An Update on Lockheed Martin’s Integrated Warfare Systems & Sensors Line of Business: An Interview with Paul Lemmo at Euronaval 2024

During my visit to Euronaval in Paris which ran from Nov. 4 to 7 2024, I had a chance to meet and talk with Paul Lemmo.

When I last interviewed him, we met at his office at the Sikorsky plant in Stratford, Connecticut on 9 May 2023.

Now he has returned and is running Lockheed’s Integrated Warfare Systems & Sensors Line of Business.

We had first met many years ago when he was working on the Aegis combat system.

Earlier this year at the Sir Richard Williams Seminar, a speaker from Lockheed Martin in Australia spoke about the Aegis system and several members of the audience were focused on the legacy system rather than understanding how far Aegis has gone from being a system on destroyers to defend carriers to what it is today.

So it made sense to start the conversation there.

He noted: “Aegis continues to grow. We have focused on opening the system up and modernizing the software code base. We are working with the U.S. Navy essentially to be able to interface any radar, any missile, and not have it take years to connect applications.

“We’ve also offered Aegis to countries where they want to have their own indigenous combat system. For example, in Canada we’re integrating with something called CMS 330 which is a combat management system that’s on all of their maritime platforms in Canada today, the Halifax class, the joint support ship, the Arctic offshore patrol ship, and now on the river class destroyer. We’ll be integrating the Aegis fire control loop with the CMS 330.”

Another example of integrating the AEGIS fire control loop with another combat management system is the Spanish case.

As one article noted: Aegis is also being integrated with other non-US CMS. In May 2023, Lockheed Martin formed a common operational picture between its new International Aegis Fire Control Loop (IAFCL) and the SCOMBA CMS from Spanish shipbuilder Navantia.

This new capability will be introduced into the Spanish Navy’s five new Bonifaz-class (F 110) frigates to support its ASW and AAW capabilities by using Aegis track data.

In a demonstration at Lockheed Martin’s Aegis-SCOMBA Integration Center in Moorestown, New Jersey, the IAFCL was able to send simulated SPY-7 radar data to SCOMBA and receive the associated SCOMBA host track in return, as well as receive non-IAFCL tracks from the SCOMBA system. The IAFCL code is built from the Aegis Common Source Library (CSL) allowing for it to be integrated into other nation’s CMS.

According to a press release from Navantia: “This will lead to the first F-110 IAFCL computer program export, delivery, and installation at Navantia’s Land-Based Test Site in San Fernando, Spain in 2024.”

The company explained: “This initial IAFCL and SCOMBA integration was the critical first building block to reach Combat System Light Off for the first ship of class, F-111, in 2027. The F-110 computer program integration and test will continue after land-based test site integration with the first Solid State SPY-7(V)2 Radar Engineering Development Model being installed at the Aegis-SCOMBA Integration Center in 2024.”

He then discussed the wide range of international work whereby the Aegis combat system is being used to integrate non-Lockheed radars which is a major change in the role of Aegis, but also allows significant integration of navies working across international fleets. For example, with regard to the Australian Hunter class frigate, an Australian CEA radar will be integrated with the Aegis combat system.

He then discussed the radar side of the business. He started by discussing work with the U.S. Army. He mentioned the upgrade program for the TPQ-53 radar which originally was a counter-targeting radar but now has been transformed into a multi-mission radar. He then mentioned the Sentinel A4 program which is an evolving program to deal with a wider variety of threats, including cruise missiles, unmanned aerial systems, rotary wing and fixed wing threats.

Lemmo then highlighted their work with the USAF which included a hard-fought win to replace the TPS-75 radar with the AN/TPY-4(V)1. The new radar is a multi-mission, ground-based radar for air defense surveillance that can operate in contested electromagnetic environments and provides the warfighter an ability to detect and track current and emerging threats. And Norway, the first international customer, has signed up for the program.

The focus is upon multi-mission capabilities as multi-domain warfare becomes an ever-increasing reality. The challenge of course is to upgrade the code rapidly to deal with rapidly changing threats in the electro-magnetic spectrum. At the most recent Sir Richard Williams Seminar, Chief of Joint Capabilities, LTGEN Susan Coyle, argued that the electro-magnetic spectrum had become the high ground of conflict. It is clear that Lemmo’s group is focused on providing capabilities to deal with the high ground of conflict.

Lemmo then moved to a discussion of their work with the Missile Defense Agency. This encompasses the unique radar based in Alaska.

