Kongsberg, Raytheon Plan Missile Production In Arizona

Kongsberg, Raytheon Plan Missile Production In Arizona
Kongsberg, Raytheon Plan Missile Production In Arizona

FARNBOROUGH: In a clear effort to defang critics who might slam their product as — gasp — foreign, Raytheon and the Norwegian defense firm Kongsberg told reporters here they will build a production line in Tuscon, Ariz. to build advanced missiles for the U.S. Navy. The first missile to get built should be the Naval…

Presumptive CSAF Goldfein’s Top Five: Mackenzie Eaglen

Presumptive CSAF Goldfein’s Top Five: Mackenzie Eaglen
Presumptive CSAF Goldfein’s Top Five: Mackenzie Eaglen

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the nomination of the new Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. David Goldfein, today by voice vote. He is almost certain to get full Senate approval soon. This will round out the rare and noteworthy turnover of the entire slate of Joint Chiefs over the past year, including the National…

What The HASC Seapower Mark Means For The Navy

What The HASC Seapower Mark Means For The Navy
What The HASC Seapower Mark Means For The Navy

This marks the first of our monthly op-eds by Rep. J. Randy Forbes, chairman of the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee. We will send a Tweet before posting each one so you’ve got some notice. Read on! The Editor At the start of my first column, I would like to thank the editors of Breaking…

Russian Threat Drives Lockheed’s JASSM Sales

Russian Threat Drives Lockheed’s JASSM Sales
Russian Threat Drives Lockheed’s JASSM Sales

[Updated with Bryan Clark analysis] Lockheed Martin doesn’t like to say it, but their best salesman isn’t getting a bonus this year. That’s because his name is Vladimir Putin. An increasingly aggressive and well-armed Russia is clearly driving its neighbors to build up their own arsenals, and in highly specific ways. Thus the international success of…

Pit LRASM Against Tomahawk For Anti-Ship Missile: VADM Aucoin

Pit LRASM Against Tomahawk For Anti-Ship Missile: VADM Aucoin
Pit LRASM Against Tomahawk For Anti-Ship Missile: VADM Aucoin

WASHINGTON: For all the US Navy’s worldwide might, it’s painfully short on ship-killing firepower. The Pacific fleet in particular risks being “out-sticked” by longer-ranged Chinese missiles. Today, the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations outlined a plan to fill that gap. The two competing options: an update of the old, reliable Tomahawk or the new Long-Range…

Stopping Mobile Missiles: Top Picks For Offset Strategy:

Stopping Mobile Missiles: Top Picks For Offset Strategy:
Stopping Mobile Missiles: Top Picks For Offset Strategy:

Adversaries’ mobile land-based missiles – surface-to-surface, surface-to-air, and anti-ship missiles mounted on transporter erector launchers (TELs) – continue to be an unsolved problem for American military planners and strategists. The success these weapons enjoy by hiding and moving to where they are needed means that virtually all new land-based missile systems, whether short-range anti-aircraft weapons or intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs),…

47 Seconds From Hell:  A Challenge To Navy Doctrine

47 Seconds From Hell:  A Challenge To Navy Doctrine
47 Seconds From Hell: A Challenge To Navy Doctrine

WASHINGTON: Someone shoots a cruise missile at you. How far away would you like to stop it: over 200 miles out or less than 35? If you answered “over 200,” congratulations, you’re thinking like the US Navy, which has spent billions of dollars over decades to develop ever more sophisticated anti-missile defenses. According to Bryan…

‘We’ve Got To Wake Up’: Frank Kendall Calls For Defense Innovation

‘We’ve Got To Wake Up’: Frank Kendall Calls For Defense Innovation
‘We’ve Got To Wake Up’: Frank Kendall Calls For Defense Innovation

WASHINGTON: “We’ve been complacent,” Frank Kendall said. For decades, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer said yesterday, the US has assumed its forces will be better equipped than any foe, but that’s increasingly in doubt: “Our technological superiority is very much at risk, there are people designing systems [specifically] to defeat us in a very thoughtful…

B-1B Exterminates Small Moving Boat; Tests Larger Anti-Ship Missile

B-1B Exterminates Small Moving Boat; Tests Larger Anti-Ship Missile
B-1B Exterminates Small Moving Boat; Tests Larger Anti-Ship Missile

It’s difficult enough for one ship to find and sink another ship. It may not be quite as hard for planes flying from an aircraft carrier to find enemy ships and sink them, but it’s not easy. The hardest task for a plane — especially a land-based plane — may be to find a small…

Plugging AirSea Battle’s Hole: Lockheed Dishes $30M For Anti-Ship LRASM Test

Plugging AirSea Battle’s Hole: Lockheed Dishes $30M For Anti-Ship LRASM Test
Plugging AirSea Battle’s Hole: Lockheed Dishes $30M For Anti-Ship LRASM Test

NATIONAL HARBOR: We all know that, since the end of the Cold War, the US military has vastly expanded its ability to precisely strike targets on the land. The dirty secret is that we’ve unilaterally disarmed our capability to strike ships at sea. The military calls this a “capability gap,” but it’s more like a…

Stick With The Tomahawk, Forget LRASM

Stick With The Tomahawk, Forget LRASM
Stick With The Tomahawk, Forget LRASM

By Steve Russell Here at BreakingDefense, we get a lot of op-ed submissions arguing for more spending on new weapons. Today, we present an argument on why new technology can sometimes be a trap. The author, Steve Russell, is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, and — though he’s too modest to mention this — a…