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The U.S. Navy has awarded contracts for 10 new Arleigh Burke-class destroyers from General Dynamics Bath and Huntington Ingalls Industries. "The Navy saved $700 million for these 10 ships by using multiyear procurement contracts rather than a single year contracting approach," said James F. Geurts, the assistant secretary of the Navy for R&D and acquisition. "We also have options for an additional five DDG-51s to enable us to continue to accelerate delivery of the outstanding DDG-51 Flight III capabilities to our naval force." The two contract awards include $3.9 billion for General Dynamics for four destroyers from FY2019 through FY2022,...

WASHINGTON —The U.S. Air Force has selected Boeing to replace the service's aging fleet of UH-1N Iroquois helicopters, which are currently tasked with security missions as well as protecting America's nuclear missile arsenal. The long-awaited Pentagon contract is worth $2.4 billion for up to 84 aircraft. The service awarded Boeing approximately $375 million for the first four helicopters on Monday.

Officials say they want computers to be capable of explaining their decisions to military commanders The report noted that while AI systems are already technically capable of choosing targets and firing weapons, commanders have been hesitant about surrendering control to weapons platforms partly because of a lack of confidence in machine reasoning, especially on the battlefield where variables could emerge that a machine and its designers haven’t previously encountered. Right now, for example, if a soldier asks an AI system like a target identification platform to explain its selection, it can only provide the confidence estimate for its decision, DARPA’s...

“The US Navy awarded Boeing on Thursday an $850 million contract to design and build the MQ-25A Stingray, the Navy's first carrier-based unmanned refueling aircraft.”

The Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday voted to pass an appropriations bill funding the Department of Health and Human Services that—if adopted by the House and signed by President Trump—will not only permit the continued federal funding of Planned Parenthood but will also allow the continued federal funding of scientific research that creates “humanized mice” using organs taken from aborted babies. After some maneuvering on Thursday afternoon, the leadership allowed a floor vote on an amendment offered by Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) that would have prohibited all federal funding of Planned Parenthood. That amendment was only brought up for a vote...

Phil Mudd can go from 0-60 faster than a Ferrari. After a long, measured, discussion on CNN this morning about the firing of Peter Strzok [Mudd thought it was the right decision], co-host John Berman invited Mudd, a former CIA and FBI official, to comment on President Trump’s failure to mention John McCain during a signing ceremony of the defense authorization bill named in his honor. Mudd became immediately enraged, going off on this epic rant: “Are you kidding me? Let me get this straight. So the President has insulted everybody from former Presidents Bush and Obama, Rex Tillerson, Jeb...

FORT DRUM, N.Y. (WCAX) President Trump is visiting New York's North Country today as part of a trip to Fort Drum. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik in a tweet invited the president to Fort Drum last week. The past three presidents have all visited the post. As part of the visit, the president will sign a defense spending bill. No other stops are listed in in itinerary. Air Force One is expected to land at 1 p.m. in Morristown. The President will then head to Wheeler-Sack Army Air Field in Fort Drum. Our Kelly O'Brien will have the latest on the president's...

HHI may be downsizing its shipyards, but not HII. Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries says that over the next five years, its yard at Newport News will need 7,000 new shipbuilders to work on subs and warships for the U.S. Navy, including 2,000 net new positions. HII's Newport News Naval Shipyard needs to recruit enough people to meet its workforce demands for the Ford-class aircraft carrier and Virginia-class submarine programs. The new hires will also support production of Columbia-class ballistic submarines, increased submarine fleet support work and the refueling, overhaul and defueling of Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. The overall hiring need is...

As Dr Thomas McGuire, head of Skunk Works’ Compact Fusion Project, detailed in a 2014 report, the smaller reactor is more feasible than a large-scale one. If the system functions as expected, the CFR could take 11kg of fuel in the form of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, and run the reactor for an entire year without needing to stop. Throughout that time, it would be consistently pumping out 100MW of power, enough to power up to 80,000 homes. When discussing how it could impact aircraft design, Lockheed Martin said that this amount of power would allow it to...

