We CAN Tie Army, Navy Missile Defense Networks: Navy Experts

We CAN Tie Army, Navy Missile Defense Networks: Navy Experts
We CAN Tie Army, Navy Missile Defense Networks: Navy Experts

SAN DIEGO: It’s completely possible to plug Army missile defenses into the Navy fire control network, a panel of Navy experts said Wednesday. That could make an obscure system called NIFC-CA (Naval Integrated Fire Control – Counter-Air) the electronic backbone of a seamless defense against Russian, Chinese, Iranian, or North Korean airstrikes and missile salvos.…

Link Army, Navy Missile Defense Nets: Adm. Harris

Link Army, Navy Missile Defense Nets: Adm. Harris
Link Army, Navy Missile Defense Nets: Adm. Harris

SAN DIEGO: The Army and Navy must link their missile defense systems into a single network so Navy weapons can hit targets spotted by Army radars and vice versa, the chief of Pacific Command said today. That’s a daunting technical task but, if surmounted, it could dramatically improve defense against North Korean, Chinese, or Russian…

Alternative Navy Study Bets Big On Robot PT Boats & LCS

Alternative Navy Study Bets Big On Robot PT Boats & LCS
Alternative Navy Study Bets Big On Robot PT Boats & LCS

WASHINGTON: Light carriers. Robot PT boats. Unmanned subs. A congressionally chartered study, the Alternative Future Fleet Platform Architecture Study, “does not represent any official Navy position,”  but offers a surprisingly bold vision for the future of the US Navy. The study, by a “Navy Project Team” of officers, civil servants, and contractors free to brainstorm without…

414 Ships, No LCS: MITRE’s Alternative Navy

414 Ships, No LCS: MITRE’s Alternative Navy
414 Ships, No LCS: MITRE’s Alternative Navy

WASHINGTON: The Navy needs a vastly larger fleet — 414 warships — to win a great-power war, well above today’s 274 ships or even the Navy’s unfunded plan for 355, the think-tank MITRE calculates in a congressionally-chartered study. That ideal fleet would include: 14 aircraft carriers instead of today’s 11; 160 cruisers and destroyers instead…

Big Wars, Small Ships: CSBA’s Alternative Navy Praised By Sen. McCain

Big Wars, Small Ships: CSBA’s Alternative Navy Praised By Sen. McCain
Big Wars, Small Ships: CSBA’s Alternative Navy Praised By Sen. McCain

UPDATED with McCain praise WASHINGTON: The Navy needs a bigger fleet of smaller ships than envisioned in its official Force Structure Assessment, says a congressionally-chartered study from the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments. CSBA emphatically agrees with the Navy that the focus needs to shift from day-to-day counter-terrorism and presence operations to deterring (and if need be,…

Stealth Destroyer DDG-1000’s Biggest Trials Lie Ahead

Stealth Destroyer DDG-1000’s Biggest Trials Lie Ahead
Stealth Destroyer DDG-1000’s Biggest Trials Lie Ahead

WASHINGTON: As shipbuilder Bath Iron Works laid the keel for the third and final destroyer of the DDG-1000 class, the Navy and industry were struggling to understand embarrassing breakdowns on the first ship, the USS Zumwalt. Congress fears there could be worse to come. “The hard work hasn’t really begun yet in terms of delivering the…

McCain’s Excellent White Paper: Smaller Carriers, High-Low Weapons Mix, Frigates, Cheap Fighters

McCain’s Excellent White Paper: Smaller Carriers, High-Low Weapons Mix, Frigates, Cheap Fighters
McCain’s Excellent White Paper: Smaller Carriers, High-Low Weapons Mix, Frigates, Cheap Fighters

Sen. John McCain issued a provocative and comprehensive alternative budget for the Pentagon on Monday, Restoring American Power: Recommendations for the FY 2018-FY 2022 Defense Budget. Jerry Hendrix, a strategy and naval expert at the Center for New American Security, crunched the numbers from McCain’s White Paper and authored this analysis for our readers. Read…

