PORT HUENEME, Calif. –
Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) is leading an effort to quickly get help to stricken Navy ships.
While NSWC PHD’s plans began prior to 2017 collisions involving Navy ships, the tragic incidents served to accelerate the effort.
NSWC PHD’s Fleet Readiness team is responding with a Mobile Emergent Ship Repair kit, which consists of a Mobile Command Center and Mobile Workshop. These two containers, which look like small shipping containers or Conex boxes, along with the engineers and technicians to operate them, can be deployed to locations that don’t have the ability to provide emergent ship repair, noted Rick Heinly, Fleet Readiness Logistics Lead.
“These containers, the only set currently being tested in the Navy, are designed to provide rapid assessment of damage and rapid repair,” Heinly said. “We are still in the proof-of-concept state, but we’re closer to where we need to be.”
The system was used during the 2018 Valiant Shield exercise and the concept worked well, said Lt. Cmdr. Darrin Davis, AEGIS Special Project Manager.
“The plan is to deploy the containers on a Military Sealift Command vessel, which will then become a tender for the damaged ship,” Davis said. “Surface combatant ships don’t have tenders like submarines do, so the idea is to place these assets on a vessel to provide interim support capability. Instead of waiting and towing the ship to a repair facility, this will bring the repair to the ship.”
The containers will be placed as close to an area of conflict as possible to allow for quick deployment.
System testing will be conducted later this year in Souda Bay, Greece.