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LOS ANGELES – The FBI knew about Chi Mak's retirement plans, what his dining room looked like and what he allegedly took home from work. The 66-year-old engineer for a Southern California defense contractor and his 57-year-old brother, Tai Mak, were under surveillance for months. Agents tapped the Maks' phones, planted listening devices in their cars, sifted through their trash and installed a closed-circuit camera above Chi Mak's dining-room table. Investigators suspected Chi Mak was taking restricted documents about naval technology from his job at Anaheim-based defense contractor Power Paragon and passing them to his brother, who was going to...

The three new Zumwalt-class destroyers are in trouble. Originally envisioned as a fleet of more nearly three dozen destroyers, and the weapons that justified them, the Zumwalts have faced delays, cuts and staggering cost increases. As the ships teeter on the verge of white elephant status, could they become relevant again by taking on a new role, that of a stealthy ship killer? The Zumwalt-class destroyers were originally envisioned as a fleet of thirty-two destroyers designed to attack targets far inland with precision-guided howitzer shells. Designed in part to support amphibious landings by the U.S. Marine Corps, the Zumwalts were...

WASHINGTON - The Navy is declining comment on a report that the service wants to end production of its troubled next generation destroyer, the DDG-1000, after just two ships. With Congress still debating the Bush administration's funding request for the upcoming 2009 fiscal year, "it is inappropriate to comment on pending legislation," Navy spokesman Lt. Clay Doss said Monday. The administration is seeking about $2.5 billion in fiscal 2009 to buy a third DDG-1000. Citing unnamed sources, Inside the Navy, a trade publication, reported Monday that naval leaders now prefer to stop at the two ships already ordered from Northrop...

A defense company engineer accused of conspiring to send technical military information to China was never given permission to share sensitive documents on a future Navy warship with his brother, a security official for the company testified Thursday. Fred Witham, who oversees security for Power Paragon Inc., was questioned about defendant Chi Mak's access to a so-called DDX document. The government claims the document was found on a computer belonging to Mak's brother, who is also charged in the case. Mak, a Chinese-born naturalized U.S. citizen, went on trial this week in U.S. District Court. Prosecutors also asked Witham whether...

May 14, 2006: News that the US Navy's new destroyer/cruiser replacement – DD(X) – has been axed comes as a major blow to the Navy and to the US military in general. DD(X) has been described as the Navy's "must have ship," to replace both the Burke-class guided missile destroyers and the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers that have been the Navy's mainstays for the past 25 years. DD(X) is not the only weapons program in trouble. Recently, the United States Government Accountability Office released a report that slammed the DOD's plan to build and field the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35)...

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The Navy has announced April 7 that the first DD(X) destroyer will be designated DDG 1000. As the lead ship in the class, it will also be named in honor of former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt, Jr. Developed under the DD(X) destroyer program, Zumwalt is the lead ship in a class of next-generation, multimission surface combatants tailored for land attack and littoral dominance, with capabilities designed to defeat current and projected threats as well as improve battle force defense. Compared to current U.S. Navy destroyers, the Zumwalt-class destroyer will triple both...

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The Navy has announced April 7 that the first DD(X) destroyer will be designated DDG 1000. As the lead ship in the class, it will also be named in honor of former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt, Jr. Developed under the DD(X) destroyer program, Zumwalt is the lead ship in a class of next-generation, multimission surface combatants tailored for land attack and littoral dominance, with capabilities designed to defeat current and projected threats as well as improve battle force defense. Zumwalt was appointed Chief of Naval Operations in 1970. As the youngest...

Analysts say Navy ship plan faces uncertainties By DALE EISMAN, The Virginian-Pilot © December 6, 2005 Last updated: 12:59 AM WASHINGTON — A new proposal to revive Navy shipbuilding and add more than 30 vessels to today’s fleet of about 280 depends on the service’s ability to control construction costs and keep other expenses – including the war on terror – from eating into shipbuilding budgets, independent analysts said Monday. “It’s based on everything breaking right,” said Robert Work, a retired Marine Corps colonel and defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The Navy typically is too...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Marines, while fighting valiantly in Iraq, are on the verge of serious defeat on Capitol Hill. A Senate-House conference on the Armed Services authorization bill convening this week is considering turning the Navy's last two battleships, the Iowa and Wisconsin, into museums. Marine officers fear that deprives them of vital fire support in an uncertain future. Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the current commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on April 1, 2003, that loss of naval surface fire support from battleships would place his troops "at considerable risk." On July 29 this year, Hagee asserted: "Our aviation...

A defense contractor charged with failing to register as a Chinese agent admitted passing data on U.S. Navy arms technology to China for 22 years, including information on next-generation destroyers, an aircraft carrier catapult and the Aegis weapons system, according to new court papers in the case.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon will order an initial eight highly-automated DD(X) destroyers being developed by Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC - news) and General Dynamics (NYSE:GD - news) as the centerpiece of the U.S. Navy's 21st century fleet, a defense official said on Wednesday.

