Key Points – The conventionally-powered aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), which served in numerous conflicts including the Gulf War and is now being scrapped in 2025, played a pivotal, often overlooked, role in advancing US naval warfare technology.
-Beyond its operational history, the “Big John” served as a crucial testbed for pioneering the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC).
-This revolutionary sensor-networking system, successfully developed and trialed on CV-67 decades ago, integrates dispersed sensors across multiple platforms to create a unified air picture, enabling over-the-horizon targeting and significantly enhancing fleet air defense, thereby transforming modern naval combat.
USS Kennedy CV-67 Was an Aircraft Carrier Like No Other
The famous USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) Kitty Hawk-class carrier was not only the last conventionally powered carrier in the history of the Navy but also a capable, combat-tested maritime warfare platform which served in the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The famous carrier has arrived in Brownsville, Texas where it will be scrapped in 2025, the same year the new Ford-class CVN 79 USS John F. Kennedy is slated to enter operational service. CVN 79 will be the second operational Ford-class carrier and it arrival appears appropriately synchronized with the departure of the Kitty-Hawk-class CV-67. One “Kennedy” aircraft carrier is scrapped and removed from existence, while another more modern “Kennedy” aircraft carrier will take to the seas to preserve the tradition.
Arguably the largest contribution from the USS Kennedy CV 67 likely pertains to it functioning as a testbed for a now widely used netted sensor-networking technology called Cooperative Engagement Capability. This technology integrates key interfaces and protocols to enable over-the-horizon data sharing and threat identification technology. CEC, as its called, integrates otherwise disaggregated sensor and radar nodes to one another, enabling the rapid transmission of target-track information on incoming enemy missiles, drones and both rotary and fixed-wing aircraft defense.
CEC Ship Networking Breakthrough
CEC achieves this, according to a US Navy essay, by “netting of geographically dispersed sensors to provide a single integrated air picture, thus enabling Integrated Fire Control to destroy increasingly capable threat cruise missiles and aircraft.”
The long-term result with CEC, a technology which was successfully launched, tested and pioneered on the USS Kennedy, is that ship-based air defenses are able to “see” “detect” and “target” air threats at distances beyond the standard radar horizon. Perhaps of greatest significance, the information gathered at otherwise disaggregated nodes or sensors can be securely transmitted across land, sea and air domains to offer Navy warships a much wider and more protective defensive envelope.
A significant research essay on CEC from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab explains more of the technological nuances woven into what became a successful maritime warfare networking system. The idea was to enable accurate, real-time data sharing across otherwise incompatible transport layer communication systems using interfaces to connect a group of meshed nodes to one another.
“Coalescing this collection of equipment into a single war-fighting entity requires a system that will complement both new-generation and older air defense systems by sharing sensor, decision, and engagement data among combatant units, yet without compromising the timeliness, volume, and accuracy of the data,” the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab states.
The fact that the Kitty-Hawk-class USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) helped pioneer this system so many decades ago would suggest that the carrier was not only ahead of its time but a fundamental impetus in preparing the Navy for future generations of maritime warfare. CEC uses “interfaces” of “IP protocol” configurations to ensure critical data can be transmitted across a “shared picture.”
“The system must create an identical picture at each unit of sufficient quality to be treated as local data for engagements, even though the data may have arrived from 30 to 40 mi. away. If a common, detailed database is available to provide a shared air picture as well as the ability to engage targets that may not be seen locally, a new level of capability may be attained,” the JHU paper explains.
Mayport, Fla (Feb. 20, 2007) – USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) departs Naval Station Mayport for the last underway period before her decommissioning in March. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elizabeth Williams (RELEASED)
CEC testing on board the USS Kennedy CVN-67 can be seen as an impressive precursor to the kinds of networking breakthroughs which are happening across the US military services today. The CEC system, which can trace its origins to experimenting on the Kennedy decades ago, evolved into one of the Navy’s fundamental “backbone” ship defense and networking technologies.
“CEC has been recognized by Congress, DoD, and the Navy as dissipating the “fog of battle” by virtue of composite tracking and identification with high accuracy and fidelity resulting in an identical database at each networked unit. A new generation of precision coordination and tactics has thus been made possible,” the JHU essay further explains.
About the Author
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
