The Navy may back off its much-publicized call for a 355-ship fleet and look at new options like unmanned vessels, the Chief of Naval Operations said.
By Paul McLearyThe Pentagon’s independent tester reports that F-35 readiness is stuck at 60 percent, while the A model’s gun is unacceptably inaccurate.
By Colin Clark“Now that they’ve completed the initial ground run, the team can finish its work to clear the aircraft for first flight,” said Mike Hirschberg, executive director of the Vertical Flight Society. “Assuming the Defiant team doesn’t find anything noteworthy from its ground testing, it should be up in the air in the next few weeks.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.“For far too long, Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with impunity,” a statement from the White House said. Moscow has refused to admit that it has for years been “covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat to our allies and troops abroad.”
By Paul McLearyWASHINGTON: The Navy signed a massive, $15.2 billion contract with Huntington Ingalls Industries-Newport News Shipbuilding this evening for two more Ford-class aircraft carriers, hours after a Pentagon report listed a litany of problems with the ambitious program. The contract pays for completion of in 2028 of the USS Enterprise, which began in 2017. It also…
By Paul McLeary“Ultimately that is what this is all about, why I get up every morning, that’s why AFC exists: to make sure, not today’s soldier, but our kids and our grandkids have the core concepts, the organizational structures, and the capabilities they need to fight and win on a future battlefield,” Gen. Murray said, “or even better yet not to fight at all, because there is nobody in the world in the future that would ever take on the United States in ground combat, because we have done our job so well.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.This year promises to be a year of big changes in how the Defense Department does Cyber — and leaders are warning staffers that it’s not going to be business as usual.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Despite the Navy’s misgivings over having dozens of its ships sailing in boxes hunting for missiles, plans remain in place for more Aegis-capable hulls, as well as new radars, and mobile missile defense batteries.
By Paul McLearyWASHINGTON: The Navy is looking to get out of the missile defense business, the service’s top admiral said today, and the Pentagon’s new missile defense review might give the service the off-ramp it has been looking for to stop sailing in circles waiting for ground-based missile launches. This wasn’t the first time Adm. John Richardson…
By Paul McLearyThree major lines of effort will converge circa 2024, when a new breed of troops will man new kinds of combat units equipped with new technologies: talent & training, concepts & units, and money & modernization.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.UPDATED: Trump Announces Government Reopens For 3 Weeks WASHINGTON: The Pentagon won’t be able to release its fiscal year 2020 budget on Feb. 4 as previously planned because it has been caught up in the melee caused down by the 35-day government shutdown. The budget release could be delayed at least one month. The missed…
By Paul McLeary“Our new approach is really to prototype as much as we can to help us identify requirements, so our reach doesn’t exceed our grasp,” Secretary Esper said. “A good example is Future Vertical Lift: The prototyping has been exceptional.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Just back from a unsuccessful round of discussions with her Russian counterparts in Geneva to discuss the Cold war-era accord, Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson told reporters today she’s not hopeful of saving the INF Treaty before Feb. 2, when time runs out on the 60 days the Trump administration have given Moscow to acknowledge it had violated the treaty.
By Paul McLearyPENTAGON The Navy is refitting its decades-old China Lake weapons testing and research site in the Mojave Desert to begin hosting hypersonic weapons testing from a variety of platforms, including undersea launchers. A notice posted on a government contracting Website Tuesday night offered the first concrete evidence that the Pentagon is moving ahead on…
By Paul McLeary