SAN DIEGO: If the Navy ever hopes to reach its goal of a 355-ship fleet, it won’t be by simply building new hulls and launching them. Instead, the admirals have long recognized they’ll have to extend the lives of dozens of ships already long in the tooth — and do so at a time when…
By Paul McLeary Today’s bold remotely piloted aircraft technologies are shaping an even bolder vision for the future
Advances in RPA technologies signal a future where aircraft could operate from a variety of austere locations, making it much more difficult to find and target large air bases.
The incoming commander of US Pacific Fleet issues a warning about growing Chinese ambitions while taking charge of the world’s largest fleet.
By Paul McLeary
UPDATED from hearing and House vote WASHINGTON: The Navy is doing a good job addressing the problems revealed by last summer’s fatal collisions at sea, for example by filing criminal charges this week against officers involved, the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of the House seapower subcommittee say. Now Congress needs to do its part and pass…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: After a string of firings and retirements, the highest-ranking naval officer yet stepped down over accidents that killed 17 sailors. But was Vice Adm. Tom Rowden truly culpable in the summer 2017 collisions, or is he a scapegoat for deeper systemic problems? Our expert sources frankly disagreed. The argument against Rowden is simple. As…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
PENTAGON: Navy Secretary Richard Spencer wants to change the law that’s governed the armed forces since 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, to restore more autonomy to the services. Only by letting the Navy say “no” to joint combatant commanders’ insatiable demands for deployments can the fleet get adequate training, ship maintenance, and crew rest, argues the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. WASHINGTON: Lookouts were looking in the wrong direction on the USS Fitzgerald. The bridge crew – including the commander – didn’t know how the helm worked on the USS McCain. The collisions that killed 17 sailors this summer were “preventable” lapses in basic seamanship, the Chief of Naval Operations admitted today, as he ordered a…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL: Is the arsenal of democracy out of business? Probably not, but America’s “increasingly brittle industrial base” may not be able to sustain our forces in a protracted war, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Joseph Dunford, warned the Senate in a written statement this morning. It’s a problem a lot of people…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Air dominance requires first establishing a layered approach
Real-time, integrated command and control and networking services enables Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control.
PENTAGON: How will the new Navy Secretary get people to understand the fleet is being worked too hard? “Because we’ll start every conversation with 17 dead sailors,” Richard Spencer told reporters this morning in his first media roundtable as SecNav. The 10 deaths aboard the USS McCain last month and the seven aboard the USS Fitzgerald…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The Navy is making cyber investigations automatic after any mishap, starting with the at-sea collision that killed 10 sailors aboard the USS McCain. They don’t expect to find any evidence of a cyber attack this time, admirals emphasize, but they’re using the McCain as a test case. If there was a cyber attack, however, it’s…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. CAPITOL HILL: Congress’s repeated budget malpractice and the Navy’s flawed policies combined to cause the accidents that killed 17 sailors, the Navy and the GAO say. Legislative dysfunction means budget cuts, caps, and delays have chronically shortchanged training and maintenance across the fleet, forcing sailors to work 100-plus hours a week to try to catch…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. ARLINGTON: The new Navy Secretary announced a civilian-led investigation of recent lethal accidents that will look outside the Navy for lessons, separate from the internal military investigation already underway. Richard Spencer announced his Strategic Readiness Review late Friday, but only at this morning’s speech did he divulge the key detail. His review will bring in private…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.![T2BETA_PROGRAM_REVIEWED1[1]](https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/08/T2BETA_PROGRAM_REVIEWED11-350x219.jpg)
