So Sal, if the Balloon Goes Up - What Keeps You Up at Night?

As a side-bar on yesterday's Midrats, I mentioned one of the areas that I believe is being almost criminally left behind in the whole "distributed lethality" and "warfighting first" talking points - the Lightweight Torpedo.

As is the lesson in all wars of the last century and even recently with the Swedes playing with Russians - if you only have one tool on the terminal end of your anti-submarine warfare kit, you are set up to fail.

In a combination of arrogance and complacency, we have been drifting for decades with only one way for a non-submarine to kill a submarine, the lightweight torpedo.

I need to stop right there. Those who know, know exactly what I am taking about when it come to this issue from both a quality, quantity, and ... well ... enough said.

With that out on the table, if these following paragraphs don't make you pray for peace, I don't know what will.

In 2013, the Navy ordered the MK-54 MOD 0 array and transmitters. The MK-54’s sonar array and transmitters hadn’t been produced since the Navy completed MK-50 production in the mid-1990s, as the MK-54’s common parts were just taken from older MK-50 stocks. The new MOD 0s are substantially the same design, but obsolete parts and material have been switched for modern electronics. A new receiver is also part of Northrop Grumman’s contract, and the technology refresh and proof of design testing were accomplished by Advanced Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University (ARL PSU).

The MK 54 MOD 1 LWT kit is an upgrade that adds a new sonar array assembly, and improved processing capability. The full kit includes a 112-element array, transmitter, receiver, Processor Group Assembly (PGA), Modular Recording and Exercise Control System Second generation (MRECS2), and associated cables. It’s still a developmental product, under a SBIR Phase III framework. Progeny Systems Corporation, of Manassas, VA owns the intellectual property rights, so they’ve been the sole-source for all contracts.

In the name of all that his holy.

If you want my revised and extended remarks, reactivate my clearance and let's go behind the cipher door. Until then, until this is fixed, pray for peace.


Hat tip Lee.