WASHINGTON — The nominee to be the next Navy secretary said the sea service needs a course correction to restore the culture of leadership and accountability that has suffered in recent controversies, saying that “culture trumps everything.” “It saddens me to say: the Department of…
Burke Leads List as Navy Resumes Flag Officer Announcements
ARLINGTON, Va. — The Defense Department has announced some Navy flag officer nominations, resuming a practice that had been suspended for about a year for cybersecurity reasons. Such lists of names are routinely provided to Congress, but their public announcement had been suspended by previous Chief…
Future ‘Workhorse’ Frigate Will Operate Range of Manned, Unmanned Aircraft
ARLINGTON, Va. — The new frigate being designed and built for the U.S. Navy will operate manned and unmanned helicopters from its flight deck and will be able to add new weapon and aviation capabilities as those systems are developed. The Navy…
Geurts: COVID-19 Crisis Offers Opportunity to Strengthen Acquisition, Sustainment
ARLINGTON, Va. — A top U.S. Navy official said acquisition and sustainment could emerge stronger, having withstood disruptions during the COVID-19 crisis. Speaking May 4 as part of a Navy League webinar sponsored by IBM for small businesses in the defense industry, James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research,…
Larger, More Capable Navy Needed, SECDEF Says
ARLINGTON, Va. — The nation’s top defense official said the U.S. armed forces need to shed some legacy forces for a more modern force, one that includes more modern naval forces. “We need a larger, more capable Navy that can implement distributed lethality…
Esper: ‘The Safest Place Is on a Deployed Navy Ship’
ARLINGTON, Va. — The secretary of defense noted May 4 that — with a couple of notable exceptions — the U.S. Navy’s ships at sea remain unaffected by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The statistics show that the safest place to be is on a deployed Navy ship compared to one that’s…
Geurts: Urgency, Discipline Hallmarks of Frigate Selection Process
ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s top acquisition official praised the government team that selected and the industry teams that submitted proposals for the design of the Navy’s next-generation small combatant, the FFG(X) guided-missile frigate, the first of which is scheduled to…
DoD’s Lord: Potential for 3-Month Slowdown in Defense Acquisition
ARLINGTON, Va. — The Defense Department’s top acquisition official said the department is working closely with the industrial base to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic but said there is the potential for a three-month slowdown in procurement and sustainment. …
Navy Opens Deeper Inquiry Into Theodore Roosevelt; Move Delays Decision on Captain’s Reinstatement
ARLINGTON, Va. — Acting U.S. Navy Secretary James McPherson has directed Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday to conduct a second deeper investigation of the events surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt that has claimed the life of a Roosevelt Sailor, hospitalized others and…
Triton Deploys at Last: The Navy Takes Its New UAV to the Western Pacific
In January, the U.S. Navy’s newest surveillance aircraft, the Northrop Grumman-built MQ-4C Triton, a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), embarked on its first deployment, a move to demonstrate what the Navy calls early operational capability. Two MQ-4Cs assigned to…
