. Once the--and
this is for you, Admiral Kilby. Once the MQ-25 is fielded, do
you expect it to strictly serve as a refueling asset with
limited ISR capabilities, or do you see an opportunity to
incorporate strike as a future mission set?
Admiral Kilby. Great question, sir. I think there is
definitely opportunity to look at additional payloads in that
platform, but its initial instantiation is truly tanking and
ISR. What we have to do is do the examination. Does that
payload capacity meet the capability needs we have, or do we
have to pivot to another means?
So I just don't have enough confidence right now to testify
before you and say this is the plan and I think we are going to
achieve it. I am definitely interested in all the capability we
can pull out of that aircraft and we need to explore it to its
fullest extent.
Mr. Brown. Thank you. Secretary Stefany, returning back to
the MQ-4C, so it is my understanding that for fiscal year 2021,
which was last year, the Navy originally paused production of
the Triton in the President's budget submission. Now with the
added air vehicle in continuing production, do you have any
concerns with the level at which we are fielding, producing and
fielding, and what can you say in terms of the overall
requirement for the Triton throughout the fleet or in the
force?
Mr. Stefany. Yes, thank you for that question,
Representative Brown. Overall, we have 18 Tritons under
contract plus the 1 that was added, so there is 19. You have
heard we have early-fielded two of those so there are a number
still in the pipeline. And I think it was a relatively small
risk to take, well, for us to take a year off, but the one that
got added back in. And I think the production line will be fine
from what we have seen of the industrial base to pick back up
in 2022 or 2023, and we, obviously, that will be a future
budget decision that you will see shortly.
But I think that one year, taking 2021 and going down to
just one, there is still many in the production line being
built and I don't think we are going to have a major production
line impact, sir.
Mr. Brown. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to close by taking a little bit
of issue with Representative Gallagher. While I respect the
Navy, I have a fondness for the fleet, and certainly it has got
the lead in the Indo-Pacific, as a former Army officer, I would
like to suggest that the Army is the premier service globally
in every combatant command AOR.
But I love the Navy. Go Army. Go Navy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Courtney. You know, I knew when you joined Seapower it
was going to be interesting around here. So Mr. Gallagher has
left, but I am sure, you know, you will have plenty of
opportunities to remind him of your comments.
Mr. Wittman, the ranking member, has asked to follow up or
finish up with the final question of the day, so the floor is
yours, Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Vice Admiral Kilby, Lieutenant General Smith,
give me your perspective on how the law of armed conflict will
manifest itself in weaponized vehicles and what will the Navy
and Marine Corps do to help avoid autonomous killing machines?
I think there is a whole element of that. I think that, you
know, having those platforms with offensive capability is
incredibly important, but there is also another element to it
also that the question is going to be asked, so I just kind of
want to get your perspective on where that goes.
General Smith. Congressman, I will start and then pass it
to my shipmate Jim Kilby. What I would say very briefly, the
law of armed conflict is the law of armed conflict. When that
lethal munition is released, it is released under control of a
human. As we get to semiautonomous or autonomous systems that
human is in the loop. The question will be how far back is that
human in the loop.
But what is not envisioned is an offensive, lethal, fully
autonomous system. That fully autonomous system alerts the
human that is in fact an enemy target, if an enemy has been
declared hostile. That is a far cry from I have alerted it and
now I am going to fire on it offensively. Defensive mechanisms
in my assessment are different because they protect members of
a Marine unit or a crew. But the law of armed conflict does not
change, much like a--well, simplified--a Predator in previous
conflicts, there is a human in the loop that authorizes the
release of that lethality.
So I view no difference there, sir. It is a question of how
far back must the human in the loop be and the temporal change
between approval and execution of the target. And I will pass
to my shipmate, Jim Kilby, who will say that much better than
I.
Admiral Kilby. Sir, the only thing I would add to what
General Smith said is we have learned with the advent of things
like Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air that we can
connect our systems to create a whole that is greater than the
sum of its parts.
Mr. Wittman. Right.
