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Russian Ka-52 Alligator helicopters may be the best choice to arm Mistral helicopter carriers, which Russia plans to purchase from France, the chief of Russian helicopter holding said on Wednesday. Russia negotiates the purchase of at least one Mistral-class amphibious assault ship, worth 400-500 million euros (around $530-$660 million) and plans to build three more vessels of the same class in partnership with a French naval shipbuilder. The director of the Federal Service of Military-Technical Cooperation in April told RIA Novosti the political decision on the Mistral's purchase had already been taken. "The French have said the Ka-52 could be...

Their $33 million helicopters are new. There’s an aircraft-carrier briefing room with their name on the door now. And they get extra parking spaces on the multimillion-dollar real estate of the carrier flight deck. All the attention feels a little odd, Navy helicopter pilots say. “We’re not used to being the story,” said Cmdr. Ken Strong, executive officer of HSM-77, a San Diego-based squadron of MH-60R Seahawks. It’s a good time to be flying helicopters for the Navy. Long in the shadow of the jet jockeys — no one has ever made a movie about the rotor-blade community with Tom...

Military Advantage: Our defense secretary proposes doing what no other foreign adversary has done: sink the U.S. Navy. We don't need those billion-dollar destroyers, he says. Meanwhile, the Chinese navy rushes to fill the vacuum. Once Britannia ruled the waves, later to be replaced by America and its Navy. From the Battle of Midway to President Reagan's 600-ship fleet that helped win the Cold War, naval supremacy has been critical to the protection and survival of our nation. Which is why we find the recent remarks of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the Navy League at the Sea-Air-Space expo so...

The U.S. Navy told Congress it wants to keep 11 aircraft carriers through 2045, just days after Defense Secretary Robert Gates called into question the need for that many."The Navy remains firmly committed to maintaining a force of 11 carriers for the next three decades," Sean Stackley, the service's warship buyer, told the Senate Armed Services Seapower subcommittee on Thursday. The 11-carrier force structure is based on "world-wide presence requirements, surge availability, training and exercise, and maintenance" needs, he said in an opening statement. Gates stirred the waters on Monday with a speech in which he asked whether the United...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday said new weapons threatened US dominance of the high seas and questioned the US Navy's reliance on costly aircraft carriers and submarines. ADVERTISEMENT Anti-ship missiles and stealthy submarines could undermine the US military's global reach, putting carriers and American subs at risk, Gates said in a speech to retired members of the US Navy. "We know other nations are working on asymmetric ways to thwart the reach and striking power of the US battle fleet," Gates said. He cited the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, which had used anti-ship missiles against Israel in 2006, and...

The Navy faces an operational “tipping point” where the demand for overseas presence will far exceed the number of ships, according to the influential Center for Naval Analyses. CNA’s new report, “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?”, which was provided to DOD Buzz, is being used by the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations to evaluate future force plans. It says that despite a 20 percent decrease in the size of the total battle fleet over the past 10 years, the number of ships deployed, around 100 at any given time, has remained constant. The...

Industry players have until early May to respond to a U.S. Navy request for information (RFI) for a carrier-based, stealthy, unmanned, strike and surveillance system capable of integrating with manned aircraft as part of a carrier air wing by 2018. The unmanned carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike (Uclass) RFI calls for a notional system made up of 4-6 autonomously launched and recoverable vehicles to operate in “irregular and hybrid warfare scenarios.” The system must be able to operate from CVN-68 and -78-class carriers, and be capable of being directed from both carrier- and shore-based mission control stations. The stealthy UAV...

The STOVL version of the Joint Strike Fighter is not too hot and is not too loud, Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway told DoD Buzz during an editorial board session. The most troubling operational challenge that appeared to face the F-35B, next to weight, was reports that it would not be suitable for a carrier or other ship because its exhaust would melt the flight deck. Not so, Conway told reporters from Military​.com. The plane, at 1,500 degrees, is just 18 degrees hotter than a Harrier, he said Thursday. He also debunked persistent reports that the JSF will blow the...

In a strange twist of fate, a former province of the then USSR — Ukraine — is emerging as the likely meeting point for naval aviators from India and China as the two countries try to rapidly acquire the capabilities to build and operate aircraft carriers of the future. A small aircraft carrier training base on the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine is the most sought after training facility for both countries that are planning to induct modern aircraft carriers in the next five years. While India, which has been operating aircraft carriers for the past 50 years, wants to use...

