“F-35 aircraft performance is falling short of warfighter requirements—that is, aircraft cannot perform as many missions or fly as often as required. This lower-than-desired aircraft performance is due largely to F-35 spare parts shortages and difficulty in managing and moving parts around the world”

While the Air Force bet the farm on F-35, the Navy put its airpower eggs in multiple baskets, from legacy fighters to new drones.

The Army wants a lot out of its Black Hawk replacement, at $43 million apiece — but the Marines and special operators want even more.

The US Navy now says it’ll reach 355 ships by 2034, while whacking F-35Bs and a carrier from its five-year plan. What’s the strategy?

Warships sink. Bases burn. F-35s die on the runway. Can $24 billion a year — 3.3 % of the Pentagon budget — fix the problem?

Are big, expensive vessels like amphibious ships and carriers too vulnerable in a long-range missile war with Russia or China?

CAPITOL HILL: Threatened by hundreds of precision-guided munitions now in the hands of Russia and China, the Navy and Marine Corps continue to search for technologies and tactics that will allow them to operate close to the coastline without unsustainable losses. “We’re going to need long-range fires that can operate from a ship or from… Keep reading →

Every Breaking Defense reader has a good idea how huge the US military’s modernization backlog is. But it sometimes takes a deep dive to show how big the problem is. In a new study by the Center for Strategic & International Studies — embedded below — scholars Gabriel Coll, Andrew Hunter, and Robert Karlen look… Keep reading →

“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.”

The Marines want Vertical Launch System missile tubes on their new amphibious ships — but the Navy isn’t planning to leave room for them.