Navy Plans Hammerhead Mines To Box In Chinese, Russian Subs

Navy Plans Hammerhead Mines To Box In Chinese, Russian Subs
Navy Plans Hammerhead Mines To Box In Chinese, Russian Subs

The Hammerhead mine would be delivered to sites by underwater drones, and “detect, classify, and defeat” manned or unmanned submarines, the Navy says.

PRC, Russian Subs May Soon Face UUV-Launched US Sea Mines

PRC, Russian Subs May Soon Face UUV-Launched US Sea Mines
PRC, Russian Subs May Soon Face UUV-Launched US Sea Mines

Head of the Unmanned and Small Combatants office, Rear Adm. Casey Moton, said the industry day was meant to, “stress the importance of the program to the fleet – they want it today, they need it today.”

Critical Navy Center Damaged in Hurricane; LCS Modules, Mine Warfare Tests Imperiled

Critical Navy Center Damaged in Hurricane; LCS Modules, Mine Warfare Tests Imperiled
Critical Navy Center Damaged in Hurricane; LCS Modules, Mine Warfare Tests Imperiled

ANNAPOLIS, Md.  The massive hurricane that slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast killing at at least 27 has also taken a chunk out of the Air Force and Navy’s most advanced weapons. The Air Force is still evaluating about 17 F-22s left behind at Tyndall Air Base, but the nearby Naval Surface Warfare Center at Panama…

LCS Grows Teeth, At Last…

LCS Grows Teeth, At Last…
LCS Grows Teeth, At Last…

SURFACE NAVY ASSOCIATION: The Littoral Combat Ship is finally about to get the capabilities envisioned for it at the start, 15 years ago, Navy leaders told the annual conference here. The four much-criticized ships now in service have boast little firepower: a 57 millimeter deck gun; two 30mm autocannon, and a MH-60 helicopter (with varying…

Navy Defends LCS, Positioning It For Frigate Competition

Navy Defends LCS, Positioning It For Frigate Competition
Navy Defends LCS, Positioning It For Frigate Competition

WASHINGTON: Even as the Navy solicits designs for its future frigate, it is ardently defending its current Littoral Combat Ship. A memo obtained by Breaking Defense lists about three dozen pro-LCS attributes, followed by a mention of the frigate. Upgraded Littoral Combat Ships, of course, are the underdog contenders for the frigate. “This is an attempt by…

Worries Surface On New Navy Mine Warfare Plan

Worries Surface On New Navy Mine Warfare Plan
Worries Surface On New Navy Mine Warfare Plan

ANNAPOLIS: The Navy’s new plan to put mine-hunting gear on a wider range of warships could finally break mine warfare out of its ghetto — or it could keep mine-hunting the same redheaded stepchild but spread it across more decks. The Navy has experimented with integrating Mine Counter-Measures (MCM) onto ships that weren’t minesweepers before,…

Every Ship A Minesweeper? Navy Looks Beyond LCS

Every Ship A Minesweeper? Navy Looks Beyond LCS
Every Ship A Minesweeper? Navy Looks Beyond LCS

ANNAPOLIS: There are maybe half a million sea mines in arsenals around the world. To find and clear them, rather than rely solely on a small fleet of small Littoral Combat Ships, the Navy now wants at least some mine-hunting gear on a vessels ranging from modified oil tankers to catamarans to aircraft carriers. The…

Austal Pushes Big Missiles For Small Ships: LCS & VLS

Austal Pushes Big Missiles For Small Ships: LCS & VLS
Austal Pushes Big Missiles For Small Ships: LCS & VLS

NATIONAL HARBOR: How much firepower can fit on the Navy’s smallest warship? With the Chinese and Russian navies on the rise, American admirals want more “distributed lethality” from everything in the fleet, especially the controversial Littoral Combat Ship. Here at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference, the manufacturers of the two very different versions of…

Marines Test Killer Hovercraft, Wooden Glider & 3D Printers For The Battlefield

Marines Test Killer Hovercraft, Wooden Glider & 3D Printers For The Battlefield
Marines Test Killer Hovercraft, Wooden Glider & 3D Printers For The Battlefield

QUANTICO: A hovercraft that shoots salvoes of rockets. A speedboat that turns into a submarine. A mobile 3D printing factory. A big wooden box with wings (yes, really). And, of course, more drones than you can shake a stick at (because they swarm). These are just a few of the roughly 100 technologies the Marine…

Smart Mines, A Smaller Army, & The Trump Buildup That Won’t Happen: Winnefeld

Smart Mines, A Smaller Army, & The Trump Buildup That Won’t Happen: Winnefeld
Smart Mines, A Smaller Army, & The Trump Buildup That Won’t Happen: Winnefeld

SAN DIEGO: Trump’s promised defense budget boost probably won’t materialize, the former Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today, so we can’t afford to grow a larger military. Instead of more ships and troops, retired Adm. James Winnefeld said in a rare public appearance, the military should prioritize investment in new ideas. His own service,…

US, UK In Giant Drone Wargame Off Scotland

US, UK In Giant Drone Wargame Off Scotland
US, UK In Giant Drone Wargame Off Scotland

The US Navy needs to get better at hunting sea mines. The Royal Navy needs to get better at robots. So the two fleets are joining forces off Scotland in what the Brits are calling “the largest demonstration of its type, ever,” Unmanned Warrior 2016, with “more than 50 unmanned vehicles from over 40 organizations.”…

Navy Scraps RMMV Mine Drone, Accelerates CBARS

Navy Scraps RMMV Mine Drone, Accelerates CBARS
Navy Scraps RMMV Mine Drone, Accelerates CBARS

UPDATED with Lockheed response WASHINGTON: The Navy will scrap the troubled RMMV drone meant to hunt mines from its controversial Littoral Combat Ships, replacing it with a different type of robot boat, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said today. That’s a decision a more responsive acquisition system would have made long ago, added Chief of Naval…

LCS Can Too Fight Russia, China: Navy Leaders

LCS Can Too Fight Russia, China: Navy Leaders
LCS Can Too Fight Russia, China: Navy Leaders

WASHINGTON: Is the Littoral Combat Ship a real warship? That question has bedeviled the small, sleek, lightly armed ships for years. Now it’s taken on new urgency as the Defense Department and the Navy both refocus on high-intensity, high-tech warfighting against “great powers” — i.e. China and Russia. Defense Secretary Ash Carter wants to cut…

The Secret Is The Software For Sea Robots Vs. Mines

The Secret Is The Software For Sea Robots Vs. Mines
The Secret Is The Software For Sea Robots Vs. Mines

NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, MD: Pax River is a robot zoo today, showcasing unmanned vehicles from micro-mini-submarines — so small you can throw one like a football — to what appears to be a solar-powered canoe. More than 40 systems here from 30 projects and six nations were gathered by the US Office of…