Undated photo of Tanker Mercer Street. Photo via Marine Traffic
This post has been updated with a map of the approximate location of the attack.
An exploding drone killed two crew members aboard a merchant tanker off the coast of Oman, U.S. 5th Fleet said in a late Friday statement. Read More
USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-118) at Bath Iron Works
THE PENTAGON – The Senate Armed Services Committee Fiscal Year 2022 authorization bill adds an additional destroyer, a Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transport and five more F-35C Lighting II Joint Strike Fighters for the Navy, according to a summary of the markup issued on Thursday by the SASC. Read More
HMS Queen Elizabeth (front) with an Indian Shivalik Multi-role Frigate (second from front) in the Bay of Bengal. Royal Navy Photo
KUALA LUMPUR – The British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (RO8) and its carrier strike group carried out a two-day exercise called Exercise Konkan with the Indian Navy from July 21 to 22 in the Bay of Bengal. The exercise was designed to hone the ability of the two navies to operate together in the maritime domain, according to an Indian Ministry of Defence release. The exercise included anti-submarine warfare, anti-air and anti-surface warfare drills. Read More
The following is the written statement and answers Advance Policy Questions to the Senate Armed Services Committee prepared for the July 13, 2021 nomination hearing for Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro. Read More
Guided-missile cruiser USS Hué City (CG-66) was inducted into the Cruiser Modernization program on Oct. 3, 2019. US Navy Photo
The Navy’s push to retire seven guided-missile cruisers stems from management and planning in its original modernization program that caused exorbitant cost growth, according to service officials. Read More
A student in the Pilot convening of the Officer of the Deck Phase II course works at the Automatic Radar Plotting Aid station in a Ship Simulator at Surface Warfare Schools Command. OOD-II will be introduced to the fleet concentration areas in October, 2021, and will be taught at SWSC’s Mariner Skills Training Command Pacific (MSTCPAC) in San Diego, Calif., and Mariner Skills Training Command Atlantic (MSTCLANT) in Norfolk, Va., on US Navy Photo
Future ship commanders and executive officers are getting new tools to prepare for the rigors of leadership at sea as part of a new series of courses to boost their own mental and physical skills and tactical performance of their ships’ crews. Read More
The following is the May 24, 2021 Congressional Research Service report, Navy Ship Names: Background for Congress. Read More
U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Tyrell Lewis, a student in the Detachment Hawaii Enhanced Squad Leader Course, aims a dummy rocket launcher at the rocket station, one of twelve stations in the initial performance assessment portion of the course, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, April 8, 2021. The course is an experimental proof of concept, with the intent of modernizing training and providing squad leaders with new capabilities. US Marine Corps photo.
The chief of naval operations and commandant of the Marine Corps say they are increasingly clear on how they’d want to fight a peer adversary, what attributes would make their forces successful and what platforms they need to equip that force. Now, they just need help from Congress turning that into a budget everyone can agree upon, they say. Read More
Guided-missile cruiser USS Hué City (CG-66) was inducted into the Cruiser Modernization program on Oct. 3, 2019. US Navy Photo
This post has been updated to clarify that Rep. Rob Wittman would like to see a defense budget of $757 billion, which equals the Fiscal Year 2021 enacted budget plus inflation. In his spoken remarks, he mistakenly said $753 billion.
The Navy is facing pressure to find savings within its own budget to pay for investments in future technologies like unmanned vehicles and hypersonic and directed energy weapons – but those savings shouldn’t come from the early decommissioning of cruisers and amphibious ships, a key lawmaker said today. Read More
Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG-61) transits the Mediterranean Sea on March 24, 2021. US Navy Photo
The vice-chair of the House Armed Services Committee does not support the Navy’s “divest to invest” strategy of ridding the fleet of aging and expensive-to-maintain ships and systems to free up money for the development of unmanned platforms and other new technology, saying the sea service needs to focus on getting ready for a near-term battle instead of looking too far out into the future. Read More