Build More Ships, But Not New Designs: CNO Richardson On McCain Plan

Build More Ships, But Not New Designs: CNO Richardson On McCain Plan
Build More Ships, But Not New Designs: CNO Richardson On McCain Plan

CLARIFIED w/ CNO response WASHINGTON: The Navy wants a 355-ship fleet. Can US shipyards build it? Yes, they can, the Navy leaders are insisting. But, the Chief of Naval Operations warned this morning, to keep production swift and steady, we should be careful about replacing existing designs — including the Littoral Combat Ship — with all-new warships…

The 355-Ship Fleet: Navy Wants Even More Ships Than Trump Pledged

The 355-Ship Fleet: Navy Wants Even More Ships Than Trump Pledged
The 355-Ship Fleet: Navy Wants Even More Ships Than Trump Pledged

WASHINGTON: Mr. Trump, we’ll see your campaign pledge of a 350-ship fleet and raise you five vessels, the US Navy effectively said this morning. The long-anticipated Force Structure Assessment calls for a fleet of 355 ships to counter “a growing China and a resurgent Russia,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced today. [Click here for Congressional…

Tern Tailsitter Drone: Pilot Not Included

Tern Tailsitter Drone: Pilot Not Included
Tern Tailsitter Drone: Pilot Not Included

One of the oddest military drones aborning reinvents a stillborn technology from 1951. That’s because the unmanned aircraft revolution is resurrecting configurations that were tried more than a half century ago but proved impractical with a human pilot inside. The case in point: Northrop Grumman’s new Tern, a drone designed to do everything armed MQ-1 Predators…

Navy’s New Jammer Passes Critical Design Review: SEWIP Block III

Navy’s New Jammer Passes Critical Design Review: SEWIP Block III
Navy’s New Jammer Passes Critical Design Review: SEWIP Block III

[UPDATED with Bryan Clark comment] The Navy and Northrop Grumman just took a major step forward on defending ships from enemy missiles. Northrop announced this afternoon it had passed a Critical Design Review (CDR) for a new jamming and spoofing system for Navy warships, Block III of the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP, rhymes with Cool-Whip).…

Forbes: DoD Budget Should Rise As Threats Do, Budget Deal Be Damned

Forbes: DoD Budget Should Rise As Threats Do, Budget Deal Be Damned
Forbes: DoD Budget Should Rise As Threats Do, Budget Deal Be Damned

WASHINGTON: With the House Armed Services Committee marking up its annual defense bill next week, the outspoken chairman of HASC’s seapower subcommittee told Breaking Defense he wants to undo last year’s budget deal — which he opposed and which drops Pentagon spending in 2017 — to get more dollars for defense. That’s political heavy lifting, I told Forbes. House speaker…

Navy Seeks To Boost Shipbuilding: Amphibs, Subs, Destroyers

Navy Seeks To Boost Shipbuilding: Amphibs, Subs, Destroyers
Navy Seeks To Boost Shipbuilding: Amphibs, Subs, Destroyers

CAPITOL HILL: Despite tight budgets at the Pentagon, the Navy wants to speed-up several shipbuilding programs — amphibious warships, destroyers, and submarines — and Congress seems inclined to give them the money. That’s testimony both to the perennial political popularity of shipbuilding, which employs a lot of voters, and to the rising strategic anxiety over…

Navy Seizes 1,700 Iranian Weapons Bound For Yemen’s Houthi Rebels

Navy Seizes 1,700 Iranian Weapons Bound For Yemen’s Houthi Rebels
Navy Seizes 1,700 Iranian Weapons Bound For Yemen’s Houthi Rebels

We write a lot on this site about high-tech, high-cost weapons. But it’s worth remembering that most of the killing around the world, an estimated 200,000 deaths a year, takes place with low-tech tools, like these AK-47 assault rifles the Navy seized Friday in the Arabian Sea. All told, the small cargo ship carried 21…