#aircraft-carrier-replacement

#aircraft-carrier-replacement

When I brought up the drones that Ukraine has used so effectively against Russian tanks, the company's chairman and CEO, Armin Papperger, was withering in his dismissal. 'This is how to play with Legos,' he told me.

"To accelerate current weapons development timelines, DARPA is considering an alternative development paradigm to increase the nation's magazine depth and breadth."

An amphibious helicopter carrier has been deployed in the Mediterranean to reinforce the presence of the French armed forces in the context of the Middle East crisis. A similar ship was sent off the shore of Lebanon as a precautionary measure to help with repatriations if needed during the 2024 war between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The RFI calls for a "rapidly procured and installable Counter UAS (unmanned aircraft system) capability" that is "suitable for maritime platforms to detect, track, identify, and defeat airborne threats." Project TALON will combine a mix of "effectors" both kinetic and non-kinetic to counter the threats posed by the proliferation of drones, and is intended to complement current complex missile-based systems.

The PLAN "is executing a significant strategic shift from diesel-electric to all-nuclear construction, representing a fundamental departure from historical construction patterns." Expanded investments at three shipyards, major construction efforts, and infrastructure upgrades have increased China's nuclear submarine production rate from less than one boat a year "to significantly higher rates."

The U.S. military has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in four weeks of war with Iran, burning through the precision weapons at a rate that has alarmed some Pentagon officials.

The US military is broadly targeting Iran's naval combat capabilities, expanding strikes beyond just warships to mines, drone boats, and torpedoes, the admiral overseeing the Middle East operations said on Monday. Adm. Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, reiterated in a video statement that eliminating Iran's naval threats is one of three military objectives of the American strike campaign.

The USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier is setting sail for a new test at sea, specifically its shipbuilder sea trials. It marks a major milestone for the US Navy's next supercarrier. The trials will be overseen by top shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries, allowing for evaluations of the vessel before it's delivered to the Navy. Though the ship has gone through river-based propulsion testing, these trials are when the new warship leaves the yard and proves that it actually works at sea.

David versus Goliath stories captivate us, especially when David brings a slingshot that looks like alien technology. Enter Stavatti Aerospace, a 25-person firm from Niagara Falls taking on Boeing and Northrop Grumman for one of the most lucrative defense contracts in naval aviation. Their weapon of choice? The SM-39 Razor, a fighter design so visually striking it demands a double-take. The triple-fuselage "Batwing" configuration breaks from a century of conventional aircraft architecture, presenting a form that's more science fiction than traditional aerospace engineering.

Much like the war in Ukraine, future battlefields could be drowning in electronic interference, so the US Army stress-tested new command-and-control tech against that threat. The need to maintain connections between command and deployed weapons and crews, or reestablish those links when they're lost, is shaping how soldiers train on the service's Next Generation Command and Control, a new software-driven system that's being developed for the Army.

U.S. defense planning rests on the assumption that wars are fought abroad, by expeditionary forces, against defined adversaries. For decades, those assumptions held. But today, many of the most consequential security challenges facing the United States violate all three. They occur closer to home, below the threshold of armed conflict, and in domains where sovereignty is enforced incrementally. The shift has exposed a chronic mismatch between how the United States defines its defense priorities and how it allocates resources and respect.

For some weapons, the hardest fight wasn't against the enemy, in fact it was more so against wear and time. Advanced technology has delivered decisive advantages but in some cases has imposed relentless upkeep on crews and logistics chains. Here, 24/7 Wall St. is taking a closer look at how these systems became a maintenance nightmare for the U.S. Military.

US Southern Command said in a statement that Marines and sailors, working in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, launched from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and captured the tanker, Olina, "without incident." It appears to be the first time that the US has directly acknowledged the Ford's involvement in the five boarding and seizure operations that began in early December. However, the government has indicated that the carrier was used for at least one of the other missions.

The US Navy is betting on 3D printing parts to speed up work on the fleet while also cutting costs after two wins last year, the service said recently. A Naval Sea Systems Command release said that additive manufacturing moved "from a promising capability to a warfighting capability in 2025." Two examples the Navy said were among the service's most significant achievements last year involved putting 3D-printed parts on its most in-demand and complex vessels.

Seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,

This incident, the first armed confrontation between the two countries since June when Israel and the U.S. bombed Iran, comes amid a military escalation between Tehran and Washington. Last Friday, Donald Trump sent what he described as an armada to waters near Iran. The flagship of that military deployment is precisely the USS Abraham Lincoln, the carrier the drone was approaching when it was shot down by the F35.