WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- The Navy's "Sea Power 21" concept, aimed at transforming the service from a deep-water force to a more multifunctional entity, needs advanced technology instead of incremental gains, senior officers and officials said Wednesday at a conference.
The science and technology on display at the Naval-Industry Research and Development Conference is the sort of work this century's Navy needs, said Adm. Vernon Clark, chief of naval operations. The service must focus on procuring advanced sensors, weapons platforms and integrated systems to counter the unconventional terrorist threat, he said. Using the United State's superior communications, satellite, and computer technology will be a key part of the plan.
"We have to develop and deploy technologies to exploit our own asymmetric capabilities in information dominance," Clark told the conference.
Clark outlined the recently finalized Sea Power 21 plan, centered on three operational concepts:
-- Sea Shield, where naval forces protect not just themselves, but provide a defensive blanket well inland to cover friendly forces or contribute to homeland defense;
-- Sea Strike, a combination of networked information and precision-guided weapons to deliver maximum impact with minimal effort, and;
-- Sea Base, using fast, highly mobile ships in concert with prepositioned cargo ships to replace port facilities overseas.
Each of these areas will need high-tech components, Clark said. Both Sea Shield and Sea Strike could benefit from ship-launched, unmanned aircraft able to loiter over an area of interest for extended periods, as well as directed-energy weapons such as lasers. Along with new ship designs, Sea Base would also need detailed systems for tracking supplies and their use, Clark said.
Different branches of the Navy also outlined their technological wish list Wednesday. The Marine Corps, looking to replace its current M1A1 tanks and light armored vehicles within about 10 years, has a particularly detailed list, said James Johnson, assistant commander of the Corps' Systems Command Technology Transition Office.
The Marine Extended Family of Fighting Vehicles could mount weapons ranging from lasers to rail guns, where magnetic fields "shoot" bullets far faster than current weapons. Incorporating color-changing materials in the vehicles' advanced armor would enhance survivability, Johnson said. The EFFV energy source, which must match the power of an M1A1's gas turbine, could range from fuel cells to the unlikely but attractive possibility of portable fusion reactors, he said.
Rear Adm. John Butler, deputy commander for undersea technology at Naval Sea Systems Command, was intentionally less specific in explaining some of his needs to the conference.
"I will not say I need a better sonar for detecting enemy submarines," Butler said. "I will say to you, 'I need a better way to detect submarines.' You tell me the technology I need, and I'll go work it into the submarine force; you might tell me sonar is not the answer, and I'm ready to listen."
Butler's needs also venture into near-fantasy; a "flying sub," along the lines of the one depicted in the 1960s sci-fi series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," could give the Navy both an unmanned underwater vehicle and an unmanned airplane, he said. But they'll settle for a UAV that can be launched from a ballistic missile tube, he said.
Since submarines are very vulnerable on the surface Butler is also looking for ways to take a variety of weapons and make them quasi-independent so they can be sent out from a submarine while underwater but will actually only fire once they reach the surface and are ordered to so do so.
"We're looking to encapsulate anybody's weaponry, send it to the surface and ... launch on command, so that weapon isn't tied to the submarine," Butler said.
The surface Navy's ongoing tech requirements can be rather prosaic, said Rear Adm. Dennis Dwyer, director of Strategic Systems Programs. The list includes things as simple as a non-slip coating -- intended for aircraft carrier flight decks -- that won't break up and possibly be sucked into and aircraft's engines. Ships also need corrosion resistant storage tanks, Dwyer said; fixing current tanks cost the service more than $200 million last year.
