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Yesterday, four EA-6B Prowlers belonging to Electronic Attack Squadron VAQ-134 'Garudas' made a triumphant but bittersweet return to NAS Whidbey Island in upstate Washington. The squadron had been deployed aboard the USS George H.W. Bush for the last nine and a half months, and their arrival marked the end of the last EA-6B carrier deployment. The EA-6B Prowler has been flying for over 46 years. The aircraft it directly descends from, the A-6 Intruder, was first flown some 54 years ago. The Prowler also represents the end of a long line of over-engineered and incredibly capable naval jet aircraft built...

Protesters yelling “Yankee go home!” attacked three U.S. sailors in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday, while the warship USS Ross was in port. The sailors were not injured and all returned to the ship, said Capt. Greg Hicks, a spokesman for U.S. European Command.

Hie thee hence, sea fighters, to peruse Information Dissemination‘s take on the U.S. Navy’s Zumwalt-class destroyer. Pseudo-pseudonymous pundit “Lazarus” gives a nifty profile of the newfangled vessel. That’s worth your time in itself. Though not in so many words, moreover, he depicts the attention-grabbing DDG-1000 stories of recent weeks and months as a red herring. Sure, Zumwalt features a “tumblehome” hull that makes the ship look like the second coming of USS Monitor. (This is not a compliment.) The hull tapers where it should flare and flares where it should taper. Zounds! Yet more than cosmetics occasions commentary. Some navy-watchers...

An incredible air-to-air engagement, where one U.S. pilot alone survived to six North Vietnamese MiGs. A true milestone in the progress of naval aviation, the Vought F-8 has been one of the few carrier-based fighters that could outperform most land-based counterparts. Being the first genuinely supersonic naval aircraft, the Crusader, was a single seat, single engine swept fighter that introduced an unusual feature, the variable incidence wing. Armed with four Colt Mk 12 cannons, the F-8 was called “The last gunfighter”: these guns combined with its high thrust-to-weight ratio and with its good maneuverability, made of the Crusader a good...

The U.S. Navy conducted the first arrested landing of an F-35C Joint Strike Fighter carrier variant on November 3. Cmdr. Tony Wilson, a Navy test pilot, landed test aircraft CF-03 on the flight deck of the carrier USS Nimitz off the coast of San Diego after flying from Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz. The first arrested landing came at the start of initial at-sea developmental testing of the F-35C, which is expected to last for two weeks. The carrier testing involves test aircraft CF-03 and CF-05, both fitted with a redesigned tail hook after problems with the initial design...

We have been glued all week to the sub saga off the coast of Sweden, where six days in Swedish forces have only now called off their search for an elusive sub hiding in the waters off Stockholm. Yet what nobody has mentioned is just how deadly and capable Sweden's own subs are, and there are few better weapons for catching a sub than another sub. Sweden's submarine force is relatively tiny, just five boats make up the entire inventory, but those five vessels are extremely stealthy and lethal, especially their three Gotland Class diesel-electric submarines. Entering service in the...

Raytheon's Standard Missile-6 had a pair of successful intercepts during recent testing highlighting the system's ability to use targeting information provided from a remote source. The "engage on remote" scenario involved two SM-6s launched from the USS Chancellorsville against anti-ship and cruise missile targets. The scenario included the SM-6s being launched prior to its own radars detecting the incoming threats, and instead using targeting information from the USS Sampson, another Aegis ship in the area. The first SM-6 intercepted a low-altitude, short-range supersonic target while the second intercepted a low-altitude, medium-range subsonic target. The SM-6 and Standard Missile-3 are produced...

Pentagon: Ship Leaves for Italy to Destroy Syrian Chemical Weapons By: Sam LaGrone Published: June 25, 2014 12:48 PM Updated: June 25, 2014 12:52 PM The U.S. ship that was quickly put into service to neutralize Syrian chemical weapons has departed Rota, Spain to take on the arms at an Italian port, Pentagon officials announced on Wednesday. MV Cape Ray (T-AKR-9679) will take on the chemical weapons at Gioia Tauro and neutralize the weapons taken from the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as part of a deal — negotiated by the United Nations — that prevented U.S. retaliatory strikes...

The destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile has been completed, Barack Obama has said. The US President welcomed the development, but said Washington would seek to ensure Damascus fulfils all its commitments. "Today we mark an important achievement in our ongoing effort to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction by eliminating Syria's declared chemical weapons stockpile," he said. He added that the destruction, carried out aboard a US Navy ship on the Mediterranean Sea, sent "a clear message that the use of these abhorrent weapons has consequences and will not be tolerated by the international community".

The last decade has seen some pretty awesome looking warships hit waters around the globe. On the "blue water" side of things the Star Wars looking Zumwalt Class and the minimalist art-like Lafayette Class were clearly designed with stealth in mind. Yet the "brown water" is where the most exotic vessels roam, and this is precisely where the X3K was born to fight. An Indonesian Combat Trimaran Designed In Sweden The X3K was built by Indonesian-based Swedish boat builder North Sea Boats, and designed in part by renowned exotic boat builder LOMOcean Design LTD. The goal was to build a...

