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Navy jet takes off from U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. (U.S. Navy photo) (CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration’s deal to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuel for Navy jets comes at a cost of up to nine times higher than regular fuel, a spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said, coming at a time when the U.S. military is already facing deep budget cuts. Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and former chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has supported biofuel projects in the past, but has problems with a program the U.S. Department of Agriculture...

White House Spokesperson Josh Earnest News Briefing Video

Huntington Ingalls Industries is in discussions with defense officials about potentially putting missile defense radars and laser weapons on San Antonio-class amphibious transport docks, a company executive said Jan. 13. “You can put a lot of additional weight on the ship and you can put … some modern technologies like ballistic missile defense radars that are very heavy,” Brian Cuccias, corporate vice president at HII and president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, told reporters on the sidelines of a Surface Navy Association symposium in Arlington, Virginia. “We think it’s a great idea.” The vessels, which are manufactured by the company, have design...

Washington (CNN)Ten American sailors are in Iranian custody after two small U.S. naval craft apparently briefly entered Iranian territorial waters, a U.S. senior defense official said Tuesday. The official, however, expects the situation to be resolved quickly. A senior administration official said there is nothing to indicate this was anything hostile on the part of any entity in Iran, adding that the U.S. has received high-level assurances that the sailors will be released promptly. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told CNN's Jake Tapper that President Barack Obama will be in touch with members of Congress about the incident. "Certainly,...

The Navy released a video Saturday showing an Iranian military ship firing a rocket last month near U.S. and French military vessels and commercial ships in the Persian Gulf. The Dec. 26 incident appears to be the latest in a series by Iran that are raising concerns about the rogue nation, as the United States and other world powers prepare to lift crippling economic sanctions in exchange for Tehran curtailing its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. The most recent incident occurred in the Strait of Hormuz, which is the only nautical passage for oil-laden ships going to and from the...

Faced with delays in the adoption of the F-35, the U.S. Navy is trying to keep F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet fighters flying until replacements arrive. According to Military Times, the service is stretching the lifespan of existing planes, keeping them in the air far longer than originally planned. The U.S. Navy's F/A-18C Hornets comprise half of the fighter force on a typical Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. These older Hornets, known as "legacy Hornets" to differentiate them from the Super Hornet, were only meant to fly an average 6,000 hours. Generally speaking, this works out to about 20 years of peacetime...

In the early 1970s, with the Vietnam War winding down, the U.S. Navy worried about how to keep its fleet effective during the inevitable budget drawdown at war's end. Their innovative solution: build small, fast ships that could, thanks to new technologies of the time, tackle the missions once performed by much larger ships. The Navy had studied hydrofoil ship concepts for two decades. Hydrofoils were large joined wings that lifted the ship into the air, above the water, at high speeds. Mostly free of the drag imposed by sitting in liquid, a hydrofoil ship could go much faster than...

French Navy (Marine Nationale) Rafale M carrier-based multirole fighters may conduct combat missions against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier as soon as January 2017. The information comes from French TV channel TF1 (video in French). According to TF1 this subject was discussed between US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and French Navy Rear Adm. Rene-Jean Crignola, Commander Task Force (CTF) 50. The US Defense Secretary was visiting the French Navy aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle on Saturday. The reason why the French Navy would deploy its Rafale M aboard a US Navy...

8 Over the years it’s become commonplace for writers to sex up their descriptions of guided-missile destroyer (DDG) Zumwalt, the U.S. Navy’s newest surface combatant. Commentators of such leanings depict the ultra-high-tech DDG-1000 [4] as a battleship. Better yet, it’s a “stealth [5] battleship [6]”—a fit subject [7] for sci-fi [8]! Not so. And getting the nomenclature right matters: calling a man-of-war a battleship conjures up images in the popular mind of thickly armored dreadnoughts bristling with big guns blazing away at one another on the high seas, pummeling shore targets in Normandy or Kuwait, or belching smoke and flame...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - The regulars did not take it seriously when Enrique Marquez mused about terrorism at Morgan's Tavern, a dank dive bar where the bespectacled 24-year-old hauled ice, cleaned bathrooms and checked ID's at the door. After a few drinks, he would just start talking - about his money woes, trying to lose weight, wanting to join the Navy. News reports about terror were just fodder for more bar talk. "He would say stuff like: 'There's so much going on. There's so many sleeper cells, so many people just waiting. When it happens, it's going to be big. Watch,'...

The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) has long been a mainstay of the U.S. strike weapon inventory. Launching from ranges out to 1,000 miles and armed with a 1,000-pound warhead, it is the Navy’s “Kick Down the Door” weapon, attacking well-defended high-value land targets. The BLK IV missile is the latest variant in a steady progression of capability, incorporating mission planning, navigation and guidance, and command and control upgrades designed to improve responsiveness and target flexibility. Combat-proven and operationally reliable, Tomahawk remains a weapon of choice for planners and commanders alike. The FY 2016 budget maintains production and inventory levels,...

