Category: Defence

Source: United States Navy

 

 
Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti attended the ceremony and provided welcoming remarks by thanking Davids for his innovative leadership in ensuring Naval Special Warfare (NSW) provides access and capabilities to the warfighter.
 
“You provided options to our Nation’s decision makers every single day, keeping our most elite warriors–our naval commandos–at the forefront of the changing character of war, finding, testing, and using new technologies and innovating to ensure that we would be postured and ready to respond to any threat anytime and anywhere,” said Franchetti. “Keith, you will leave behind an incredible legacy through those that you have trained, mentored, and led, but you will also be known for your laser focus on prioritizing and reinvigorating the connection between the Fleet and Naval Special Warfare. This is a game changer for our Nation.”

Gen. Bryan P. Fenton, commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, was the presiding officer and guest speaker. In his remarks, Fenton praised Davids’ leadership. He highlighted his commitment to preparing NSW for increased challenges and risks. Fenton emphasized the importance of Davids’ transformative changes to ensure NSW’s relevance to the Joint Force and Fleet, its survivability, and lethality in defense of the Nation.

“During his watch, Davids ensured that the next generation of our naval commandos is prepared for the volatile, uncertain, and complex world at our doorstep. Our commandos continuously push the bounds of what is possible and achieve what others deem impossible,” said Fenton. “Across the globe, our naval commandos provide new options and opportunities for our joint force, creating a range of dilemmas for our adversaries should they choose the path of crisis or conflict.”

Davids assumed command of Naval Special Warfare Command in August 2022. During his tenure, he strengthened NSW’s integration with Fleet, Joint, and Coalition partners and ensured NSW’s ability to respond to global threats anytime, anywhere.

“As we speak, our teammates are conducting sensitive maritime missions in multiple theaters around the globe,” Davids said. “They are closing gaps in national intelligence, strengthening strategic partnerships, helping friends and allies build their resilience, and fielding new capabilities that make the naval commando force extremely valuable to both the Joint Force and the Navy. This force is invaluable in peacetime, in crisis, and, should deterrence fail, in conflict as well.”

The ceremony marks the end of a two-year command tour for Davids, who graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Assessment, Selection and Training with Class 177. He commanded at all operational and component levels of Special Operations, including service as commander, South Operations Command South. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Director for Joint Interagency Task Force South.
 
His operational tours include platoon commander tours at SEAL Team Two; element leader and squadron operations officer tours at Naval Special Warfare Development Group; executive officer of SEAL Team Seven; commanding officer of SEAL Team One, and commander of Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, Iraq.  He has made numerous operational deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Pacific, and Europe.

“Life’s greatest gift is doing hard work that is worth doing with people you love,” Davids said to his friends, family, and staff. “The Navy and the Special Operations communities have allowed me to enjoy that for over three decades. To cap it off, serving with all of you has been the biggest honor of my life.”

Davids welcomed Sands and his family and spoke to the journey that lies ahead under his leadership. 

“Today marks the dawn of a new chapter,” said Davids. “NSW’s future is extremely bright with Rear. Adm. Milton “Jamie” Sands at the helm. I have no doubt you will continue to thrive under his strategic vision and leadership.”

Sands, a native of Farmington, Connecticut and 1992 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, most recently served as chief of staff, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.

With an eye to the future and his priorities, Sands expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the Naval Special Warfare Command staff for ensuring a seamless transition. He also extended thanks to his family for their unwavering support and commended Davids for his visionary leadership and for leaving behind a strong, professional force.
“We will remain focused on producing and deploying the world’s finest, most creative, and most lethal maritime special operations force. While we don’t get to choose the threats we face, we do get to choose our priorities, our approaches, and our evolution as a force,” Sands said. “Our actions will be enabled by the NSW foundation of character, grit, professionalism, and competence. Throughout it all, our number one priority will remain our most valuable and important asset: our people.”

Over 10,000 strong, NSW includes approximately 3,000 Sea, Air, Land operators; 700 Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen; 4,600 combat support and combat service support personnel, 700 reservists and 1,200 civilian teammates.

NSW is the nation’s premiere maritime special operations force and is uniquely positioned to extend the fleet’s reach and deliver all-domain options for naval and joint force commanders.

For more news from Naval Special Warfare, visit www.nsw.navy.mil.

 
 
 

Source: United States Navy

Colorado Springs Navy Week brings Sailors from across the fleet to the area to emphasize the importance of the Navy to Colorado Springs, the state of Colorado, and the nation.

More than 50 Sailors will participate in education and community outreach events throughout the city.

Participating Navy organizations include Navy Band Southwest, USS Constitution, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, Navy Talent Acquisition Group Rocky Mountain, Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Three, Navy History and Heritage Command, nuclear-power Virginia-class guided-missile submarine USS Colorado (SSN 788), and the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS Mesa Verde (LPD 19).

