WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper has unveiled the Pentagon’s plan for building up a Navy that proposes having up to 80 attack submarines in service by 2045. “Under our proposal, Battle Force 45 will posses the following characteristics: first, a larger and more capable submarine force,” Esper said on Tuesday. “The study reached a clear consensus on the need to rapidly increase […]
US Navy
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A US Navy veteran has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the failure to return his HIV-positive test results from a November 1995 checkup ultimately left him, and possibly past sexual partners, with HIV that went untreated for the past 25 years and developed into AIDS. The suit, filed in a federal court on Tuesday, detailed that the South Carolina-based veteran dubbed “John Doe” was not […]
A US defense official claims an ongoing federal probe into the July 12 fire that extensively damaged the USS Bonhomme Richard has led to suspicions of arson and the questioning of one sailor. Pentagon officials were recently notified that a US Navy sailor was taken in for questioning as part of an ongoing investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the Bureau of Alcohol, […]
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy on Saturday commissioned its latest littoral combat ship amid a top-level push to fix the ship’s nagging reliability issues and forge a path to make the small surface combatants useful in the years ahead. The monohull Freedom-variant LCS St. Louis was commissioned at a private event in its namesake city, the 22nd LCS and 10th Freedom variant to join the fleet. […]
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy’s path to 355 ships was unrealistic, prompting the Pentagon to delay the release of the Navy’s annual 30-year shipbuilding plan, the presumptive incoming head of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s in-house think tank told Senate lawmakers Tuesday. The Navy is required to submit to Congress a 30-year plan for shipbuilding with its budget, but did not do so this […]
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy is preparing a major effort to try and shake off years of false starts and setbacks with the littoral combat ship program, an effort Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said he’d oversee on his watch. In an exclusive interview with Defense News July 16, Gilday listed LCS as a major priority for him during his tenure as CNO, saying […]
WASHINGTON – In the wake of the catastrophic fire aboard the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, the US Navy’s brass is cracking down on sailors and contractors alike to put fire safety at the center of their work in the shipyards and on the waterfront. As Naval Sea Systems Command continues its formal assessment of the damage to Bonhomme Richard, the Navy has both sailors across […]
Navigation Brief WASHINGTON – Good Afternoon, Drifters My dear friend Claude Berube over at the Naval Academy Museum put on a fantastic event last night, the second NavyCon. NavyCon is a group of people sitting around talking about Sci-Fi, how it has been influenced by the Navy and what lessons we can draw from it in the future. I’ll post the link next week so you […]
WASHINGTON – The shipyard presiding the renovations on the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard when it caught fire July 12 was awarded a $10 million contract modification for efforts with firefighting and clean up. The contract with General Dynamics NASSCO San Diego was among those announced Wednesday in the Defense Department’s daily roundup. The work includes “USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) emergency firefighting support, dewatering, safety and […]
WASHINGTON – A series of explosions and a 1,200-degree inferno damaged 11 of the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard’s 14 decks, according to a summary of the damage from the US Navy’s top officer obtained by Defense News. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday, in a letter to the service’s admirals and master chiefs, said the fire caused “extensive damage” to the ship. “There is […]
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy has taken delivery of the first AN/SPY-6 radar array for the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Jack Lucas, which was designed and built specifically to accommodate the upgraded air and missile defense radar. The Raytheon-built system is about 30 times more sensitive than the SPY-1 arrays on the Navy’s cruisers and destroyers, but it requires much more power. That led to […]
Ships company and local fire department crews are battling an ongoing blaze aboard the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard in port in San Diego, the Navy confirmed Sunday. The fire broke out around 9:45 a.m. in the ship’s well deck, according to a internal report obtained by Navy Times, though local reports say the call to local fire came in at just before 9 a.m. Crews […]
In the wake of a US Marine being reprimanded for violating social distancing rules on Okinawa, the family member of another Marine has been recorded as the service’s first COVID-19 infection on the island. A Thursday statement from Marine Forces Japan detailed that the family member case of the novel coronavirus was the first on the island prefecture since April 30. The release went on to […]
WASHINGTON — The flood of departing defense officials continues as the U.S. Navy’s chief learning officer — a newly created position championed by former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly — announced he is leaving his post this summer to take positions at a think tank and a venture capital firm. John Kroger took to LinkedIn this week to announce his departure, […]
