If US Navy shipyards (General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding) can cut the build time from 66 months to 60 months then the buildrate for Virginia class attack submarines will be increased. This will enable the production rate of US submarines to increase to 3 completions per year. It will …
Seven out of 11 U.S. nuclear aircraft carriers are underway simultaneously for the first time in several years, USNI News has learned. Three are on operational deployments in the Western Pacific with full air wings and carrier strike groups — USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). Four more are …
The Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) awarded Lockheed Martin $26.3 million for the design, development and production of a high power fiber laser. AFRL plans to test the laser on a tactical fighter jet by 2021. The contract is part of AFRL’s Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) program, and is a major step forward …
One of the many Saudi princes died in a helicopter crash near Yemen and another died in a firefight between his security forces and government security that came to arrest him. This will be very interesting and bloody if many of the thousand Saudi Princes choose not to “bend the knee”. They have resources and …
The US Navys Tactical Submarine Evolution Plan (TSEP) will create a ready menu of mature and maturing technology that they will insert when ready. The Virginia submarine program has been expanded to get 48 submarines and to accelerate the rate of construction. They are upgrading manufacturing and systems as each submarine is built. The TSEP …
China plans to launch its reusable spaceplane in 2020, according to a statement from China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Unlike traditional one-off spacecraft, the new spacecraft will fly into the sky like an aircraft, said Chen Hongbo, a researcher from the corporation. The spacecraft can transport people or payload into the orbit and return …
China has built a 140-meter-long, 28-meter-wide dregger, the Tian Kun Hao, which has described by some local media as “Asia’s most powerful island maker”. Given Beijing’s earlier island-building activities in the South China Sea, such a description could easily cause alarm among regional neighbors, especially as the new vessel will replace the Tian Jing Hao …
A technological breakthrough in naval propulsion will enable China’s second home-grown aircraft carrier to use the world’s most advanced jet launch system without having to resort to nuclear power, overcoming a huge hurdle in the vessel’s development. The development of the integrated propulsion system (IPS) would allow the vessel to be more efficient, allowing more …
Pjmedia discusses the book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?” Graham Allison’s much-heralded new book warns that China’s challenge to American strategic dominance sets us on a path to war. He calls this peril the “Thucydides Trap,” because he claims that it is similar to other great-power conflicts in history, above …
Potential modernization plans of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) were revealed in unprecedented detail by a former rear admiral in a university lecture, perhaps delivered within the last 2-3 years. The admiral, retired Rear Admiral Zhao Dengping, revealed key programs such as: a new medium-size nuclear attack submarine; a small nuclear auxiliary engine for …
A 72 page unclassified report has been issued by the US Navy on the collisions involving the destroyers USS Fitzgerald and the USS McCain. It was not hacking but incompetence and inability to perform basic navigation and this problem was not just those two ships and not just the seventh fleet but is an endemic …