The Navy’s senior executive is Vice Adm. John Fuller, Naval Inspector General. Fuller received his commission from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1987. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the Naval Academy, a Master of Science in Management from the Naval Post Graduate School and a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies from the College of Naval Command and Staff at the Naval War College. He is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI Fellow. During Colorado Springs Navy Week, he will be participating in community engagements, meeting with local organizations, higher education, local business, civic, and government leaders.

Navy Weeks are a series of outreach events coordinated by the Navy Office of Community Outreach designed to give Americans an opportunity to learn about the Navy, its people, and its importance to national security and prosperity. Since 2005, the Navy Week program has served as the Navy’s flagship outreach effort into areas of the country without a significant Navy presence, providing the public a firsthand look at why the Navy matters to cities like Colorado Springs.

“Sailors are the reason America’s Navy is the most powerful in the world,” said NAVCO’s director, Cmdr. Julie Holland. “We are thrilled to bring your Navy Warfighters to (Colorado Springs).  At Navy Weeks, Americans will connect with Sailors who have strong character, competence, and dedication to the mission, and who continue a nearly 250-year tradition of decisive power from seabed to cyberspace.”

Throughout the week, Sailors are participating in various community events across the area, including engaging with students across multiple high schools and at the Pikes Peak Boys & Girls Club, volunteering through Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado, and publicly visible at the Space Discovery Center, and US Olympic and Paralympic Museum. Residents will also enjoy free live music by Navy Band Southwest at venues throughout the week.

Colorado Springs Navy Week is one of 15 Navy Weeks in 2024, which brings a variety of assets, equipment, and personnel to a single city for a weeklong series of engagements designed to bring America’s Navy closer to the people it protects. Each year, the program reaches more than 130 million people — about half the U.S. population.

Media organizations wishing to cover Colorado Springs Navy Week events should contact Ensign Lamar Badger at (901) 229-5709 or erick.l.badger.mil@us.navy.mil  

Source: United States Navy

Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE) recently achieved a significant production milestone by eliminating high-priority backorders for auxiliary power units (APU) used in the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, bolstering the platform’s mission readiness.

Challenges related to the availability of parts and materials used in the APU threatened to keep a number of the Navy’s Super Hornets on the ground and led to a number of high-priority backorders known as Issue Priority Group 1 (IPG-1).

Scott Barry, the co-lead for the F/A-18 and EA-18G Program Office’s (PMA-265) Propulsion and Power Integrated Project Team, credited FRCE with working quickly to increase production throughput of the APUs, cutting down on backorders.

“By looking at innovative ways on expediting part deliveries, reviewing current inspection methods by engineers and increasing efficiencies in processes, FRCE eliminated IPG-1s within a staggering 12-month time frame,” said Barry. “This ensured that the Super Hornet is ready to fight tonight and enabled the Fleet to perform their mission.”

PMA-265 is responsible for acquiring, delivering and sustaining the F/A-18 and EA-18G aircraft, ensuring mission success for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators, as well as international partners. The Super Hornet is designed to meet current Navy fighter mission requirements, maintain Fleet air defense and close air support, and increase mission range.

Working closely with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP), FRCE exceeded PMA-265’s production expectations, building more APUs than requested and providing assets to fill critical requirements.

“The Super Hornets are the backbone of the U.S. Navy’s carrier air wing,” said FRCE Commanding Officer Capt. James Belmont. “Ensuring they are mission ready is a top priority. Everyone involved was committed to providing the warfighters with the APUs they needed. Working together with our partners like this, there’s no challenge we can’t overcome.”

An APU is a gas turbine engine that serves as an independent power source for the aircraft. Although separate from the main engines, it is a key component that provides supplementary power while the aircraft is on the ground and during some phases of flight.

To ensure the availability of APUs for the Super Hornet, an integrated product team of experts from FRCE, PMA-265, DLA and NAVSUP was formed.

“This was a very tight team,” said FRCE Components Division Director Lenny Domitrovits. “Everything was being expedited. We were facing the challenge of increasing depot repair throughput despite supply constraints, and we needed to do this as quickly as possible. It was a massive effort.”

One major part of this effort involved ensuring an adequate supply of the parts needed to repair and overhaul an APU. According to Sean Doss, a component planner in FRCE’s Centralized Coordination Department, there are more than 540 parts listed on the Super Hornet APU’s bill of materials.

“A bill of material is basically a listing of all the parts necessary to make a component whole after rework,” said Doss. “We have every part listed so we know exactly how many parts it’s going to take to rework a component. You might not need every part, but every part needs to be listed on the bill. This way we know exactly what is needed if we had to replace every single part.”

Domitrovits credited DLA with providing FRCE’s artisans with the parts necessary to rework the APUs despite limited time constraints.

“DLA really came through,” Domitrovits said. “It was a herculean effort on their part.”

Barry also cited the close collaboration between FRCE and DLA as playing a crucial role in putting overhauled APUs in stock and keeping the Super Hornet flying.

