The Zumwalt class has become notorious for its cost overruns. Now, the Navy is considering even further changes.
By Justin KatzInside the shift: Trump, defense, and the road to 2025
Big changes are coming to defense in 2025, but the specifics remain uncertain. Catch our highlights and predictions from 2024 in Breaking Defense’s year-end reflections.
“The White House itself is not doing the job they should be doing,” charged the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith
By Paul McLeary
The Navy is standing up its first operational unmanned ship command, a big moment in the Pentagon’s move toward autonomy
By Paul McLeary
“Take a look at what China’s really investing in,” Navy CNO Adm. Mike Gilday said. “Yes, they are putting more ships in the water, but they’re investing heavily in anti-ship missiles as well as satellite systems to be able to target ships. And so I’m mindful of that.”
By Paul McLeary Navy officials said this week that the destroyer, which still hasn’t been deployed almost five years after she was christened, might find a place in the fleet after all.
By Paul McLeary
“Some of these people may have been in these jobs too long,” Navy Undersecretary Gregory Slavonic suggested of House and Senate Armed Services committee lawmakers, suggesting they should be subject to term limits.
By Paul McLeary
“This is a terrible idea for several reasons,” Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute said. The oldest ships would need to undergo a service life extension, while the newer ships would have to undergo expensive upgrades for a complex new mission.
By Paul McLeary
Autonomy changes everything about combat engineering
Sending robotic vehicles into the breach saves lives by removing humans from one of the most dangerous places on the battlefield.
“I don’t want to build a monstrosity. But I need deeper magazines on ships than I have right now,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said today.
By Paul McLeary There are no talks scheduled between striking union workers and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, but leaders have started exchanging letters.
By Paul McLeary
As delays in getting ships delivered on time worsen, Navy acquisition chief James Geurts said, “It is critical for our Navy that we get ships, we get them on the schedule we contract for them, and that we have high confidence in our shipbuilders to deliver.”
By Paul McLeary
A new Navy memo by acting Secretary Thomas Modly calls for greatly increased funding for hypersonics.
By Paul McLeary WASHINGTON: The once-revolutionary prospects of the Navy’s Zumwalt-class destroyer continue to be whittled away. Having lost some of its touted stealth capabilities and suffered a series of engine and electrical problems, now it’s likely to ditch its long-troubled gun. The Advanced Gun System on the Zumwalt never lived up to its billing. When the Navy…
By Paul McLeary
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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