President Trump tweeted something very suggestive this morning, indicating that he may use the powers of the executive to work around the $1.3 trillion abomination’s limitations on the border wall: Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2018 “Build WALL through M” sounds like a plan that John Salisbury outlined in a...

Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!

<p>Trump tweeted, “Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything — and more. First time this has happened in a long time. Also means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!”</p>

Troops will not receive a paycheck this Friday if Congress fails to pass a budget or another short-term spending measure by then, according to the Pentagon. Troops will have to continue reporting for duty and will accrue pay, but cannot be paid until the actual money is appropriated, said Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood in a statement to Breitbart News on Tuesday. President Trump is not able to exempt troops from a government shutdown, he said.

Boeing showed off a scaled concept model of its hypersonic strike and reconnaissance aircraft design. This week Boeing revealed the first design details of a demonstrator aircraft that would go faster than Mach 5. Boeing hopes to build the hypersonic concept around a combined-cycle engine that incorporates elements of a turbine and a dual ramjet/scramjet. The unveiling came at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech forum in Orlando, Florida, as reported by Aviation Week Aerospace Daily. Boeing's model design is similar to one Lockheed Martin is working on. The aerospace industry right now is racing to produce a...

When David Norquist came to the Senate for his confirmation hearing to be Defense Department comptroller in May, he declared, “It is time to audit the Pentagon.” He laid out a get-tough approach to members of the Armed Services Committee who were eager after years of delays for the military to finally get its financial books in order. The new push would include “calling out” individuals in the Pentagon who were creating weaknesses in the financial reporting of an estimated $2.4 trillion in assets. Norquist, the brother of Republican tax activist Grover Norquist, was quickly confirmed the same month and...

Defense Secretary James Mattis said he does not carry tokens of gratitude to hand out to U.S. troops, saying “I’m saving money for bombs.” Mattis made the comment to Breitbart News after a reporter relayed a message from a U.S. Marine who asked whether the secretary was carrying challenge coins during a trip to an international terrorism conference in Jordan earlier this year.

At a remote military base in Jordan earlier this month, U.S. Marines were abuzz with excitement — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was in town. He would not be visiting Camp Titin, where they were training Jordanian forces — but he would be nearby at an international terrorism conference in Aqaba, Jordan, and for these Marines, that was close enough. One recalled being deployed in Afghanistan years ago, and how Mattis, then-commander of U.S. Central Command, had been just feet away from him, delivering a pep talk.

FORT WORTH -Bobby Tamplin was 26 years old in 1977, when he went to work as a parts fabricator on the F-16 fighter jet. At the time, he was told his job would last “maybe five years.” Forty years later, the 66-year-old recently stood on a windy, cold flight line at Lockheed Martin — just a few weeks before his retirement — to bid goodbye to the last F-16 to be built in Fort Worth. It is a bittersweet moment for Tamplin, who grew up working on the assembly line, to remember a time when the plant built almost one...

On Thursday, Virgin Orbit won a contract from the Air Force to carry "technology demonstration satellites" on its LauncherOne rocket by early 2019. The LauncherOne rocket will be "air launched" from a modified Boeing 747 called "Cosmic Girl." The contract follows Branson's quiet launch earlier this month of Vox Space, a subsidiary of Virgin Orbit, that will focus on military contracts. While there is plenty of room in space, the launchpad is becoming more crowded. That's good news for the Pentagon as it looks toward increased competition and embracing new technology like reusable rockets to lower launch costs. United Launch...

It’s not exactly “Man Bites Dog,” but “Congress Gets Defense Spending Right” is almost as surprising a headline. For too long now, we’ve been cutting corners when it comes to the military. Years of underfunding have given us a weakened force that, despite the hard work of our brave troops, is ill-equipped to handle the missions we keep throwing at it. Think the recent spate of ship collisions is a coincidence? Hardly. They’re a red flag -- a warning sign we ignore at our peril. That’s what happens when you shortchange our armed forces and fail to ensure that they...