Guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) transits the Pacific Ocean while underway in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Devin M. Langer)
SNA 2024 — The US Navy has picked the first four Flight IIA destroyers to be outfitted with a package of upgrades to their sensors, radars, combat system and cooling systems before moving on to the rest of the fleet, a senior official said today.
Capt. Tim Moore told attendees here at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium that his office, dubbed DDG-51 Mod 2.0, was established last September by the Navy’s civilian leadership and charged with overseeing the modernization efforts.
DDG-51 Mod 2.0 includes four key upgrades for each Flight IIA destroyer: a new baseline of the Aegis Combat System, the Navy’s predominant electronic warfare system known commonly as SLQ-32 or SEWIP, the SPY-6(V)4 air and missile defense radar as well as high efficiency chiller units meant to accommodate the newer versions of SEWIP and SPY-6.
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Moore said the service’s plan is to go through a “crawl phase” by installing all the upgrades, except for SPY-6, onto four chosen ships: Pinckney (DDG-91), James E. Williams (DDG-95), Chung Hoon (DDG-93) and USS Halsey (DDG-97). Following that modernization, each ship will return to sea for a period of time to test out the backfitted capabilities before returning to port to receive the new SPY-6 radar.
Once the first four ships receive their upgrades, and if the sea trials go to plan, the service will begin outfitting other Flight IIA destroyers with all four upgrades in single maintenance availabilities, Moore said.
Pinckey (DDG-91) has already begun this process and was spotted several months ago in San Diego by avid Navy ship watchers who took note of the sizable sponson where the new SEWIP had been installed.
Moore said the service was still working through the exact timeline of how long it would take to outfit the initial four ships with all four upgrades. “I don’t want to publish that here because we’re trying to bring that to the left as best we can,” he said.
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Asked about the rate at which the Navy will upgrade destroyers beyond the initial four, Moore also did not give a specific number or time period except to say it would be “multiple ships per year” simultaneously on both coasts.