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy’s interminable quest to design and field a next-generation large surface combatant is going back to the drawing board once again, a victim of the Pentagon’s disorganization around this year’s long-range shipbuilding plan, according to documents and a source familiar with the situation. The Senate Armed Services Committee stripped $60.4 million dollars from the Navy’s proposed 2021 budget intended to be used […]
WASHINGTON — The House Armed Services Committee wants to limit the amount of money the Air Force and Navy get for their respective sixth-generation fighter programs until it gets some answers. The Navy and Air Force are leading separate efforts to develop a follow-on fighter jet to the F-35, with both services calling their programs “Next Generation Air Dominance.” Both projects are in the early stages […]
The announcement released by the Defense Department Monday afternoon awarded $869 million to GDEB to complete design work on the subs as part of a contract modification. The announcement also establishes the Navy’s intent to award an additional $9.5 billion for the first two hulls, which will happen once congress officially approves the two-ship buy and forks over the money. “The intent would be to […]
WASHINGTON — The former head of the U.S. Navy said in June testimony that as the service grapples with establishing the right type of force, it must account for the degraded capabilities of its allies, hinting at the once substantial Cold War-era European navies. “In my mind [there’s] been an over-fixation on the total number of ships as opposed to the nuance numbers of specific types […]
WASHINGTON – Unmanned surface vessels are all the rage in the office of the Secretary of Defense, and the U.S. Navy has lined up behind the effort. But Congress remains skeptical until it sees the Navy make progress on the basics. In the latest sign of Congressional ambivalence on unmanned surface warships, the House Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee called for restricting funding for procurement of […]
Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) fighters, US Navy E/A-18G Growlers and two US Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bombers linked up over the Sea of Japan on Wednesday to conduct a number of training missions and demonstrate their joint readiness in the Indo-Pacific region. Pacific Air Forces detailed in a June 17 news release that US and Japanese service members were able to conduct a number of […]
WASHINGTON – The US Navy will need to develop a roadmap for developing future fighter aircraft years after it had become apparent that the Navy’s mainstay F/A-18 Super Hornet would struggle to keep the carrier outside be effective against Chinese anti-ship missiles. A provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s mark of the National Defense Authorization Act told the Navy to come up with a concrete […]
WASHINGTON — The US Navy could face a three-year delay in testing of the MQ-25 Stingray carrier-based tanking drone if it doesn’t get its designated test ships through the required modernizations on time, a possibility the Navy said was “remote.” Two carriers — Carl Vinson and George H.W. Bush — have limited windows to complete the installation of unmanned aircraft control stations, and if operational commitments […]
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Trump ordered a review of the country’s requirements for icebreaking capabilities in the Arctic and Antarctic, with the goal of getting a fleet in place by 2029, according to a memo released Tuesday. The memo was directed at the Defense, State, Commerce and Homeland Security departments, as well as the Office of Management and Budget. Much of it directs work already in […]
The Navy plans to curtail Super Hornet production in fiscal 2022. It remains unclear, however, whether that effort will be successful. Source link
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) watchdog has recommended the US Navy conduct its own analysis of its contracting approach after it was recently determined that ship maintenance schedule outcomes were less than positive and led to unexpected delays. Despite the Navy shaving down initial price estimates for ship repairs through the implementation of its Multiple Award Contract-Multi Order (MAC-MO) contracting strategy in 2015, the US […]
The US Department of Defense is requesting congressional authorization to strike a potential $17.7 billion deal with General Dynamics for two nuclear-powered, Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. Amid lawmakers’ drafting of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon has requested Congress grant the department permission to secure two of the US Navy’s new Columbia-class subs via an estimated $17.7 billion deal with General Dynamics. The proposal […]
As we waited on news of the Navy’s FFG(X) selection, Dr. Jerry Hendrix and I had a chat about frigates. Source link
The release of eight hazard reports by the US Navy is notably the first official look into how the service handles pilots’ reported sightings of unidentified aircraft as well as the similarities between encounters. The War Zone’s Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick revealed in a Tuesday report that the eight unclassified hazard reports were provided by the US Naval Safety Center in response to a Freedom […]
The US Navy has launched an investigation to identify what led the service’s Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG-58) to spill thousands of gallons of fuel into Virginia’s York River on May 7. A US Navy oil recovery team and the US Coast Guard were called to Naval Weapons Station Yorktown on Thursday after it was discovered that the Phillippine had leaked almost 4,000 gallons […]