From the document’s forward by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert:
The U.S. Navy is the world’s most lethal, flexible, and capable maritime force. As they have throughout our Nation’s history, every day our Sailors operate forward to provide American leaders with timely options to deter aggression, assure allies, and re- spond to crises with a minimal footprint ashore. Read More
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the U.S. Navy had no formal procedure for naming ships. It wasn’t until 1819 that Congress passed an act stating “all of the ships, of the Navy of the United States, now building, or hereafter to be built, shall be named by the Secretary of the Navy.” The secretary has fulfilled this role ever since, even though the passage expressly assigning authority for designating ship names was omitted when the U.S. Code was revised in 1925.
In addition to recommendations from Congress and the president, the secretary traditionally has been guided by a rather loose set of naming conventions—cruisers were to be named for battles, attack submarines for U.S. cities, destroyers for Navy and Marine heroes, and so forth. Controversy has erupted whenever the choice of a name strayed too far from those conventions, was seemingly swayed by politics, or deemed inappropriate for various reasons. Read More
Huntington Ingalls Industries proposed Flight II LPD-17 ship class. Huntington Ingalls Industries Photo
Congress included $240 million for a 12th San Antonio-class amphibious warship (LPD-17), as part of the last minute, late March budget deal that funded the Pentagon for Fiscal Year 2013.
However the Navy didn’t ask for the money for what would be LPD-28, leaving open questions for the future of a class that was supposed to stop at 11 ships. Read More
USS Freedom arrives in Singapore on April, 18 2013. US Navy Photo
The first Littoral Combat Ship has arrived in Singapore kicking off an eight-month deployment to put the LCS concept through its most comprehensive test since the advent of the program, the U.S. Navy announced Thursday. Read More
The following are the prepared testimonies from Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert and USMC Commandant Gen. James Amos for the April, 16 2013 House Armed Services Committee’s hearing on the Department of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget. Read More
Man Transportable Robot System “Talon” Mark 2 approaches a suspected bomb maker’s building during an exercise. US Navy Photo
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has constructed a neuromorphic device—the functioning structure of a mammalian brain—out of artificial materials. DARPA’s project, SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) signals a new level for biomimicry in engineering. The project team included IBM, HRL, and their subcontracted universities. Read More
Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735) returns to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Wash. in 2012. US Navy Photo
Ohio-Class Replacement nuclear ballistic missile submarine “is the right ship to operate in 2080” with construction scheduled to begin in 2021, the director of the Navy’s undersea warfare division told attendees during a panel discussion of future nuclear deterrence at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition 2013 at National Harbor, Md. Read More
Rear Adm. Joseph Mulloy discusses the Navy portion of the Department of Defense fiscal year 2011 budget. US Navy Photo
The Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps are continuing funding future capability with a budget that places emphasis on introduction of new weapon systems like the Littoral Combat Ship and the F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter as part of the Fiscal Year 2014 budget submission from the Department of the Navy.
The $155.8 billion request is split between $45.4 billion for military personnel, $43.5 billion for procurement for ships, aircraft, weapons and Marine Corps spending, $16 billion for research and development and $2.3 billion for infrastructure. Read More
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at National Defense University in Washington, D.C., on April 3, 2013.
The Pentagon has issued a budget that hopes to sidestep mandatory sequestration cuts as part of a larger Obama administration spending reduction strategy.
The $526.6 billion budget, announced Wednesday at a press briefing at the Pentagon, is part of the larger budget proposal across government that would save $1.8 trillion over ten years. Read More
Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos addresses the Sailors and Marines assigned to the newly commissioned amphibious transport dock ship USS Arlington (LPD-24) on April, 6 2013. US Navy Photo
“We are not sure how that is going to play out,” the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps said about events in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the United States and NATO complete their withdrawal from combat operations in 2014 as he launched into an around the globe assessment of threats from North Korea’s “no sense of stability” to pirates in the Gulf of Aden and the Straits of Malacca facing the nation now. Read More
