"It is too early to say where we will end up across that portfolio, but we are investigating a range of options via our prototyping efforts," Capt. Pete Small told the virtual Surface Navy convention
“This is going to be a real workhorse supporting distributed maritime operations in the future,” Vice Adm. James Kilby, deputy chief for warfighting requirements and capabilities, said.
CDAO’s Advana data analytics platform is ingesting data from about 500 DoD business systems.
WASHINGTON: 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 […]
WASHINGTON: 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 […]
UPDATED with CNO comment on importance of program CRYSTAL CITY: By the end of March, the Navy will award four to six contracts for “conceptual” designs of a future frigate. That ship that must cost under $950 million, have “Grade A shock hardening” on key systems to survive blasts, and carry at least 16 Vertical Launch […]
WASHINGTON: Sure, American industry can build the 355-ship fleet both Trump and the admirals want, three former Navy Secretaries said today. We can even build it a lot faster than most experts expect, but there are a lot of ifs. If we start using small shipyards that currently don’t build warships. If we streamline procurement, and, of […]
As aircraft shrink, threats expand, and technology accelerates, aircraft engines must iterate along with the threats.
Austal’s Alabama shipyard just got the first Littoral Combat Ship contract of 2017, an award of up to $548 million to build an Independence-class all-aluminum trimaran, the as-yet unnamed LCS-28. Lockheed Martin, which builds the steel-hulled Freedom-class LCS with Wisconsin shipyard Marinette Marine, is still in negotiations with the government, a Lockheed spokesman told me. […]
UPDATE: Source Says WH Will Fund LCS Add; CRS Naval Expert Comments CAPITOL HILL: In a startling turnabout, the Trump Administration now “supports” adding a $541 million Littoral Combat Ship to yesterday’s 2018 budget request, Navy officials told Congress this afternoon. What, exactly, does that mean? The Navy doesn’t know. Minutes before Navy witnesses were to testify […]
CAPITOL HILL: Presidents propose; Congress disposes. President Trump’s shipbuilding budget for 2018 is a placeholder that legislators can increase, the chairman of the Senate seapower subcommittee told me this morning. After Sen. Roger Wicker chaired a hearing with shipbuilding executives, following a classified hearing with Navy leaders, I asked him about Trump’s budget. Despite Trump’s […]
[UPDATED with Sec. Stackley comments] WASHINGTON: The Navy is seriously considering derivatives of foreign designs and the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter for its new frigate, after three years pursuing an upgraded version of its current Littoral Combat Ship. The shift has shaken up the industry, panicking some players, while others quietly reposition: Other options got […]
The U.S. Army’s MAPS Gen II program of record for assured PNT provides an authoritative and reliable source of truth for combat vehicles in a highly contested battlespace.
WASHINGTON: Eight senators sent a letter Friday to Defense Secretary James Mattis, urging him to request all three Littoral Combat Ships originally planned for the 2018 budget. While eight percent of the Senate may seem small, the bipartisan co-signers — four Republicans, four Democrats — include five members of the appropriating and authorizing and committees for […]
WASHINGTON: Should the Navy buy the next generation of Littoral Combat Ships in bulk? A contentious hearing today before House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight largely framed the options as polar opposites. You can either sign a multi-ship deal to drive down the price, at the risk of getting “locked in” to buying a flawed […]
Breaking Defense launches its first eBook, collecting our best coverage of the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship.
NATIONAL HARBOR: The Navy wants to start building the upgraded “frigate” version of its controversial Littoral Combat Ship a year earlier, the frigate program manager said. The fixed-price, winner-take-all competition will “tentatively” happen in 2018 instead of 2019. To make that earlier date, Capt. Dan Brintzinghoffer said at the Sea-Air-Space conference here, the Navy will […]