Some folks question why the U.S. Navy would need such exotic weapons as the Phalanx and SeaRAM systems, or even electromagnetic rail guns. These Russian-made, radar-guided anti-ship missiles are two such reasons. The P-270 Moskit and P-800 Oniks have caused so much consternation that the Navy has begun developing a helicopter-based electronic warfare system—the Advanced Offboard Electronic Warfare (AOEW)—to defend against the threat. Both are ramjet-propelled cruise missiles, both carry 550 to 710 pounds of high explosive in their warheads, and neither is one you want to see streaking towards your ship.

Arab and other allied countries have carried out only around 10 per cent of the nearly 2,000 air raids against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria since early August, US defence officials said on Monday. US warplanes have conducted 1,768 air strikes since August 8, while other coalition aircraft have carried about 195 air raids against the IS jihadists, defence officials said, citing a tally through to Sunday. The numbers, which for the first time shed light on the participation of Arab coalition partners, reflect the dominant role of the US military in the air campaign. But Pentagon...

The US Navy announced it plans to acquire a Gulfstream G550 modified to carry the conformal airborne early warning system (CAEW), to be used as ‘range support aircraft’, replacing P-3 and C-130 based radar carrying aircraft. The Navy will take delivery no later than the end of fiscal 2017. The US Navy will become the system’s fourth customer, following orders from the Israeli Air Force, Republic of Singapore Air Force and the Italian Air Force. The aircraft is designed to host as multiple telemetry links supporting L, S and C bands supporting different telemetry test equipment and command destruct and...

The U.S. Coast Guard has confirmed Huntington Ingalls will not be building its new fleet of Offshore Patrol Cutters -- and great is the lamentation in Newport News, Va. Huntington Ingalls won't get to build a new Offshore Patrol Cutter for the Coast Guard. But its National Security Cutter just might fit Navy needs for a new Small Surface Combatant. Photo: Huntington Ingalls . For years, Huntington Ingalls has been the Coast Guard's go-to builder for building its multiple coastal and deepwater patrol vessels . News that Huntington didn't even make the short list in February, however -- and that...

The new ship appears to be different from any other PLA replenishment ship. Photos: cjdby.net The Chinese military may be building a new type of resupply ship, according newly surfaced photos, as the countryÂ’s navy seeks to shore up its ocean-going capabilities. The half-finished PeopleÂ’s Liberation Army (PLA) ship was photographed anchored at a harbour, identified as the Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI), in about two dozen pictures published at the weekend on cjdby.net, an influential military forum in China. The website is known as an unofficial outlet of rare images of some of the PLAÂ’s latest weapons and caters to...

"Now may be the time to break up the nuclear monopoly." "Underway on nuclear power", radioed the skipper of USS Nautilus in 1955, after taking history's first nuclear-powered attack submarine to sea for the first time. Nautilus's maiden cruise left an indelible imprint on the navy. Her success, cheered on by the likes of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the godfather of naval nuclear propulsion, helped encode the supremacy of atomic power in the submarine force's cultural DNA. Things were never the same after that. America built its last diesel-electric sub, once the state of the art, not long after Nautilus took...

WASHINGTON — The Navy is scheduled to conduct a live-fire demonstration of a Kongsberg-built Naval Strike Missile (NSM) aboard the littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) while underway in the Pacific Ocean Sept. 24, a Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman announced in a Sept. 18 release. The Kongsberg NSM is a long-range precision-strike missile designed to be launched from a variety of ships against a variety of targets. This demonstration is intended to test the capabilities of the Norwegian-made missile from a sea-based platform against a Mobile Ship Target (MST) and provide insights into the weapon’s stated capabilities of...

Modifying the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter is part of what the U.S. Navy wants to discuss with contractors in a series of “technical interchange meetings” before it develops an analysis of alternatives (AoA) for a future carrier-based strike fighter. In a September 9 solicitation, the Naval Air Systems Command (Navair) invited companies to participate in the meetings “for the purposes of trade space refinement” before it begins the AoA process next year. Navair said the solicitation is an addendum to the request for information (RFI) it issued in April 2012 for the FA-XX requirement to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet...

Okay. I'm not sure how I missed the updates/reports other than the fact that they appear not to have been posted here at FR. Principal source link is the PDF report to Congress in regards to a prior post here:("Final Report to the Congressional Defense Committees in Response to the Joint Explanatory Statement Accompanying the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014, page 90, “Radiation Exposure” "). (link will open/download the PDF) An update on the USS Ronald Reagan crew lawsuit re their mysterious illnesses in the wake of Operation Tomodachi is here: ("USS Reagan Sailors’ Lawsuit Found ‘Lacking’ Nuclear Expert...

MOBILE, Alabama -- It's judgment day for the littoral combat ship. The July 31 deadline has passed for a task force of U.S. Navy officials to collect information for a new or improved small surface combatant. In a released statement the Navy said it will begin reviewing the preliminary findings that will decide the future of the littoral combat ship, or whether to replace it. "Because the task force alternatives will be considered as part of (the fiscal year 2016 budget) deliberations, the Navy will not comment publicly on the report's findings until budget decisions within the defense department are...