Defense

The recent review of shipbuilding progress is an important step in correcting the current cost overruns and schedule slippage. However, the U.S. Navy secretary’s rather timid response of only directing the FFG design team to gather at the shipyard was far too timid. Many had hoped this program would solve the problem of small, anti-submarine warfare ships, replacing the FFG-7 class. Those hopes…

For those of us who maintain detailed forecasts of the global defense market, there are few times as exciting as the annual release of the new Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) budget and the 30-year ship building plan. The long-range plan lays out the path that must be taken by industry to build the capability required by the U.S. Navy. For the long-range plan to be carried out, the first step…

The U.S. Air Force has awarded a contract for an airfield on Tinian, a Pacific island military leaders consider crucial to their plans in the region. Fluor, an engineering and construction company based in Irving, Texas, will receive about $409 million to finish the project within five years, the company announced April 10. Tinian is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, an…

The Air Force is betting a large part of its future air warfare on a fleet more than 1,000 autonomously operated drones, and later this spring its top civilian leader plans to climb into one of those artificial intelligence-operated warplanes and let it take him airborne. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told senators on Tuesday at a hearing on the service’s 2025 budget that he will enter the…