Carrier Ford Sails This Week; Future Destroyer Proposals In 2020

Carrier Ford Sails This Week; Future Destroyer Proposals In 2020
Carrier Ford Sails This Week; Future Destroyer Proposals In 2020

NATIONAL HARBOR: The long-delayed supercarrier Gerald Ford should set sail for builders’ trials this week, the head of Naval Sea Systems Command said today. If those builders’ trials and subsequent Navy acceptance trials go well, Vice Adm. Thomas Moore told reporters at the Sea-Air-Space conference here, “I think we’ll get the ship delivered in the…

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…

Raytheon Wins MDA Gallium Nitride Radar Deal: Companies Shift To GaN

Raytheon Wins MDA Gallium Nitride Radar Deal: Companies Shift To GaN
Raytheon Wins MDA Gallium Nitride Radar Deal: Companies Shift To GaN

ARLINGTON: Two recent contracts make clear the military radar industry is shifting to a new gold standard, a once-obscure material called Gallium Nitride. GaN, a high-efficiency semiconductor, makes radar transmitters much more powerful without using more electricity. Industry consultant Loren Thompson once told us it was “the biggest thing since silicon.” Just in time for…

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…

Top Tester Tells Navy To Test Carrier, Destroyer Defenses With Real Missiles & Explosions

Top Tester Tells Navy To Test Carrier, Destroyer Defenses With Real Missiles & Explosions
Top Tester Tells Navy To Test Carrier, Destroyer Defenses With Real Missiles & Explosions

You’d expect the nation’s top weapons tester to be a stickler about testing. But there’s “rigorous testing” and then there’s “let’s shoot cruise missiles at you and see what happens.” It’s not that the Navy is wimpy about testing. The service conducts “full-ship shock trials” like the USS Roosevelt test pictured above, where it sets off a…

Can Navy Afford Next-Gen DDG-51 Destroyer, Packard Award Or Not?

WASHINGTON: It’s not a Nobel Prize, but the Packard Award matters in the big-dollar world of defense procurement. Last week, utterly overshadowed by elections, the Department of Defense awarded the Packard to the Navy’s DDG-51 destroyer, the sleek grey mainstay of the fleet. With 62 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers already in service, four under construction, and…

Navy Bets On Arleigh Burkes To Sail Until 2072; 40 Years Afloat For Some

Tomorrow morning, at Manhattan’s Pier 88, the Navy will commission its newest destroyer, DDG-112. The USS Michael Murphy‘s namesake was uncompromisingly heroic, a Navy SEAL who died earning the Medal of Honor in Afghanistan. The ship itself, however, embodies a series of cost-conscious compromises that will keep the Navy sailing a 1980s design — albeit…