ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy and the submarine sector hope in 2024 they can begin reliably delivering two attack submarines annually, following work disruptions that threw off plans to do so this year.
Industry delivered one attack sub, the Hyman G. Rickover, this calendar year and will send a second, the New Jersey, to sea trials in December ahead of delivery early next year.
Rear Adm. Jon…
Lockheed to ship advanced Sentinel A4 radars for US Army tests
November 9, 2023
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Lockheed Martin expects to deliver a batch of Sentinel A4 radars to the U.S. Army by December to support preliminary assessments in fiscal 2025.
The next-generation radar, deemed critical to the service’s future of overhead defense, is powered by an…
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force’s first T-7A Red Hawk trainer aircraft on Wednesday landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where it will soon start more intensive flight testing.
The T-7 took off Tuesday from Boeing’s St. Louis, Missouri, facility, where it…
ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is experimenting with launching and recovering medium unmanned underwater vehicles from submarines, even as a formal acquisition effort is ongoing.
The Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants is pursuing the project, which is meant to create a common drone that can conduct expeditionary mine countermeasures or operate from submarines.
Capt. Kevin…
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army plans to spend $3.1 billion in emergency fiscal 2024 supplemental funding to boost domestic 155mm artillery munition production if lawmakers approve the pending White House request, the service’s acquisition chief said during a Nov. 7 press…
Navy changing LCS maintenance and staffing practices
November 8, 2023
As the Navy seeks to improve the self-sufficiency of its littoral combat ships, the service is moving to have sailors conduct nearly all the maintenance for the vessels in the near future, according to Navy officials.
The LCS fleet was originally envisioned as having a small…
WASHINGTON — After another canceled test of the U.S. Army and Navy’s Common Hypersonic Glide Body due to a problem just prior to launch at the end of October, it is now “highly unlikely” the Army will field the weapon to the first unit by the end of the year as planned, Doug Bush, the service’s acquisition chief, told reporters in a Nov. 8 briefing.
The Army and Navy have in recent…
As the Navy continues to experiment with and expand upon its burgeoning drone fleet in the Middle Eastern patrolled by U.S. 5th Fleet, an unmanned surface ship fired missiles for the first time there during an exercise last month.
The firing of a so-called “Lethal Missile…
ARLINGTON, Va. — “It’s counterintuitive,” the head of U.S. submarine forces acknowledges, but the Navy’s ballistic missile submarine force is spending more time operating at sea while also seeing better material readiness rates.
The trend is encouraging, submarine…
US Air Force may remove 105mm cannon from AC-130 gunship
November 7, 2023
WASHINGTON — The days of the AC-130J Ghostrider’s hefty 105mm cannon may be numbered.
U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command confirmed to Defense News it is considering removing this howitzer-sized weapon, used to carry out punishing strikes on ground targets, from the aircraft as early as 2026. The idea comes as the service rethinks how it will use the heavily armed gunship following the…
