But the ideal end state is a rearming capability in the open ocean. Navy ships today refuel and resupply at sea, sailing alongside a Military Sealift Command auxiliary ship at about 12 knots to move goods and fuel.

Though the fleet can do this safely while passing food, mail, spare parts and bullets, the service cannot currently safely pass missiles without risking damage to the weapon or its canister.

A support vessel capable of doing this rearm-at-sea mission would need several features, according to Jeff Green, the strategic sealift research and development program manager at the Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Maryland. For starters, it would need the space and equipment to safely transport and handle the missile canisters, Green told Defense News.

And it must be capable of safely mooring up against or maneuvering closely alongside the combatant. The Navy has long studied each of those pieces. The first two were achieved in a fall demonstration between the destroyer Spruance and the Ocean Valor, an offshore support vessel contracted by Military Sealift Command that serves as a research and development platform.

The third, involving the actual transfer of the missile, did not go as well. Kendall Bridgewater, the commodore of Military Sealift Command Pacific, told Defense News on Feb.

During the first demonstration, Spruance was tied to the pier, and Ocean Valor used a dynamic positioning system to pull up close and hover in a position even as its crane swung a missile canister replica over to the deck of the destroyer, Bridgewater said.

In the second demonstration, Spruance left the pier and anchored off Point Loma, in the San Diego Bay.

Ocean Valor made the same approach and used the dynamic positioning system to maintain a steady distance from the destroyer, despite the heavier winds and currents in this location. So what does that mean for future development? Ocean Valor — acting as a surrogate for any other existing or future Military Sealift Command ship — accomplished the first step of storing and handling the missiles.

The second step is safely mooring up against or sailing alongside the warship. But the third step — moving the missiles from the support vessel to the destroyer, and successfully into the VLS cells — is where the challenge remains.

Bridgewater said that, although Ocean Valor and Spruance held the correct positions relative to each other when the latter was at anchor, they were rocking too much in the wind and currents for the crane to safely swing the missile canister replica over to the destroyer, and certainly too much to allow personnel on the Spruance to get close enough to guide the replica into the launcher cell.

Del Toro met in San Diego with sailors and civilians involved in the Spruance demonstration. Despite the failure of the at-anchor portion, the secretary remains determined to perfect this expeditionary rearm capability and field it as soon as possible.

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, left, speaks with Cmdr. Douglas Robb, commanding officer of the destroyer Spruance, during a visit to the ship in December But we start in safe harbor to be able to prove out that we can actually do this.

Green said the Navy is already developing multiple crane systems that could work better than the generic one used on Ocean Valor, as part of a near-term solution to put the crane and support equipment on non-Navy-certified piers or on auxiliary ships.

The TRAM concept — or transportable rearming mechanism — is 20 years old, but was not technologically feasible before. The hitch, however, is that the missiles, once moved by the pulley system to the destroyer, are too bulky and heavy for safe handling on the destroyer deck, and still must get vertically loaded into the launcher.

And what senior leader is going to invest finite time and energy in such a capability before it becomes obvious the lack of that capability means the difference between victory and defeat? Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since , with a focus on U.

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