Submission + - How Life Aboard A Navy Aircraft Carrier Changed When High-Speed Internet Arrived (twz.com)
SonicSpike writes: As it battled Houthi threats around the Red Sea last year, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) also served as a testbed for vastly increasing the level of internet connectivity aboard the Navy’s deployed ships. Now we are learning specific details about how this mammoth change in at-sea connectedness impacted everything from how sailors went about their lives during a grueling deployment to how the ship and its air wing brought its firepower to bear on the enemy.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighters assigned to the carrier offer a case in point for what more shipboard bandwidth — provided by commercial providers like Starlink and OneWeb — can mean at the tactical level. Jets with the embarked Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 took on critical mission data file updates in record time last fall due to the carrier’s internet innovations, a capability that is slated to expand across the fleet.
“This file offers intelligence updates and design enhancements that enable pilots to identify and counter threats in specific operational environments,” the Navy said in an October release announcing the feat. “The update incorporated more than 100 intelligence changes and multiple design improvements, significantly enhancing the aircraft’s survivability and lethality.”
During Lincoln’s cruise, White was transferring at download speeds of 1 gigabyte per second, with 200 megabytes on the upload, he said, provided to the 5,000 sailors on board for personal and work use.
White said there was not one equipment failure aboard Lincoln related to connectivity in the past two years, and that 780 terabytes of data was transferred during the five-and-a-half month cruise.
“I set a goal for a petabyte, but I missed that,” he said. “So there’s room for my relief to excel.”
Lincoln averaged four to eight terabytes of transferred data a day, 50 times greater than the fleet’s current capabilities. His team managed 7,000 IP addresses, with two full-time system administrators, one on during the day and one at night.
To be sure, the system was turned off at the commander’s discretion, particularly when Lincoln was in some of the Red Sea’s weapons engagement zone, and its use always took a backseat to the mission.
“We are not going to get into the details, but this is not counter-detectable,” Lincoln’s commanding officer, Capt. Pete “Repete” Riebe, told WEST attendees. “They did not know our location from what we were using. Now, when we went deep into the weapons engagement zone, we turned it all off. We turned the email traffic off, we turned the WiFi off.”
“Sailors being up on their WiFi, being connected to home, is really what made that doable in this day and age,” he said.
White said the average age of an embarked Lincoln sailor was 20.8, and Riebe noted that to attract young people into service, the Navy needs to recognize the innate connection they have to their devices.
“The next generation of sailors grew up with a cell phone in their hand, and they are uncomfortable without it,” Riebe said. “I don’t necessarily like that, but that’s reality, and if we want to compete for the best folks coming into the Navy, we need to offer them bandwidth at sea.”
Having better connectivity also helped with the ship’s administrative functions, Riebe said, making medical, dental and other work far easier than they have been in the past.
“All of that requires bandwidth, and [White] provided it to the ship, and we’re able to make the ship run more smoothly, more efficiently,” he said.
A sailor who can FaceTime with his family back home carries less non-Navy stress with them as they focus on the life-or-death duties at hand, White said.
“What we tried to do was enable a safe space for those online connections, to allow sailors to continue their continuity of life,” he said. “When it’s time to turn those connections off, the sailors are ready to run to the fire. They are ready to run to the fight, and that is what we saw on Abraham Lincoln.”
This beefed-up bandwidth allowed 38 sailors to witness the birth of their child, while others were able to watch their kids’ sporting events, White said. Several crew members pursued doctorate and master’s degrees while deployed due to better internet, while others were able to deal with personal or legal issues they had left behind back home. One officer was able to commission his wife remotely from the ship.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighters assigned to the carrier offer a case in point for what more shipboard bandwidth — provided by commercial providers like Starlink and OneWeb — can mean at the tactical level. Jets with the embarked Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 took on critical mission data file updates in record time last fall due to the carrier’s internet innovations, a capability that is slated to expand across the fleet.
“This file offers intelligence updates and design enhancements that enable pilots to identify and counter threats in specific operational environments,” the Navy said in an October release announcing the feat. “The update incorporated more than 100 intelligence changes and multiple design improvements, significantly enhancing the aircraft’s survivability and lethality.”
During Lincoln’s cruise, White was transferring at download speeds of 1 gigabyte per second, with 200 megabytes on the upload, he said, provided to the 5,000 sailors on board for personal and work use.
White said there was not one equipment failure aboard Lincoln related to connectivity in the past two years, and that 780 terabytes of data was transferred during the five-and-a-half month cruise.
“I set a goal for a petabyte, but I missed that,” he said. “So there’s room for my relief to excel.”
Lincoln averaged four to eight terabytes of transferred data a day, 50 times greater than the fleet’s current capabilities. His team managed 7,000 IP addresses, with two full-time system administrators, one on during the day and one at night.
To be sure, the system was turned off at the commander’s discretion, particularly when Lincoln was in some of the Red Sea’s weapons engagement zone, and its use always took a backseat to the mission.
“We are not going to get into the details, but this is not counter-detectable,” Lincoln’s commanding officer, Capt. Pete “Repete” Riebe, told WEST attendees. “They did not know our location from what we were using. Now, when we went deep into the weapons engagement zone, we turned it all off. We turned the email traffic off, we turned the WiFi off.”
“Sailors being up on their WiFi, being connected to home, is really what made that doable in this day and age,” he said.
White said the average age of an embarked Lincoln sailor was 20.8, and Riebe noted that to attract young people into service, the Navy needs to recognize the innate connection they have to their devices.
“The next generation of sailors grew up with a cell phone in their hand, and they are uncomfortable without it,” Riebe said. “I don’t necessarily like that, but that’s reality, and if we want to compete for the best folks coming into the Navy, we need to offer them bandwidth at sea.”
Having better connectivity also helped with the ship’s administrative functions, Riebe said, making medical, dental and other work far easier than they have been in the past.
“All of that requires bandwidth, and [White] provided it to the ship, and we’re able to make the ship run more smoothly, more efficiently,” he said.
A sailor who can FaceTime with his family back home carries less non-Navy stress with them as they focus on the life-or-death duties at hand, White said.
“What we tried to do was enable a safe space for those online connections, to allow sailors to continue their continuity of life,” he said. “When it’s time to turn those connections off, the sailors are ready to run to the fire. They are ready to run to the fight, and that is what we saw on Abraham Lincoln.”
This beefed-up bandwidth allowed 38 sailors to witness the birth of their child, while others were able to watch their kids’ sporting events, White said. Several crew members pursued doctorate and master’s degrees while deployed due to better internet, while others were able to deal with personal or legal issues they had left behind back home. One officer was able to commission his wife remotely from the ship.
How Life Aboard A Navy Aircraft Carrier Changed When High-Speed Internet Arrived More Login
How Life Aboard A Navy Aircraft Carrier Changed When High-Speed Internet Arrived
Slashdot Top Deals