Total Employees = 2858
Military = 19
Civilian = 2839

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Established in 1918 as a naval proving ground, the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Laboratory (NSWCDL) is the headquarters for the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD).

As the premiere naval scientific and engineering institution, Dahlgren technology makes a difference in our military’s ability to fight, win, and come home safely. Dahlgren can boast that it has “sighted“ and certified every gun barrel on every surface craft ever used by the U.S. Navy. With its 18-mile range along the shores of the Potomac River and Machodoc Creek, the Dahlgren test range looks to the future - its booming guns pushing the envelope of ordnance and weaponry for tomorrow’s Navy.

The Fleet of the future is being designed today and Dahlgren scientists and engineers are in the thick of it, lending their knowledge, expertise, and innovations so that our nation can never be outflanked by its adversaries. Even with brand new design concepts, current systems must be taken into account.

National attention is focused on military participation in non-traditional missions. Operations other-than-war, Homeland Defense, Chemical-Biological warfare protection, counter-terrorism, and counter-narcoterrorism are but a few of the examples of missions that are pressing.

NSWCDD is uniquely positioned to help navigate the road to transformation. Its broad spectrum of resources, including workforce, infrastructure, and relationships with industry, have already made it a premier naval scientific and engineering institution that is dedicated to solving a diverse set of complex technical problems confronting the warfighter, whether on land, in the air, on the sea or in space.

Across its three sites, Dahlgren Division spent years building, testing, and stretching a technical infrastructure that is simply not available elsewhere. The Division exists to understand technical dimensions of military problems and to know whether a responsible solution has been provided. This is accomplished by addressing three attributes of navy ownership: unimpeded access to intellectual facilities and resources, connectivity between the warfighter and the technical community, and a continuous source of competence to ensure integrity over the entire life cycle of a system. It cannot be done alone; it requires sustained relationships with the warfighter, sponsors, industry and academia.

Fast-response Teams Save Warfighter’s Lives

Fast-response teams, comprised of members from NSWC Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), the Air Force Research Lab, NSWC Carderock, Industry, and the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL), have been working since the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom in both testing and developing armor protection for the troops in theater.

American and Coalition forces continue to experience deliberate attacks by small arms fire, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). Over the past two years many of the military’s transportation vehicles have had minimal armor protection against the different threats.

The fast-response teams, including agencies within homeland defense, were formed to address the armor protection issues. In past requirements, members worked days, nights, and weekends to test and develop the armor concepts and generate solutions.

NSWCDD has been actively involved with its team members in both testing and developing armor protection for the troops in Iraq. Within the past year some of the current projects included: the tests for new bullet proof windshields, investigation of enhanced ballistic resistance performance using spray-on Explosive Resistant Coatings (ERC), and new armor concepts developed at NSWCDD.

NSWCDD facilities have enabled the fast-response testing required to provide solutions quickly to the warfighter.NSWCDD has developed an indoor test facility enabling the testing of most small arms as well as simulated and natural fragments. The entire facility is computer controlled and uses advanced techniques such as a laser velocimeter (developed at NSWCDD) and high-speed digital imaging to provide accurate data in a fast turn around time.

The fast-response teams have and will continue to support our troops in Iraq. The armor project is one of many where engineers and scientists work diligently to achieve solutions both to save lives and ensure freedom prevails.

ERGMLong-Range Flight Test Successfully

The Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren division (NWCDD) partnering with the Raytheon Company, successfully conducted a tactical guided flight test of the Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

This was a first-of-a-kind test where the test team successfully fired a precision Global Positioning System (GPS) guided projectile from the Navy's 5“⁄62-caliber test gun and the projectile guided to a designated target over 41 nautical miles (nmi) away, detonating its warhead well within the required accuracy requirement - a world record for a precision GPS guided gun-launched munition.

The ERGM is gun launched with a peak acceleration and pressure of 10,000 g's and 65,000 psi. The projectile tail fins erected at muzzle exit and roll stabilized the round. The on-board rocket motor fired as expected. After forward control surface deployment, the munition acquired and tracked GPS satellites and developed an in-flight navigation solution. The round flew to the highest point in trajectory of over 75,000 ft above ground level and guided into the target arena over 41 nmi downrange. Significant damage was noted to the target arena.