<p>Taiwan said Wednesday that its giant neighbour China has started building its first aircraft carrier, a move analysts have said could raise military tensions in the region. The head of Taiwan's National Security Bureau told parliament construction of the carrier had begun, Lin Yu-fang, a legislator of the ruling Kuomintang party, told AFP.</p>

While Russian admirals have been talking about building six aircraft carriers in the next decade, the president of Russia has recently ordered them to concentrate on smaller ships for the Black and Baltic Seas. The Black Sea fleet has been continually declining since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. That decline is the result of new countries (like Ukraine and Georgia) inheriting old Soviet ships and bases. That was the dissolution deal. Whatever Soviet weapons or bases were normally were, belonged to one of the 14 new nations. Most of Russia’s high seas ships were based in northern Russia (the...

National Security: On the eve of a visit by China's No. 2 ranking military officer, the Obama administration loosens export controls on technology that will benefit Chinese missile development. It's deja vu all over again. The Pentagon has announced that Chinese Gen. Xu Caihou will visit the United States and meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Oct. 26. Xu is vice chairman of the People's Liberation Army Central Military Commission. While here, Xu will visit American military installations around the U.S., including the U.S. Pacific Command. Perhaps Xu will bring with him a note of thanks for the administration's...

Navy Decommissions USS Kitty Hawk Story Number: NNS090512-08 Release Date: 5/12/2009 5:37:00 PM From Kitty Hawk Public Affairs BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) -- The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) was decommissioned May 12 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton, Wash., after more than 48 years of service. Members of the final crew lowered the ship's commissioning pennant from the main mast and the U.S. Flag and First Navy Jack from their staffs after Kitty Hawk Commanding Officer Capt. Todd Zecchin closed out the ship's deck log. "It's hard to capture the feeling in words,"...

With tensions already rising due to the Chinese navy becoming more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy seems to have yet another reason to be deeply concerned. After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers. First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S....

My surface ship buddy Tim passed on these photos of the second class of littoral combat ship (LCS 2), named Independence, and built by General Dynamics/Bath iron Works in their Mobile, Alabama shipyards. The other ships built thus far for the LCS program have been by Lockheed Martin and have had their fair share of problems, having had two of their follow-on LCS programs cancelled for cost overruns. Both GD and Lockheed Martin had contracts canceled for their 2nd hulls, due primarily to an inability to agree on a fixed price contract with the Navy (edited thanks to Ken Adams...

The British are building 2 carriers. Video at link. Humor

Will Russia create the world's second largest surface navy? 15:05 | 13/ 11/ 2007 MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - The year 2007 can safely be described as Russia's year of combat aviation. Both in July at Le Bourget in France and in August at Zhukovsky outside Moscow, thousands of spectators held their breath as they watched stunts performed by MiG and Su planes equipped with vectored-thrust engines. It was a sight to be proud of. The planes featured were all land-based, although it is aircraft carrier aviation that makes up the effective core of the present-day air...

US naval power wanes With more countries acquiring or building aircraft carriers, the US's power in the world's waters is rapidly waning, forcing the its military to re-examine its maritime strategy. By John C K Daly for ISN Security Watch (27/08/07) The most important maritime lesson that the US learned during World War II was the primacy of aircraft carriers. For the last 60 years the country has had a near virtual monopoly on this class of warship and today operates the largest and most expensive carriers afloat, the nuclear-powered Nimitz-class CVNs, 1,092 feet long and capable of carrying 85...

It was 40 years ago today, in the waters off Vietnam, that the crew of the USS Forrestal saw the gates of hell. A missile accidentally fired from a plane on the flight deck triggered a blazing inferno that would claim the lives of 134 men, two from New Jersey -- Francis Campeau of Bergenfield and Richard Vallone of Bridgewater. Not since World War II had a ship's crew sustained so many casualties. The Forrestal, the first of the Navy's newest class of super carriers left Norfolk, Va., in June 1967 for what was to be her first combat deployment....

This recently unclassified photo was taken as the result of manoeuvres during Exercise NOBLE MARINER in May where HMCS Corner Brook was able to approach a high value unit, in this case the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, without being detected. Anti-submarine warfare continues to be one of the most under-estimated and difficult threats for allies and potential adversaries to deal with. “The picture represents hard evidence that the submarine was well within attack parameters and would have been successful in an attack,” says Commander Luc Cassivi, commander Submarine Division in Halifax. “This situation enabled the crew to demonstrate advanced...