WASHINGTON: Every year, the Navy releases its 30-year shipbuilding plan. Every year, budget analysts decry it as unrealistic and sea hawks decry it as underfunded. Last year, the Navy dropped all pretense and agreed with the critics, saying its own modernization plan was “unsustainable” — especially if additional funding was not forthcoming for the new… Keep reading →

Ships take a long time to turn around. But they take even longer to build — and that affects the federal budget. This Saturday, the Ingalls shipyard launched its first destroyer in almost four years, the future USS John Finn. The time-lapse video above compresses the launch into 47 seconds, but it’s 17 months since the keel… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Here Is Bill That Thornberry Introduced On March 25 CAPITOL HILL: After over a year of preparation, House Armed Services chairman Mac Thornberry will announce Monday a plan to fix Pentagon procurement. In intentional contrast to past efforts at sweeping acquisition reforms, Monday’s child will be a relatively modest “increment one,” a committee aide… Keep reading →

NAVY YARD: At almost $13 billion, the cutting-edge aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78) has become a byword for military overruns. With the Ford‘s cost now stable and the costs of the second ship, Kennedy, coming down, however, the Navy seems convinced it’s got the money problem under control. Now they can talk about the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “About half” of the shipyards building US Navy vessels are “one contract away” from leaving the business, the Navy’s top procurement officer told the Senate today. After decades of decline due to foreign competition, the US shipbuilding industry has become so fragile and so dependent on government contracts that the Navy is taking unprecedented and… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Kendall & Kaminski Comments On EW Spending, New EW Council WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is creating a new high-level council to direct all Pentagon electronic warfare programs, Deputy Secretary Robert Work said this morning. The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer and the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will lead the group, which will make permanent a top-level focus… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Sequestration will literally hit Congress where it lives. If implemented, Army officials and a key senator said this morning, the Budget Control Act spending caps will require cutbacks or outright closures at bases across the country. “At the end of the day, as much as we all love our bases, we’ve going to have… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The Navy’s already acknowledged that building the next nuclear missile submarine will bust its shipbuilding budget. Now, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer has admitted that the Ohio Replacement Program could be a bill too far for the entire nuclear weapons enterprise across the Departments of Defense and Energy — even if Congress repeals… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Corrects Cost Per Plane To $3.8M; Holmes “Misspoke;” Adds Enhanced Mode S Upgrade CAPITOL HILL: The law is the law. But the law must be written and it must then be interpreted in practice. Ay, there’s the rub. Add the National Guard, local politics, aging C-130s, and a wobbly defense budget in which hard choices must… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Pentagon leaders are pushing hard to keep up the momentum of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Many in the Navy, though, still look longingly back at the Boeing-built F-18 Hornet, whose St. Louis production line faces closure in 2017. There are two independent trends that together could save the St. Louis line and the Navy’s favorite plane. The first… Keep reading →