The deckhouse of an experimental naval destroyer, the DD(X), pictured here at China Lake, California in an undated photo. The Pentagon has opted to move ahead with the new multibillion-dollar destroyer being co-developed by Northrop Grumman Corp. and General Dynamics, Navy officials said on Wednesday. (Handout/Reuters) The Pentagon will order an initial eight highly-automated DD(X) destroyers being developed by Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC - news) and General Dynamics (NYSE:GD - news) as the centerpiece of the U.S. Navy's 21st century fleet, a defense official said on Wednesday. Ending speculation the ship might be killed, the Defense Department cleared a...

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy successfully achieved a significant milestone for the multimission DD(X) destroyer with the completion of a system-wide Critical Design Review (CDR) Sept. 14. The review represents the culmination of years of design effort that encompassed the ship, mission system, human and shore designs that now comprise DD(X). DD(X) is the Navy’s planned next-generation destroyer, tailored for land attack and inland support of joint and coalition forces. It is designed to meet Marine Corps, Army and special operations requirements for precision strike ashore, but also be able to outmatch current and projected threats in the air,...

The Navy's newest destroyer brings stealth to the high seas--and may mark the return of the gun to naval combat. "The situation was an answer to the prayers of a War College strategist or a gunnery tactician. The enemy column, now reduced to one battleship, one heavy cruiser, and one destroyer, was steaming into a trap. It was a very short vertical to a very broad T, but Oldendorf was about to cap it, as Togo had done to Rozhdestvensky in 1905 at the Battle of Tsushima Strait, and as thousands of naval officers had since hoped to accomplish." --Samuel...

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee's Projection Forces Subcommittee July 19, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Vern Clark strongly urged Congress to fully fund the Navy's next generation destroyer, DD(X). Clark testified along with the Honorable Kenneth J. Kreig, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition John Young; and Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton, program executive officer for Ships. The CNO began his opening statement by thanking those House members in attendance for their support. "Thank you for the chance to be here, and I appreciate the...

"... the next-generation destroyer, DD(X), with its two fully automated 155mm guns capable of firing 10 Global Positioning System-guided rounds per minute up to 83 nautical miles from an expandable 920-round magazine..." Passionate advocates of returning our Nation's two battleships to service maintain that these two ships could be brought back into service quickly, safely and economically to meet Marine Corps requirements for long-range, precise firepower ashore...we should not confuse our fondness for those ships with an assumption of their appropriateness for the task at hand. ...If reactivated, the battleships would not be able to fire munitions "as far as...

Raytheon Co. yesterday won a $3 billion Navy contract to develop radar and other systems for a new class of destroyers that will pioneer technology for a variety of ships in coming decades. The award is one of the Waltham company's largest ever. It is a follow-on to previous contracts the Naval Sea Systems Command has given Raytheon for the destroyer program, called the DD(X). The new destroyers are being envisioned as the first vessels in the service's 21st century fleet of high-tech fighting ships. But the contract comes as concerns mount in Congress over the rising cost of the...

WASHINGTON — The powerful DDX Destroyer is nicknamed the "stealth" warship for its design that has several flat surfaces above the water to make it more difficult for the enemy to detect. The Navy wants to buy one DDX per year, paying about $3 billion per ship, but the place where the ships will be built is a point of disagreement between the Pentagon and Capitol Hill. The Pentagon wants the two shipyards that build the Navy's destroyers to compete, meaning only one would get the whole DDX contract. The two sites are Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., run by...

TUCSON, Ariz., May 6, 2005 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) has been awarded a $162.7 million contract for production of the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile (ESSM) for the U.S. Navy and nine other allied nations. An international cooperative upgrade of the RIM-7 NATO SeaSparrow Missile, ESSM provides self-defense battlespace and firepower against high-speed, highly maneuverable anti-ship missiles. The contract calls for production of 251 missiles, associated spares and shipping containers for Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway and the U.S. by October 2007. Forty-five percent of the work will be done by Raytheon and 55 percent by Raytheon's international partners. ESSM is...

SAN DIEGO, CA., April 1, 2005 -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] tracking and fusion technologies proved to be the best available following a series of elite government-sponsored simulations for the Navy’s future surface combatant ship, DD(X). Three companies were invited by the U.S. Government to participate in an Integrated Tactical Picture (ITP) Prototype Trade Study to evaluate advanced data fusion technologies to fuse multi-source tactical and operational data generated by onboard and off-board sensors. In this evaluation, data from various sensor sources were correlated and fused by fusion engines into system tracks. The competition required competitors to track aircraft, ships,...