The Navy’s new $13 billion carrier has run into trouble, and the Navy has called in some outside help.
By Paul McLearyBAE Systems’ LR-PGK: The Superior Anti-Jam Solution
Going the distance to defeat emerging jam threats.
Capitol Hill has some concerns over the state of the Navy’s Ford-class aircraft carrier, but the Navy is moving forward with next-generation technology, fixing as it goes.
By Paul McLeary
In future wars, “one of our battles is going to be just getting off of the pier,” the Navy’s top civilian said, because of cyber attacks against Navy forces and infrastructure.
By Paul McLeary
The Navy thinks it will need at least $40 billion a year to maintain its new fleet — but admits that they haven’t actually added it all up yet.
By Paul McLeary
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 McLeary WASHINGTON: 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 Congress is evaluating the proposal to issue a $24 billion contract for the Navy’s next two carriers, as the service looks at months of work to fix ongoing problems with the Ford-class’s first ship.
By Paul McLeary
Modernizing military simulation with open systems architecture
Best-of-breed common models and architecture enable virtual training and testing with the same data in a cyber-resilient posture.
As the Navy sorties 30 ships from Norfolk and surrounding bases, a few ships will be heading back in short order to assist in the cleanup. The amphibious ships USS Kearsarge and USS Arlington, along with hospital ship USNS Comfort, have all loaded up on supplies and have put out to sea.
By Paul McLeary General Atomics says it is launching new, heavier planes from its EMALS carrier launcher. The launches are taking place on land, and won’t be attempted on board the $13 billion Ford for some time, however.
By Paul McLeary
The Navy hasn’t done a two-carrier deal since the Reagan buildup of the 1980s, when the Nimitz-class carriers being built, the state of the industrial base, the size of the budget, and the statutes governing shipbuilding were all very different. So how would it work today?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump may have a clear preference for a “goddamned steam” catapult on the USS Ford and its successors, but his opinion is not based on any detailed Navy briefing about the ship, according to Sean Stackley, acting Navy Secretary. Trump may have derived his remarkably insightful observations about the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System…
By Colin Clark
NATIONAL HARBOR: The long-delayed supercarrier Gerald Ford should set sail for builders’ trials this week, the head of Naval Sea Systems Command said today. If those builders’ trials and subsequent Navy acceptance trials go well, Vice Adm. Thomas Moore told reporters at the Sea-Air-Space conference here, “I think we’ll get the ship delivered in the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Speaking today on the hangar deck of the almost-completed aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, President Donald Trump explicitly pledged to build “the 12-carrier Navy we need.” Ever since the USS Enterprise retired in 2012, the Navy has had only 10 aircraft carriers, with the Ford soon to be commissioned as the 11th. On current plans,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
President Donald Trump has identified a fact few of his recent predecessors have understood: the Defense Industrial Base of the United States (DIB) is a critical component of our national security. The DIB is more important than any individual weapons program – be it an aircraft carrier, long range bomber, or high-tech tank. But for too…
By Jerry Hendrix and Robert O'Brien