“FRCE and DLA teamed together to identify and aggressively attack supply constraints,” said Barry. “They got ahead of this in a high pressure environment, and ultimately, tripled the depot repair throughput.”

In addition to obtaining the necessary parts and materials, the integrated product team also worked to develop and enhance procedures and processes for inducting, reworking and sending out APUs. Engineers, logisticians, and artisans tackled problems ranging from the creation of new tooling and fixtures needed to work on the units to enhancing the efficiency of testing completed components.

“There were a lot of lessons learned and one good one we pulled away from this is empowering each person to come forth with ideas of how to increase efficiency and production in a time of constrained resources,” said Domitrovits.  “Pretty much every area came up with something innovative.”

According to Doss, team members from a variety of disciplines worked together closely and looked beyond their assigned roles to examine the APU repair and overhaul process as a whole.

“There’s that old saying about staying in your swim lane,” said Doss. “We didn’t stay in our swim lanes. We’re all helping one another to get things done faster, to get these APUs out to the Fleet. If the warfighter needs one now, we would like to be able to push one out now while maintaining the highest quality.

“One thing we continue to concentrate on for this particular product is turnaround time reduction,” Doss continued. “It’s a never ending process – always continually improving.”

Artisans working in FRCE’s Engine Driven Compressor and Gas Turbine Shop were tasked with building units for the Super Hornet. To support the needs of the Fleet, the artisans had to drastically increase the number of APUs they built each month.

According to Justin Rimmer, shop supervisor, this involved more than simply building more units. Increasing output meant enhancing work processes as well as utilizing new tools and training new personnel.

“We have some really good artisans who’ve been doing this for a long time and they just hit this out of the park,” said Rimmer. “With so many people building at one time, we had new fixtures and new tooling made to handle the number of units we were producing. We also requested some new employees to build up our staff. Each month we met our numbers and, in many cases, exceeded them.”

Rimmer said his team was able to accomplish this despite the Super Hornet APU workload being just one facet of the shop’s responsibilities.

“We have a schedule we have to meet across the board, not just for that one APU,” said Rimmer. “We also build units for the H-60 Black Hawk helicopter and the legacy Hornet. We just got workload back for the P-3, which has been in sun down for six years. We’re also working to stand up capability on the new F-35 turbomachine.

“The artisans in this shop didn’t skip a beat even while standing up these capabilities at the same time as getting this workload out,” Rimmer continued.  “We know where these APUs are going and we want the warfighter to have not only the units they need, but the best units we can send them.”

Domitrovits said this desire to support the warfighter was a driving factor for the entire integrated product team.

“When all the IPG-1s were resolved so far ahead of schedule, it demonstrated how the product team came together and everything came to fruition,” said Domitrovits. “We were able to do things that nobody thought were possible. We had to – this has a direct result on mission readiness. These APUs are going to the Fleet and enabling the warfighter to do their job. That’s what we are here to do.”

FRCE is North Carolina’s largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider, with more than 4,000 civilian, military and contract workers. Its annual revenue exceeds $1 billion. The depot provides service to the fleet while functioning as an integral part of the greater U.S. Navy; Naval Air Systems Command; and Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers.

Learn more at www.navair.navy.mil/frce or https://www.facebook.com/FleetReadinessCenterEast.

Source: United States Navy

The underway will honor Active Duty and Veteran Purple Heart Recipients for their service to our country. There will be a 21-gun salute, which can be viewed from Fort Independence on Castle Island at approximately 11:30 a.m.

USS Constitution will fire an additional 17-gun salute as she passes the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Boston, the former site of Edmund Hartt’s Shipyard, where USS Constitution was built and launched on Oct. 21, 1797.

USS Constitution’s cruise will be viewable from the Boston Harborwalk, Castle Island, and Charlestown Navy Yard.

USS Constitution is the world’s oldest commissioned warship afloat and America’s Ship of State.

She played a crucial role in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812, actively defending sea lanes from 1797 to 1855.

The active-duty Sailors stationed aboard USS Constitution provide free tours and offer public visitation as they support the ship’s mission of promoting the Navy’s history and maritime heritage and raising awareness of the importance of a sustained naval presence.

USS Constitution was undefeated in 33 at sea engagements with opponents. The ship earned the nickname of Old Ironsides during the War of 1812 when British cannonballs were seen bouncing off the ship’s wooden hull.

Source: United States Navy

During this period, the ship’s public visitation hours will be adjusted to 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM to support this maintenance work.

The safety of our visitors and crew is our top priority. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation during this time.

Visitors are also encouraged to explore additional artifacts from ‘Old Ironsides’ and enjoy the numerous interactive galleries at the USS Constitution Museum, conveniently located in the Charlestown Navy Yard.

USS Constitution is the world’s oldest commissioned warship afloat and America’s Ship of State.