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 [inaudible] of attack submarines, the most survivable strike platform in a future great power conflict, to the range of 70 to 80 in the fleet.” Esper added that the US Navy should, at the minimum, […]
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 officially diagnosed as HIV-positive until he was hospitalized in 2018 and told by New York doctors that the virus had advanced to “full-blown AIDS.” The veteran’s HIV-positive status was hinted at by a doctor who […]
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, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to a senior defense official who spoke with the Associated Press earlier this week. It’s worth noting that the sailor taken in for questioning was not detained by federal authorities. […]
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. There will be 35 LCS in the fleet once all are commissioned. Change is in the wind for LCS once again, which has already seen several shakeups to its system, as a high-level effort is […]
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 year, which has raised consternation among lawmakers of both parties who have been pushing for a larger fleet to meet what they see as a rising threat from China. But John Whitley, Trump’s nominee to […]
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 he was going to turn up the heat on efforts to get the ship to become a major contributor to fleet operations. “There are things in the near term that I have to deliver, that […]
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 the organization and contractors working on the ships reviewing their procedures and ensuring they are doing everything possible to prevent a second tragedy. The enterprise-wide effort is part of an effort Chief of Naval Operations […]
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 all can watch it. Instead of the normal format this week, I thought I’d send you the detailed version of my presentation for the vast majority of you who didn’t watch last night. My talk […]
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 initial clean-up efforts,” the announcement reads, and will be completed by November of this year. The fire, which broke out July 12, began in the lower vehicle storage area amidships and damaged 11 of the […]
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 fire and water damage, to varying degrees, on 11 of 14 decks,” Gilday wrote. “With the flight deck as a reference, I walked sections of the ship 5 levels below and had the opportunity to […]
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 a significant redesign of the Flight IIA DDG. Jack Lucas, being built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, is the first of the new builds. The ship is scheduled to be delivered in 2024, according […]
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 are treating burn and smoke inhalation injuries, the report said. Krishna Jackson, a spokeswoman for San Diego Naval Base, estimated about 200 sailors and officers were on board Sunday morning. San Diego is the Bonhomme […]
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 detail that the family member had returned from the US on June 19 and authorities and Navy health officials are now performing contact tracing “to determine whether anyone else may have been exposed,” reported Stars and […]
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, eight months after taking the job in September. “I will be leaving the Department of the Navy and my civil service position as the Chief Learning Officer later this summer,” Kroger wrote. “It has been […]
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 for preliminary design work for the future large surface combatant, according to documents released by the committee. Instead, the money is being funneled into a land-based testing facility in Philadelphia that will work on the […]
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 of development, with the services hoping to ramp up activities this year. But HASC intends to fence off 85 percent of the fiscal 2021 funding requested for the NGAD until the committee receives an independent […]
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 award that option as soon as possible after the FY21 appropriation to ensure we keep this number-one priority on track,” said James Guerts, the Navy’s Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. […]
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 of ships that support viable operational plans,” retired Adm. Gary Roughead, former chief of naval operations, said before the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. “There’s also the need to […]
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 any large unmanned surface vessels – LUSVs – until he Navy can certify it has worked out an appropriate hull, mechanical and electrical system and that it can operate autonomously for 30 days consecutively. Furthermore, […]
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 realistic, lengthy missions while demonstrating the forces’ “unwavering commitment to the security and stability of the Indo-Pacific region.” The B-52s were observed conducting long-range escort and intercept training with four F-2s and 12 F-15s 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 plan for fielding next generation fighter aircraft, a move that comes months after Congressional appropriators gutted 2020 funding for the Navy’s next-generation air dominance program, taking the requested $20.7 million and slashing it to $7.1 […]
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 intervene it could create significant issues for the program, according to Navy officials and a government watchdog report. “Program officials stated that, among other things, the Navy’s potential inability to maintain its schedule commitments could […]
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 progress – including building a fleet of at least three heavy icebreakers – but says the remaining ships not under contract should be reviewed for what can be done to maximize their utility in the […]
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 Navy has observed a number of setbacks from the pilot program, according to a 61-page report released by the GAO on May 11. “We found that the Navy has lowered costs from initial estimates for […]
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 would “permit the Navy to enter into one block buy contract for up to two Columbia-class submarines (SSBN 826 and SSBN 827), providing industrial base stability, production efficiencies, and cost savings when compared to an […]
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 of Information Act (FOIA) request. While the US military’s UFO-related scoops have been reduced to republishings and sputters of information in recent months, the Navy’s documents provide a less sensationalized, but detailed account of the […]
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 of diesel into the York River earlier that morning, reported US Naval Institute (USNI) News. Navy officials noted that ammunition was scheduled for loading aboard the guided-missile cruiser when the spill began around 7 a.m. […]