Despite the Navy’s misgivings over having dozens of its ships sailing in boxes hunting for missiles, plans remain in place for more Aegis-capable hulls, as well as new radars, and mobile missile defense batteries.
By Paul McLearyWASHINGTON: The Navy is looking to get out of the missile defense business, the service’s top admiral said today, and the Pentagon’s new missile defense review might give the service the off-ramp it has been looking for to stop sailing in circles waiting for ground-based missile launches. This wasn’t the first time Adm. John Richardson…
By Paul McLearyPENTAGON The Navy is refitting its decades-old China Lake weapons testing and research site in the Mojave Desert to begin hosting hypersonic weapons testing from a variety of platforms, including undersea launchers. A notice posted on a government contracting Website Tuesday night offered the first concrete evidence that the Pentagon is moving ahead on…
By Paul McLearySmaller unmanned vessels will act as expendable scouts and decoys, larger ones — over 50 meters — will carry masses of missiles, while manned ships will carry both the largest systems and the human beings essential for rapid adaptation in combat.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The Marines want Vertical Launch System missile tubes on their new amphibious ships — but the Navy isn’t planning to leave room for them.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.“From an industry perspective, calling us, engaging us, talking to us, and synchronizing that alignment can be most helpful. It can also be, frankly, harmful if the appropriators or the authorizers get some stray voltage that doesn’t match up to the story.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.“The Army is looking at this too but probably on a different timeline — the Marine Corps wants to get after this pretty quickly.”
By Paul McLearyWASHINGTON: Four years after Lockheed Martin inked a $11.2 billion deal to sell Saudi Arabia an upgunned variant of its Littoral Combat Ship, the company is starting work on the first vessel later this year, a company official confirmed Wednesday. The work on four Multi-Mission Surface Combatants will take place at Fincantieri-owned Marinette Marine in…
By Paul McLearyWASHINGTON: The Pentagon is studying options for putting lasers, directed energy weapons, and missile defense systems into space to protect against an array of increasingly advanced ballistic and cruise missiles being developed by China, Russia, and North Korea, a senior Trump administration official said Wednesday. President Trump is set to announce the results of a…
By Paul McLeary“The Battle of Guadalcanal was a brutal campaign, but shows us what the next fight could be like,” Vice Adm. Brown said. “Usually, the CO (skipper), XO (executive officer) and senior officers – even admirals – were killed immediately – but what happened?”
By Paul McLearyWASHINGTON: After years of delays, budget fights, and searing debates over the role that the ship will play, three Littoral Combat Ships will head out on their first deployments this year. “We’re deploying LCS this year. It’s happening. Two ships are going on the West Coast, one ship is going on the East Coast,” said…
By Paul McLearyCongress is evaluating the proposal to issue a $24 billion contract for the Navy’s next two carriers, as the service looks at months of work to fix ongoing problems with the Ford-class’s first ship.
By Paul McLearyPENTAGON: In his first day on the job, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan gathered civilian leaders of the military services to deliver a simple message: “China, China, China.”
By Paul McLeary