******* ARLINGTON, Va. — The Marine Corps is divesting some types of its short-range, short-endurance small unmanned aerial systems (SUAS) in favor of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) SUAS. The Corps has retired its fixed-wing RQ-11B Raven and RQ-12A Wasp…
Chaplain Admiral: Navy Growing Chaplain Force by 90 to Staff Destroyers
******* ARLINGTON, Va. —The U.S. Navy’s chief of chaplains said the service expects to increase the number of serving chaplains by 90 over the next five years in order to provide chaplains to the guided-missile destroyer (DDG) fleet as those…
Marine Corps Adds KC-130J Squadron to Support Marine Littoral Regiment
******* ARLINGTON, Va. — A new Marine Corps squadron has been activated in Hawaii to enhance mobility of the Corps’ first Marine littoral regiment. Marine Aerial Refueler/Transport Squadron 153 (VMGR-153) was activated at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Kaneohe Bay,…
T-6B Training Aircraft Crashes in Alabama
******* ARLINGTON, Va. — A U.S. Navy T-6B Texan II training aircraft crashed near Foley, Alabama, Jan. 17. The instructor pilot and student naval aviator ejected successfully. The T-6B crashed at approximately 10:50 CST in an unpopulated area near Barin…
Small Torpedo Being Prototyped by Raytheon to Arm the Navy’s Submarines
ARLINGTON, Va. — Raytheon is building prototypes of a small torpedo that is designed to attack hostile submarines and defend the U.S. Navy’s submarines from incoming torpedoes. The Compact Rapid Attack Weapon (CRAW) is designed to be launched from a…
Fleet Forces Commander: Surface Warships Need to be ‘Plug and Play’
****** ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s surface combatants need to be able to operate independently but also integrate with a strike group seamlessly, the admiral in charge of setting fleet doctrine said. The Navy needs “to capitalize on our…
Fleet Forces Commander Scolds Weapons Industry for Supply Chain Woes
******* ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy’s admiral who sets manning, training, and equipping the fleet scolded the weapons industry in a blistering response to a question from an audience of naval personnel and defense industry officials about delays in delivery…
Surface Navy Boss Sets Goal of 75 Mission-Capable Ships on Any Day
******* ARLINGTON, Va. — The type commander of the Navy’s surface combatant fleet has set a goal of sustaining a fleet of 75 mission-capable (MC) ships. “We’ve come up with a North Star goal to drive all of our readiness…
Navy’s SPY-6 Radar to Reach Initial Operational Capability in 4th Quarter Fiscal 2024
************ ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s new SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar is scheduled to reach Initial Operational Capability (IOC) during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, a Raytheon official said. The radar, which first went to sea…
Congress Orders Report on Plan for Future of Navy’s Expeditionary EA-18G Squadrons
ARLINGTON, Va. — Congress rejected the U.S. Navy’s 2023 budget proposal to deactivate five electronic attack squadrons (VAQs) that operate the Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack jet in the defense policy bill recently signed into law by President Joe Biden. Instead,…