Bath, Maine — The largest destroyer built for the U.S. Navy cuts an imposing figure: massive, with an angular shape, hidden weapons and antennas, and electric-drive propulsion. But underneath the stealthy exterior resides a style of hull that fell out of favor a century ago in part because it can be unstable. The Navy will soon learn how this modern take on the “tumblehome” hull holds up when the first-in-class Zumwalt heads out to sea in December for builder trials in the rough-and-tumble North Atlantic. Amy Lent, of the Maine Maritime Museum, which works closely with the shipyard, said taxpayers...

Shortly after George W. Bush won re-election, the destroyer USS Hayler (DD 997) took its last voyage to a location somewhere in the Atlantic. She carried out one last act of service for the United States Navy, serving as a target for a SINKEX – in essence, a live-fire exercise – for the Expeditionary Strike Group centered on USS Saipan (LHA 2). USS Hayler represents an interesting might-have been. In fact, had Congress had its way, she would have been the lead ship of a new class of destroyers, often called the air-capable Spruance. In many ways, the air-capable Spruance...

A proposed Russian submarine launched doomsday weapon — the existence of which was almost certainly leaked by the Kremlin — gives clues to the Russian mindset for the development of new strategic weapons in the face of the West’s increasing ballistic missile defense capability and Russia’s shrinking national assets, a naval analyst told USNI News on Thursday. The Status-6 weapon was revealed on Wednesday during a Russian broadcast of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and military leaders in Sochi and a screengrab of the weapon was widely circulated following the broadcast. The weapon is allegedly a “robotic mini-submarine”...

In an explosive report we learn that ever since 2012, the United States has been spying on Israel in order to prevent the Jewish State from attacking suspected Iranian nuclear sites, according to Friday’s Wall Street Journal. The White House had sent an additional aircraft carrier to the region after learning that Israeli aircraft had flown into Iranian airspace in what U.S. officials feared was a test run for an attack on Iran’s Fordow plant. The carriers had attack aircraft on board prepared to respond to any Israeli attack on Iran.

A trio of Chinese Navy vessels that are making an around-the-world trip will be visiting Mayport, Florida on November 3rd through the 7th. This visit comes as tensions are increasing between U.S. and China over the South China Sea, with the Navy ready to sail within China’s man-made islands claim on disputed territorial waters. The three ships involved with the visit include the Type 052C Luyang II class guided-missile destroyer named Jinan. The 052C Luyang II class is roughly analogous to an Australian Hobart Class destroyer, not necessarily in raw capability but in general configuration. The Hobart Class is roughly...

It was announced yesterday that Saudi Arabia wants to purchase four extremely up-gunned Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). The deal will be worth $11.25 billion including weapons and support. This will also be the first export sale for the troubled LCS program, and these Saudi ships will be far more capable than any version of the LCS the Navy plans on procuring. This fact may present an incredible opportunity for the Navy to get the version of the Littoral Combat Ship they really need, and possibly at an awesome price. Saudi Arabia’s highly upgraded variants of the Freedom-class Littoral Combat...

The Navy is investigating adding an anti-ship missile to its submarine force — bringing it inline with the majority of the world naval submarines, the director of Naval Reactors said on Wednesday. In response to a question from the audience at the 2015 Naval Submarine League Symposium, Adm. Frank Caldwell said the Navy was exploring adding the capability to the fleet. “For this audience, I’ll tell you we are considering that and we are taking some some steps to delivering that kind of capability to our submarine force and I can’t really say anymore than that,” he said. The U.S....

BEIJING -- China this week hosted a visit to its sole aircraft carrier by senior U.S. Navy officers amid tensions over reported plans by Washington to challenge Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea. The delegation of 27 commanders and captains boarded the Liaoning on Monday and held discussions on "exercise management, personnel training, medical protection and strategies in carrier development," the Chinese navy said on its official microblog. That was followed Tuesday morning by a visit to the navy's submarine academy, where further dialogues were held, the navy said. The visits appear to reflect the growing momentum of...

On board the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Bay of Bengal, Oct. 17: An Indian warship played "shotgun" for this US super-carrier during an air defence drill last night, about 150 nautical miles east-southeast of Chennai during the latest edition of the Malabar war games, which also include a Japanese destroyer. "The 'shotgun' role will be shared by the Indians and the Japanese in this exercise," said Captain Craig Clapperton, commanding officer of the carrier. On Sunday, an Indian fleet tanker is expected to pull alongside and feed the carrier in a hostile scenario described as "opposed replenishment at sea"....