Tag Archives: CIWS

Navy doubles down on CIWS

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Raytheon just picked up a decent-sized ($160 million) contract for modernizing its Phalanx Weapon System and assorted Mod 31 SeaRAM upgrade kits which ditch the 20mm gun and chutes for a 10-cell Rolling Airframe Launcher.

First fielded on the carrier USS Coral Sea in 1980, after trials and evaluation on the destroyers USS King and USS Bigelow in the 1970s, the platform is now pushing towards a half-century of service and the missiles it was designed to counter, Exocet and Styx/Silkworm, are long in the rearview.

The award:

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, was awarded a $159,900,991 firm-fixed-price contract for MK 15 Close-In Weapon System upgrades and conversions, system overhauls, MK 15 Mod 31 SeaRAM upgrade kits and conversions and associated hardware. Work will be performed in Louisville, Kentucky (27%); El Segundo, California (15%); Tucson, Arizona (14%); Williston, Vermont (6%); Tempe, Arizona (4%); Ottobrunn, Germany (3%); Mason, Ohio (3%); Andover, Massachusetts (2%); Joplin, Missouri (1%); Hauppauge, New York (1%); Miami, Florida (1%); Pomona, California (1%); Orchard Park, New York (1%); Radford, Virginia (1%); and various other locations each with less than 1% (20%), and is expected to be completed by October 2027. Fiscal 2024 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $60,894,492 (41%); fiscal 2024 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $59,997,163 (40%); fiscal 2024 capital working funds Naval Supply Systems spares (Navy) in the amount of $12,997,835 (9%); fiscal 2024 operations and maintenance Army funds in the amount of $6,582,846 (4%); fiscal 2023 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,588,145 (3%); fiscal 2022 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $3,461,511 (2%); and fiscal 2024 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $1,048,997 (1%), will be obligated at time of award, of which $83,936,684 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1), only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, D.C. is the contracting activity (N00024-24-C-5406). (Awarded July 30, 2024)

CIWS gets updated

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Defense contractor Raytheon is testing a modified version of their Phalanx Close-In Weapon System that will let soldiers and sailors fire at varying rates, using less ammunition.

Designed in the 1970s and with some 890 mounts currently in circulation the CIWS (“sea whiz”) couples an M61A1 20 mm Gatling gun capable of firing 4,500 rounds per minute with onboard target acquisition and fire control in one unit. While the system has been continually updated, it remains hamstrung by the fact that it only holds about 20 seconds worth of ammunition on the mount and reloading, as any Gunners Mate will tell you, is not done in a snap.

Raytheon, however, announced last week that an upgrade now underway can allow users to select different rates of fire while also increasing reliability and lowering maintenance. Also, due to the fact the upgrade replaces a pneumatic motor, compressor and storage tanks, it trims the mount’s weight by 180 pounds.

A Russian duet

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The Russians have always been a fan of rapid-fire naval guns going back to the days of Hotchkiss revolving cannons back in the Tsar’s Imperial Navy. In the mid 1970s the Soviets came up with the first operational CIWS system (predating the Dutch Goalkeeper and U.S. Phalanx) when they added a radar, FCS and other local controls to their AK-630 30mm gatling gun mount which had joined the fleet in 1963.

Now, the most recent update to this system is the AK630-M2 “Duet” which debuted in 2007.

ak630-m2-duet

With twin superposed 30 mm 6-barreled GSh-6-30 rotary cannon, this Tulamashzavod produced beast drops a theoretical 10,000 rounds per minute though its internal magazine only holds 4,000 rounds at the ready.

ak630-m2-duet-2
In comparison, the good ole Phalanx, with its single smaller 20 mm 6-barreled M61 Vulcan, only packs 1,550-rounds and can fire at slightly half that rate.

Here is a pretty good vid of the Duet in action (its Russian, but you don’t really need to speak it to get the gist).

Just when you thought the CIWS was Exocet-only

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Based on a 1973 design by GenDyn, the Phalanx Close-in weapon system (CIWS) commonly referred to by the GMGs that have to work with them as R2’s after the Star Wars droid that it resembles, has in the past forty years become the standard last-ditch defense against incoming enemy anti-ship missiles. Its 20mm Gatling gun, capable of a ripping off 75  20×102mm rounds per *second* has certainly proven to be effective in tests against drones. I’ve seen them in test shots first hand and they nearly make you shit your pants when they fire.

Luckily there hasn’t been a lot of real world tests of the system as the Brits didn’t have them in 1982 when the Argies kept firing Exocets from over the horizon, and the USS Stark had hers in a standby mode and the CIWS station unmanned when the Iraqis hit her with two of the same in 1987. There is much debate on whether Phalanx can hack the new series of hyper-sonic Russian missiles, which is why it is being augmented by the Evolved Sea Sparrow and RAM missiles.

Nevertheless, over the years, many ship drivers felt that the CIWS could do more than just looking good and being ready to shoot down sea-skimming Silkworm missiles. That led  to the Block 1B PSuM (Phalanx Surface Mode) update that has been arriving in the fleet over the past decade. The mod added a forward looking infrared (FLIR) sensor slaved to a automatic acquisition video tracker to allow the weapon to be used against surface targets.

Now the CIWS can track and smoke surface contacts ranging from floating mines to armed sampams to 17,000-ton fleet stores ships.

What?

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Oct. 27, 2010) Rounds from a Mk-15 Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (CIWS) from the guided-missile destroyer USS Mitscher (DDG 57) impact the ex-USNS Saturn during a sinking exercise. Mitscher and other ships assigned to the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group fired live ammunition at Saturn. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Leonard Adams/Released)

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Oct. 27, 2010) Rounds from a Mk-15 Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (CIWS) from the guided-missile destroyer USS Mitscher (DDG 57) impact the ex-USNS Saturn during a sinking exercise. Mitscher and other ships assigned to the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group fired live ammunition at Saturn. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Leonard Adams/Released)– Click to big up

In a queer twist of fate, the USNS Saturn, seen abve getting plastered by 20mm rounds, started life as the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Stromness of Her Majesty’s fleet. During the Falkland Islands War in 1982, she carried over 400 green berets of 45 Commando Royal Marines to the beach landing in San Carlos Water– then spent weeks dodging close-flying Argentine A-4 and Mirage attacks where a CIWS or three would have come in extremely useful.

dagger of san carlos

The new 1B Surface CIWS is supposed to be the standard throughout not only the Navy but the Coast Guard (on the new National Security Cutter and legacy 270-foot Bear class WMECs) by 2015