– BBC – Royal Marines are training US Marines how to survive and fight in the Arctic.
Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier to head for Mediterranean in summer
– TASS – Right now, the aircraft carrier is at Murmansk’s 35th Shipyard, where specialists prepare it for the long-distance campaign.
Have Lethal Swarming Drones Made Submarines Obsolete?
– National Interest – Submarines can run—but they can’t hide—from drones. That’s the contention of a new report by a British think tank, which argues that the growing numbers and sophistication of drones are depriving submarines of their stealthiness.
CNO Orders 60-Day LCS Review
– Defense News -With the size of the small combatant force rapidly expanding, US Navy chief of naval operations Adm. John Richardson is ordering a major 60-day review of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program. “The idea,” said a Navy official, “is that with two deployments complete or nearly complete, and with new ships coming almost every six months, it’s time to see where things stand and get a feel for what’s been working, what’s not been working, and what we might need to change.”
The U.S. just sent a carrier strike group to confront China
– Navy Times – The U.S. Navy has dispatched a small armada to the South China Sea. The carrier John C. Stennis, two destroyers, two cruisers and the 7th Fleet flagship have sailed into the disputed waters in recent days.
F/A-18 Super Hornets Top US Navy’s Unfunded List
– Defense News – Fourteen new F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet strike fighters top the 31 items on the US Navy’s fiscal 2017 unfunded requirements list (URL), along with final funding for an already-approved destroyer and two additional carrier-based F-35 joint strike fighters.
New External DDG-1000 Mast Reduces Ship’s Stealth From Original Design
– USNI News – A newly revealed configuration of sensors set for next-generation destroyer Zumwalt (DDG-1000) could make the ship less stealthy than originally intended.
Amid Calls For More Presence In Mediterranean, Marines Look At Splitting Up Amphibious Ready Group Deployments
– USNI News – Increasing challenges in Europe and Northern Africa have sparked a discussion in the Marine Corps and Joint Staff about revamping how to deploy amphibious groups, including the idea of splitting up the three-ship Amphibious Ready Group from the start.
Polar Bears, Robot Subs And Melting Ice: Navy’s ICEX 2016
– Breaking Defense – Polar bears. Wind chill of 20 below. Ice floes drifting faster than ever thanks to global warming. Cutting holes in the ice big enough to drop unmanned mini-subs through. Keeping mini-drones aloft in the frigid winds to watch out for the aforementioned bears. Those are just some of the issues — many of them new — that Navy sailors face as they set up camp for Ice Exercise 2016.
Australia increasingly likely to pick Japan for huge submarine order, experts say
– Japan Times – With Australia’s release of its defense white paper last week, the race to build the country’s next generation of submarines enters the home stretch — and some experts say the Japanese bid appears to hold an insurmountable lead.
Australia’s Aircraft Carrier to the Rescue
– War is Boring – HMAS ‘Canberra’ rushes aid to storm-stricken Fiji.
Closing the Toy Store
– traditional RIGHT – William Lind on what weapons the US should be procuring to fight the Fourth Generation adversaries we face.
Navy Scraps RMMV Mine Drone, Accelerates CBARS
– Breaking Defense – The Navy will scrap the troubled RMMV drone meant to hunt mines from its controversial Littoral Combat Ships, replacing it with a different type of robot boat.
New Australian Long Range Defense Plan Has Maritime Emphasis
– USNI News – Australia has placed significant emphasis on enhancing its maritime capabilities in its long-delayed 2016 Defence White Paper amidst an overall surge in the country’s defense spending, while warning that China’s policies and actions will have a major impact on the stability of the Indo-Pacific in the coming decades.
India’s first nuclear submarine INS Arihant ready for operations, passes deep sea tests
– Economic Times – India’s first nuclear armed submarine is now ready for full fledged operations, having passed several deep sea diving drills as well as weapons launch tests over the past five months and a formal induction into the naval fleet is only a political call away.
China Seeks ‘Hegemony’ in Asia: Adm. Harris, PACOM
– Breaking Defense – The gloves came off during today’s Senate Armed Services committee hearing on China and North Korea with Pacific Command’s Adm. Harry Harris saying that China seeks “hegemony in East Asia” and is unequivocally militarizing the South China Sea.
New Possible Chinese Radar Installation on South China Sea Artificial Island Could Put U.S., Allied Stealth Aircraft at Risk
– USNI News – A possible new Chinese radar installation in the South China Sea could put American and allied stealth aircraft at risk as part of a wider detection network similar to U.S. efforts to find Russian bombers in the Cold War.
America’s Post-Oil Grand Strategy
– Thomas P.M. Barnett – Thomas P.M. Barnett’s latest opinion on what America’s grand strategy should be going forward.
What makes just 16 missiles such a deadly threat in the South China Sea
– Reuters – James Holmes writes that “In a move that should surprise precisely no one, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has positioned surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) on one of its South China Sea islands — namely Woody Island, home to Sansha, the administrative capital for the islands, atolls, and other geographic features Beijing claims in the Paracels and Spratlys. For Beijing this move makes eminent sense on many levels: it constitutes yet another reply to American and Southeast Asian challenges to its claims of “indisputable sovereignty” over most of the South China Sea.”
Russia’s Monster Battlecruisers Are Getting Hypersonic Anti-Ship Missiles
– National Interest – The Russian Navy is set to upgrade its nuclear-powered Project 11442 Kirov-class battlecruiser Pyotr Veliky with a new hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile. The new Mach 5.0-capable 3M22 Zircon missiles would replace the ship’s existing 390-mile range P-700 Granit supersonic anti-ship missiles.
CBARS Drone Under OSD Review; Can A Tanker Become A Bomber?
– Breaking Defense – The Navy’s new flying robot fuel truck, CBARS, is being reviewed by senior officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Dawn of the Air-Phibious Drones? Flying Fish UAV Swims and Flies
– Defense News – Meet the prosaically named Unmanned Hybrid Vehicle (UHV), a developmental project of Singapore’s ST Engineering. The UHV flies on a single pusher propeller which feathers and folds when the craft is below the waves.
Challenges for Military Sealift Command: The Distributed Fleet
– Breaking Defense – A fundamental question in today’s budget battle is, can the MSC actually support Navy plans to more widely distribute its fleet? Today’s answer can only be a provisional yes, given the shortage of ships, and the proliferation of new high-demand drivers such as the Littoral Combat Ship. In addition to a declining merchant fleet there is a growing shortage of trained and experienced civil mariners generated by the decline in the US merchant marine.
Former NATO Commander Stavridis Warns ISIS Could Strike Marine Corps, Navy Fleet
– USNI News – Fifteen years after the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole (DDG-67) that killed 17 sailors, Navy ships and other deployed U.S. forces face real threat of attack by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), the former NATO supreme allied commander warned a defense conference in San Diego.
Whence the Threat? Lessons From Argentina’s Air-Naval Arsenal in 2015
– CIMSEC – Even thirty-three years after the end of hostilities there, the Falklands Islands still enjoy close attention. Diplomatic skirmishes and oil exploration at the islands merit recurring interest. But perhaps above all, the positioning of the Argentine military draws attention which few of its other Latin American counterparts receive.
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