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Seabasing Overview Providing Science and Technology (S&T) support for Naval Power 21 through a series of Future Naval Capability (FNC) investments. In combat, frequent resupply every two or three days is a necessity. For example, a carrier battle group may use as much as 150 tons of ordnance and 30 tons of stores in one day when conducting surge operations. The emphasis in underway replenishment is on rapid transfer of material from the seabase or combat logistic ship to a combatant or carrier. Once that transfer occurs, however, the receiving ship too often is left with pallets or cargo nets of stores dumped on its decks. Moving the material below into storerooms where it can be properly identified and located may take days. Materiel is generally not available for use until this takes place. The strike-down and stowage process on board the ship remains a challenge. The primary targets for future Strike-Up/Strike-Down (SUSD) technology insertion are Carriers (CVN 21) and the Future Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF(F)) ships; and this technology will also support the LHA(R) as well as future seabase support ships and combatants. The shipboard internal cargo movement effort, commonly referred to as Strike-Up/Strike-Down (SUSD) will produce new techniques, technologies and systems to automate the transfer of cargo and weapons from the shipboard onload point to stowage spaces (strike-down), and from stowage to the offload point for transit to another ship or to the war fighter ashore (strike-up). This effort is investing in efficient shipboard cargo-handling technologies to produce systems capable of dramatic improvements in shipboard selective offload and cargo/weapons throughput. The primary technical challenge is to handle as much of the wide variety of naval packaging and weapons as possible.
The Office of Naval Research has engaged the National Shipbuilding Research Program (NSRP) to manage the SUSD technology development effort. NSRP is a collaboration of U.S. shipyards working with the Navy to reduce the cost of ship construction and repair by improving shipbuilding industry productivity through advanced technology and processes. The NSRP Program established an industry team consisting of members from the participating shipyards with expertise in ship design and internal shipboard cargo and weapons handling. Since being engaged, the industry team has conducted project design reviews, orchestrated a "stakeholder" workshop identifying the key technology gaps and challenges, produced a Technology Roadmap and placed on contract the Human Amplification Technology (HAT) and Automated Stowage and Retrieval System (ASRS) projects. Additional SUSD technology development efforts are under review for funding.
The Technology Roadmap mentioned above provides an integrated tool to manage and focus S&T funding and potential follow-on R&D funding for technology
and system development. The roadmap identifies and prioritizes technology gaps and proposes a consensus investment strategy to close the gaps. The industry
team, through the conduct of the workshop and development of the roadmap strategy, identified the pressing need for an end-to-end solution to meet
strike-up and strike-down challenges inherent in the Sea Base concept. This end-to-end solution is being pursued by tackling key technologies and then
integrating these technologies into the total system. The Human Amplification Technology project is one of the key technologies in this strategy. An Automated
Storage and Retrieval System is being pursued as another key technology in the end-to-end solution. Success in Strike-Up/Strike-Down requires follow-on R&D
funding and technology transition to bring the technology and systems to the fleet. The industry team is working with ONR and program offices to develop
transition agreements to make this a reality. |
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