Admiral Kilby. And I think we are going to continue on that
road. So how do we use these vehicles to add to that picture
with clarity and decision-making quality data to exactly what
General Smith said and that is really what we are about here
is, how do we connect that system in a different more resilient
manner.
So it could be that some of these unmanned vessels are
providing sensory data back as an update to a weapon that is
flying to another point. It could be that I am stimulating a
system to go do something. But I agree absolutely with what
General Smith said. There will be a man in the loop here and we
will respect the law of armed conflict.
Mr. Wittman. Sure. Yes, I think that is important just for
people to understand. That is the reason I asked the question,
just to make sure that people understand. Because many times
they have a concept that somehow autonomous vehicles out there
are going to be, you know, on their own, and with the dawn of
artificial intelligence you will program them, they will learn
and then all of a sudden--boom--they are out of control. So it
is great to understand that.
It is great to hear you talk too that these platforms
provide a tremendous amount of not only capability but capacity
in the battlespace, and specifically in that battlespace
providing options for folks that are there looking at, you
know, what is the threat. The more options you have the better
off you are in either countering that threat or sometimes even
dissuading folks from operating that threat. So I think that is
incredibly important.
But I wanted to make sure that, you know, we got out there
the distinction on that, so people understand how this is going
to be integrated and what an incredibly impactful tool it will
be for the Navy-Marine Corps team.
So again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you.
Mr. Courtney. Well, thank you, Mr. Wittman. And on that
note, this will bring the--well, first of all, though, I do
want to thank the witnesses for their outstanding testimony.
Again, I think it was a very good exchange and members,
obviously, the interest level was very high.
And, Mr. Stefany, as your maiden trip here, I mean, no one
would have known. Again, your answers were really, you know,
perfectly easy to follow and very informative, so
congratulations on your first, and hopefully we will see you
back here again in the future.
And again, to the other witnesses, I really appreciate your
input today. So with that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:39 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 18, 2021
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 18, 2021
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 18, 2021
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN
Mr. Wittman. Mr. Stefany, given the Navy and Marine Corps diverse
set of needs for large and extra-large UUVs, do you see additional
programs of record on the immediate horizon that adopt low cost
architectures to meet those specific needs other than Orca XLUUV or
Snakehead LDUUV?
Mr. Stefany. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
Mr. Wittman. Mr. Stefany, one of the advantages of unmanned systems
is that it provides the Navy the ability to deploy a large quantity of
distributed sensors in an affordable manner. With this in mind, what is
the Navy's approach to procuring low-cost, commercial large and extra-
large UUV to support that need?
Mr. Stefany. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
Mr. Wittman. Vice Admiral Kilby, given the Navy and Marine Corps
diverse set of needs for large and extra-large UUVs, do you see
additional programs of record on the immediate horizon that adopt low
cost architectures to meet those specific needs other than Orca XLUUV
or Snakehead LDUUV?
Admiral Kilby. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
Mr. Wittman. Vice Admiral Kilby, one of the advantages of unmanned
systems is that it provides the Navy the ability to deploy a large
quantity of distributed sensors in an affordable manner. With this in
mind, what is the Navy's approach to procuring low-cost, commercial
large and extra-large UUV to support that need?
Admiral Kilby. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. CARL
Mr. Carl. Mr. Stefany, the costs associated with the design,
construction, and testing of completely new vessels have regularly been
much higher than expected. At a time where the DOD's budget is already
spread thin, I think it is unwise to take on unnecessary costs. Rather
than developing a completely new platform, the Navy is in the process
of converting an EPF into an autonomous prototype. Can you elaborate on
whether or not the Navy is considering the use of an existing platform,
such as the EPF, as the base design for the LUSV?
Mr. Stefany. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
Mr. Carl. Vice Admiral Kilby, the costs associated with the design,
construction, and testing of completely new vessels have regularly been
much higher than expected. At a time where the DOD's budget is already
spread thin, I think it is unwise to take on unnecessary costs. Rather
than developing a completely new platform, the Navy is in the process
of converting an EPF into an autonomous prototype. Can you elaborate on
whether or not the Navy is considering the use of an existing platform,
such as the EPF, as the base design for the LUSV?
Admiral Kilby. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
[all]