The Defense Secretary was given a last-minute heads-up about the White House’s demand to keep the USS Harry S. Truman afloat, and the Navy scrambled Wednesday morning to change its message to Congress.
By Paul McLearyModernizing our supply chain is a national security imperative
Closing supply chain gaps in innovating technology will reposition the industrial base to be a strategic source of value.
WASHINGTON: The Navy is scrambling to write its new acquisition and operational playbook on the fly, a decision based as much on what US rivals are doing as it is on what the service hasn’t done in recent decades. The construction and innovation booms being undertaken by the Chinese — and to a lesser extent…
By Paul McLeary
While the Air Force bet the farm on F-35, the Navy put its airpower eggs in multiple baskets, from legacy fighters to new drones.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The Navy may begin deploying submarine-hunting P-8 Poseidon aircraft to a small airstrip hundreds of miles off the Alaskan coast, signaling a new emphasis on keeping watch over Russian and Chinese moves in the Arctic. The remote runway sits on the island of Adak in the Aleutian island chain, and it’s the westernmost airfield…
By Paul McLeary
As Jon Kyl, the new senator who brings a long track record of spending on missile defense and nukes returns to the Hill, Democrats in the House might have other ideas.
By Paul McLeary
The Navy hasn’t done a two-carrier deal since the Reagan buildup of the 1980s, when the Nimitz-class carriers being built, the state of the industrial base, the size of the budget, and the statutes governing shipbuilding were all very different. So how would it work today?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
UPDATED with Harrison & Hunter analysis WASHINGTON: To prevent a repeat of last year’s lethal accidents, Senate authorizers Roger Wicker and John McCain want to give the Navy unprecedented flexibility to retain experienced officers and spend readiness funds. But the provision to let the Navy spend Operations & Maintenance money as late as in the fiscal…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
BAE Systems’ LR-PGK: The Superior Anti-Jam Solution
Going the distance to defeat emerging jam threats.
CAPITOL HILL: If the Commandant of the Marine Corps had one more dollar to spend — and he probably will with the recent budget deal — he’d use it to upgrade Navy ships’ electronics to take full advantage of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, he said this morning. The Marines’ new F-35Bs have the sensors to…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Is 13 the Navy’s lucky number? That’s how many ships the House Armed Service Committee wants to buy in 2018, five more than President Trump requested, the seapower subcommittee announced this afternoon. The problem: no one knows where the money’s coming from. The increase is part of a bipartisan push towards the 355-ship fleet…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The Navy hasn’t been able to process 25 prospective pilots for each of the last three months as it struggles to find the cause of what may be hypoxia episodes afflicting many T-45 pilots. The service has not been able to ferret out what is causing them to suffer from headaches and other symptoms. Vice Adm. Paul Grosklags, the…
By Colin Clark
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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Breaking Defense launches its first eBook, collecting our best coverage of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL: Chronic maintenance problems with the aging F-18 Hornet are hobbling the Marines, leaving them with less than 60 percent of the strike fighters they need to conduct training and operations, the deputy commandant for aviation told the Senate this afternoon. “I pulled up our readiness data just yesterday,” Lt. Gen. Jon Davis told the seapower subcommittee…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
