The Navy defended its troubled Littoral Combat Ship in advance of a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on a forthcoming GAO report that advises putting the LCS program on pause and rejected the report’s key recommendation to slow procurement of Littoral Combat Ships to a “minimum,” Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden said. And the service only “partially concurs” with the… Keep reading →

[Updated with new information from the Navy] After we posted our article on the electrical problem that left the USS Freedom “briefly” unable to navigate, the Navy provided us this detailed official explanation from Lt. Cdr. Clay Doss: USS Freedom (LCS 1) returned to Changi Naval Base July 21 after experiencing a problem with the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Talk about timing. As Congress gears up to grill Navy officials on the much-criticized Littoral Combat Ship program, the fleet’s first LCS suffered yet another power outage that “briefly” shut down its engines near Singapore, where the USS Freedom recently deployed for its first foreign tour. [Click here for the Navy’s detailed official explanations].… Keep reading →

Three Navy coastal patrol craft arrived in the Persian Gulf this morning aboard a transoceanic transport ship. Once again, the US Navy is moving more warships to the Persian Gulf. This time, though, we’re not sending an extra aircraft carrier or another task force. This is arguably a de-escalation of possible tensions with Iran. In… Keep reading →

The chorus of criticism facing the first ships of the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) class calls for a little historical context to be brought to this debate. Almost all new ship classes experienced considerable “birthing pains” in their early days. This is not new. Indeed, the first six frigates acquired by the American Navy in… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The dominant issue of tomorrow’s markup and the later amendment votes will not be the size of the Navy fleet, the future of the F-35, Tricare for life, or America’s strategic relationship with China. Sexual assault in the military, the hot-button issue currently leading the headlines, will dominate floor time when the defense policy… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Yes, the defense budget is a mess. Continued uncertainty about whether sequestration will go away or is the new norm has thrown the annual budget process into even greater disarray than usual. But, Rep. Randy Forbes believes there’s a silver lining. Precisely because the president’s budget request is largely overtaken by events, Congress… Keep reading →

In a hastily convened conference call with journalists, the Navy pushed back today against recent congressional criticisms of its Littoral Combat Ship. Yesterday, the LCS program took a 1-2 blow from BreakingDefense, which got a draft of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report questioning the Navy’s cost estimates to operate it. There was also one… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: It’s been a rough 48 hours for the US Navy. Yesterday, the Littoral Combat Ship was battered by House appropriators and questioned by a leaked report. Today it was the Senate Armed Service seapower subcommittee’s turn to grill the Navy about its aircraft carrier and submarine programs. While the automatic 10-year budget cuts known as sequestration played a major role… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The Navy is 90 percent sure its current estimated cost to operate and maintain the controversial Littoral Combat Ship is off target, according to a draft Government Accountability Office report obtained by BreakingDefense. According to the anonymous authors – whose diagnosis, we should emphasize, is not yet the official and fully vetted conclusion… Keep reading →