The Long-Range Discrimination Radar or LRDR was described in a 2021 U.S. government press release as follows:

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) held a ceremony at Clear Space Force Station, Alaska, declaring the initial fielding of the Long-Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR), December 6, 2021.

The ceremony marked the completion of military construction as they finished installing radar arrays on the LRDR and transitioned to radar testing, training, and operations.

“MDA will integrate the radar into the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system and the Command and Control Battle Management and communications system in preparation for formal operational acceptance by the U.S. Air Force in 2023,” said MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill.

Once fully operational, the LRDR will provide unparalleled ability to simultaneously search and track multiple small objects, including all classes of ballistic missiles, at very long ranges, under continuous operation.

“Today marks an extremely important milestone for U.S. homeland defense,” said Hill.

The LRDR supports space domain awareness by monitoring satellites orbiting the earth, detecting, tracking, and identifying active or inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, and fragmentation debris contributing toward overall, all-domain awareness.

“Alaska is the most strategic place in the world. Our location allows us a field of view we believe we need, especially against BMD,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. David Krumm, commander, Alaskan NORAD Region, Alaskan Command and 11th Air Force.

The LRDR, along with other sensors, further enhances the warfighter’s ability for early detection and identification of potential long-range threats to the homeland.

For both the space force and MDA, this radar is a major capability critical to their way ahead and the coming to power of a new Administration the mission which it plays will be highlighted.

A second program for MDA is a radar system which is part of the defense of Guam, an island of increasing importance for anchoring the U.S. and allied Pacific defense system. The radar in question is the AN/TPY-6 radar. Lemmo indicated that the radar is already on the island.

As the U.S. Navy shifts to a greater focus on a maritime kill web, the ability of land based radars to work with a mesh network of systems delivering dominance in the electro-magnetic spectrum is of growing importance.

We then turned to one of what I believe is a major success in U.S. and allied interoperability or better interchangeability which is the Mark 41 launcher.

As Lockheed has described this piece of kit:

With more than 4,300 successful missile firings, the MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) is a combat proven launcher that eliminates problems associated with conventional and single purpose launchers on surface ships. Installed below deck, MK 41 VLS significantly enhances performance in operational availability, survivability and versatility with minimal staffing and training requirements. MK 41 VLS has been deployed by 13 navies on more than 26 ship classes on more than 180 ships. It is truly the worldwide launcher of choice.

I personally think this base line launcher will grow in importance as payload innovation accelerates in the years ahead, with new missiles being designed to be launched from this system and supply ships launching autonomous systems wishing to have defensive aides with installing some MK 41 launchers will be a cost effective way do so and be able to launch missiles produced across a growing allied arsenal of democracy.

And now Lockheed has built an expeditionary version for the U.S. Army.

This is how Lockheed describes this variant of the launcher:

The MK 70 Payload Delivery System (PDS) uses combat proven MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) technology to provide mid-range precision fires capabilities. The MK 70 enables rapid deployment of offensive capability to non-traditional platforms and locations.

The MK 70 brings a containerized combat launcher housed within a 40’ container equipped with four VLS strike-length missile cells. The launcher adapts the MK 41 VLS currently used by the US Navy on Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers into a rapidly deployable and relocatable ground system.

With more than $500 million invested into the MK 41 system over its lifetime, nearly 13,000 VLS cells have been integrated by 15 international navies. By retaining key electronics developed over the MK 41’s 40 years of development and certification, MK 70 maintains proven VLS capability.

Optimized structural design, materials, and components allow for low production and life-cycle costs, and optimized geometries reduce pressure for enhanced gas management.

Lockheed Martin unique gas management technologies enable increased weapon firings before the need for launcher refurbishment.

This containerized platform allows for scalability in four-cell increments. Dynamic missile and combat system alignment allows for a rapidly relocatable platform, increasing survivability while intensifying adversary uncertainty.

The Mk70 launcher can use all of the missile types as does the Mk41 launcher which allows for significant multi-domain operations.

In my view, in the shift to multi-mission warfare through generating a diverse modularized kill web, this piece of kit can allow for significant allied and U.S. strike innovations, as it is not simply a launch kit into which one will put U.S. systems. But like Kongsberg leveraging the launch of the F-35 global enterprise to increase vastly their market, this evolution can have the same effect.

That is really putting an exclamation point over international development from a sector that built the Aegis for Japan and the United States and now supports a global customer base much wider than was ever envisaged when I first met Paul Lemmo in Moorestown many years ago.

Featured photo: Mk70 ground-based launcher firing PAC-3 MSE interceptor. Credit: Lockheed Martin.