By Carlo Munoz
The Navy is looking to field a fleet of manned and unmanned aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, outfitted with multi-intelligence sensor suites, to replace the service’s aging EP-3 aircraft, a senior service official said this week.
This “family of systems approach” for fielding a EP-3 replacement will center around the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aircraft, as well as the Medium-Range UAS, which is still under development by the sea service, Vice Adm. David Dorsett, deputy chief of naval operations for information dominance and director of naval intelligence, said during a Jan. 5 Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington.
Both systems, Dorsett added, will be equipped with the necessary signals intelligence sensor payloads, as well as other multi-INT technologies, to perform the EP-3’s current mission. He did not go into detail regarding what other types of sensors, outside SIGINT capabilities, could be added onto those aircraft.
To support those unmanned systems, Dorsett suggested that the Navy’s surface fleet could also play a role in the service’s EP-3 replacement plan. “We have a significant SIGINT capability on surface ships, so that is a part of that family of systems that we cannot ignore,” he said.
With the mixed platform strategy to replace the EP-3 now in motion, Dorsett dismissed any notion that the Navy would procure variants of the Air Force’s RC-135 Rivet Joint ISR aircraft, to fill the gap left by the retiring EP-3s.
“Our view is if we are doing binary solutions, replacing one old weapons system…with another system that is just a follow-on…is a sub-optimal approach,” Dorsett said regarding a potential Navy-Air Force solution.
However, the Navy intel chief hinted at the fact that service officials could modify the ISR applications on some of its P-8 aircraft, which are currently tasked with anti- submarine warfare missions, and fold them into the family of systems strategy.
“One of the principles of information dominance is that every platform needs to be a sensor, and sensor needs to be networked,” Dorsett added.
But even though Navy leaders “are not precluding the P-8 from having some kind of multi-INT payload” for use outside ASW operations, the addition of a SIGINT capability on board a P-8 would mean little, if the aircraft’s anti-sub mission was diminished or compromised.
The Navy had been eyeing potential replacement options for the EP-3 since 2009, beginning with an analysis of alternatives issued that year. However the White House nixed the entire effort, known as EP-X, in its fiscal year 2011 defense budget proposal.