The ERGM is the Navy's response to improving its Naval Gunfire Support capability after the retirement of the battleships and 16-ich guns. Currently, the Navy has only the 5-inch gun as its major caliber gun, which has limited range and accuracy while shooting unguided ballistic ammunition. After the establishment of the Naval Surface Fire Support Program (NSFS) program, the existing 5-inch gun was upgraded to be able to fire these new munitions at more severe pressure and acceleration launch conditions. Many of the improved Mark 45 Mod 4, 5-inch⁄62-caliber gun systems are in the fleet today. The new munition, ERGM, which can provide long-range and accurate fire support, has been under development since 1996.

NSWCDD’s mission, as the ERGM Program and the NSFS Program TDA, embraces the full spectrum of science and engineering relevant to the development of state-of-the-art surface weapon technology.

Dahlgren Delivers Combat Readiness to USS Ronald Reagan

The newest and most technologically advanced ship in the fleet is combat-ready and combat-worthy, thanks to a concerted effort by sailors, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) engineers, and industry.

The NSWCDD CVN 76 Strike Group Support Team was part of the collaborative effort that enabled USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) to join the fleet with a mission to “provide sea-based tactical air power for defense of America's right to freedom of the seas as well as the protection of United States sovereignty.“ The aircraft carrier’s capabilities includeprojecting tactical air power over the sea and inland, as well asproviding sea-based air defense and anti-submarine warfare capabilities.

The combined Reagan Strike Group Team (RSGT) effort comprised about 250 engineers from NSWCDD, NSWC Port Hueneme, NSWC Corona, the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS), Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command and a Naval Sea Systems (NAVSEA) Command Directorate that supports modeling, simulation, stimulation, and analysis. Reagan “ship riders“ consisted of 75 RSGT civilians although no more than 30 team members would conduct developmental testing aboard Reagan during each at sea period.

The Reagan CDC team operates an SSDS Mk 2 based combat system designed to respond with a rapid reaction, anti-air defense capability against high-speed, low-flying antiship missiles now in the inventories of many potentially hostile nations. The system identifies and classifies targets, prioritizes and conducts engagement, vectors interceptor aircraft to targets, and exchanges targeting information and engagement orders among ships in the Reagan Strike Group and various service components in the joint theater.

In addition to SSDS, the Reagan’s combat readiness is enhanced with Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), Common Data Link Management System (CDLMS) and Shipboard Gridlock System (SGS) that are being used by the Reagan in naval operations that support the global war on terrorism, as well as national and theater cooperative security commitments in the western Pacific.

NSWCDD selected as primary CWID site

Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) fills a major role in the annual Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (CWID). The demonstration tests and evaluates technologies and capabilities focused on selected core objectives defined by combatant commanders.

The demonstration involves 26 countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and many NATO nations. Participants interacts in a scripted scenario over a global network at 30 sites around the world. For the first time in CWID 2005, decision makers from government agencies, national and international law enforcement organizations and first responders worked alongside our traditional military allies.

At NSWCDD, active duty and Reserve warfighters collaborate with industry representatives to discover innovative ways to apply the solutions they test on the Combined Forces Battle Laboratories Network, which merged HLD and coalition task force (CTF) operations into one integrated scenario.

Robotic projects at VDP Expo

Eight Dahlgren School seventh graders and 360 of their peers from six Stafford County middle schools demonstrated how the robots they programmed can recover hidden land mines at a recent Virginia Demonstration Project’s (VDP) culminating event.

The student-built robots - made to find and disable land mines in a variety of fictional scenarios worldwide - didn’t always work as they did in a classroom environment.

But the students were unfazed.

Working in teams of four, hundreds of seventh graders displayed the problem solving skills necessary to reprogram their robots to work, recover land mines and save imaginary lives in a new environment under a tent at the Naval Support Facility Dahlgren.

VDP is part of a Naval Research-Science and Technology for America’s Readiness (N-STAR) program that is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The College of William & Mary helped design the curriculum that is generating students’ enthusiasm to pursue possible careers in mathematics, physics or other sciences.

Stafford County was the first school district selected to participate in the program that ONR plans to expand to other school districts in Virginia and across the nation. The program’s goal is to increase the number of students earning university degrees in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology.

In addition to the school their teachers, mentors from NSWCDD science and engineering staff worked with the students in their Stafford and Dahlgren classrooms to develop the robots. The NSWCDD role models are mentoring students for both the science and mathematics enrichment and summer academic camp portions of the program.