Carlos Del Torro was at Naval Air Station North Island Friday after a round-trip helicopter flight to the guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin to observe a demonstration he called "historic."
That day, for the first time, the Navy demonstrated it could rearm a warship at sea — something now only done while in port. The new TRAM device — Transferrable Reload At-sea Method — loaded an empty missile canister directly into the Chosin's launcher.
Del Torro said the capability would be "critical" in any future conflict.
"By enabling our combatants to refill their magazines while they're underway, TRAM offers us a powerful near-term deterrence," Del Torro said after the demonstration.
For decades the Navy has refueled and resupplied ships at sea via underway replenishment. That's when a Navy supply ship, manned by civilian merchant mariners, steams alongside a warship. Once the vessels match speed, lines are connected between the two allowing for equipment transfers.
But missiles present a unique safety problem. Guided-missile cruisers and destroyers must pull into port to rearm or reload, sometimes diverting thousands of miles, Del Torro said.
The Navy developed a prototype of the TRAM in the 1990s but at the time there wasn't much demand for the capability, said Rear Adm. Peter Small, the chief engineer and deputy commander of Naval Systems.
"That has very much changed today," Small said.
Navy ships have spent the last year guarding commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea where they've come under attack from missiles and drones launched from Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Del Torro said those ships sometimes must travel thousands of miles to rearm.
The new technology is still being developed and isn't yet funded. Del Torro expects it could take the rest of the decade for it to be integrated into the Navy.
He also talked about another logistics challenge the service faces — a labor shortage of civilian mariners to operate its supply ships. He said a lot of people left during the pandemic and they've fallen short in replacing them. The service could sideline several of the ships as a result, USNI News reported this summer.
Del Torro said it's "all hands on deck" to fill in the gaps.
"We've got to take care of our merchant mariners and that's what we're committed to doing," he said. He said he expects Congress to take up the bipartisan Ships for America Act this year or next which would, in part, offer improved benefits to civilian mariners.
