UPDATED with CNO comment on importance of program CRYSTAL CITY: By the end of March, the Navy will award four to six contracts for “conceptual” designs of a future frigate. That ship that must cost under $950 million, have “Grade A shock hardening” on key systems to survive blasts, and carry at least 16 Vertical Launch… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Adds CNO Vision CRYSTAL CITY: Despite collisions this summer that killed 17 sailors and called into question basic seamanship skills, the Navy is undergoing a ‘renaissance’ in high-end warfighting capabilities, the commander of Naval Surface Forces says. New weapons, improved training, and a growing cadre of surface warfare specialists — veritable “Jedis” — are making… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Is the Littoral Combat Ship a real warship? That question has bedeviled the small, sleek, lightly armed ships for years. Now it’s taken on new urgency as the Defense Department and the Navy both refocus on high-intensity, high-tech warfighting against “great powers” — i.e. China and Russia. Defense Secretary Ash Carter wants to cut… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “I guess I’m going to have to attack your question on almost every aspect,” Adm. John Richardson told me. As an analyst, it’s unnerving to have the Navy’s top admiral tell you to your face, albeit politely, that you’re just plain wrong. (I’d politely disagree, though I did miss some important nuances in an earlier story). I had asked… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s decision to curtail the controversial Littoral Combat Ship program may not be the last word, according to several well informed sources. Those sources independently told Breaking Defense that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is divided over the decision cut LCS from 52 ships to 40. So is the Navy, which has had pro-… Keep reading →

[UPDATED with Adm. Papp comments] SURFACE NAVY ASSOCIATION: In an important step to filling the increasing gap between American’s Arctic strategy and our capabilities, the Coast Guard has released its “notional program schedule [and] notional Polar Icebreaker requirements” for two new heavy icebreakers today. “This will be available to industry at noon today and I’m sure… Keep reading →

SURFACE NAVY ASSOCIATION: Paul Daniels of Raytheon is a bit miffed. Yesterday, prominent defense commentator Loren Thompson wrote an article in Forbes extolling the technology Daniels works on, precision-guided cannon shells — particularly the products of BAE Systems. But Daniels doesn’t work for BAE. He works on Raytheon’s Excalibur smart round, fired 800 times in anger in… Keep reading →

CRYSTAL CITY: “If it floats, it fights,” Rear Adm. Peter Fanta says. “That’s ‘distributed lethality'[:] Make every cruiser, destroyer, amphib, LCS [Littoral Combat Ship], a thorn in somebody else’s side.” “It just takes arming everything,” says Fanta, the director of surface warfare (section N96) on the Navy staff. “Lethality” simply means more and better weapons. “Distributed” means… Keep reading →

CRYSTAL CITY: From standardizing paint schemes to buying fewer types of valves, the Navy is going all-out to save money as budgets tighten. This new emphasis on affordability goes beyond the usual mundane economies to a sea change in how the service develops new vessels and technologies, with the much-criticized Littoral Combat Ship as the… Keep reading →

[UPDATED 3:15 pm with Under Secretary Work’s comments] CRYSTAL CITY: The automatic budget cuts known as sequestration aren’t the only nightmare scenario looming in March for the Department of Defense, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said this morning. If Congress keeps on funding the federal government on the current ad hoc basis, by simply extending the… Keep reading →