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Iran has carried out a massive attack on a mock version of an American Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Tehran wanted everyone to know about it—state TV broadcasted the military exercise live. It’s a revealing look at Iranian naval assault tactics, involving several waves of ships backed by helicopters and shore-launched missiles. The timing isn’t a coincidence. The United States and Iran are deadlocked over a deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program. The Iranians built the giant, 1:1-scale mock-up of the carrier on top of a barge almost one year ago. Photos released from Iranian news agencies on Feb. 25 now show...

On June 30, 2014, I wrote a syndicated column titled, “Terrorist attack via infectious disease?” I postulated that America is being placed in mortal danger as illegal aliens, to which I specifically add the tens of thousands of illegal alien children, are flooding our borders. I wrote: “It is a fact that no one, not government nor anyone else, can begin to quantify the danger we face from disease borne by illegal aliens. Illegals coming from Third World countries are not the rich and well-educated who were able to seek health care in their country of origin. They are the...

The U.S. Navy is about to cut in half the number of aircraft carriers it keeps ready for combat. Starting in 2015, just two American flattops will be on station at any given time, down from three or four today. The change is spelled out in a presentation by Adm. Bill Gortney, head of Fleet Forces Command. The U.S. Naval Institute published the presentation on its Website on Jan. 24. The new “Optimized Fleet Response Plan” represents an effort to standardize training, maintenance and overseas cruise schedules for the Navy’s 283 front-line warships, in particular the 10 nuclear-powered carriers. The...

The U.S. aircraft carrier presence in the Persian Gulf will temporarily decline due to unexpected repairs and unusual maintenance problems, the Navy said on Wednesday. The USS Nimitz was expected to be deployed to the Gulf early next year to relieve the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is now stationed in the region, but will be delayed due to the need for extensive repairs on a failed propulsion pump. The USS Eisenhower is being sent back to the U.S for repairs to its flight deck. It will remain in Norfolk, Virginia, for two months and then return to the Middle...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis is being rushed to the Persian Gulf as tensions between Israel and Iran edge closer to the boiling point. The Nimitz class carrier, with an air wing of about 90 aircraft, sets sail Monday on an eight-month deployment to the region -- four months ahead of schedule. In the gulf it will join the USS Enterprise Strike Group, giving the United States a powerful deterrent to any Iranian attack on commercial oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz or a counterpunch to Iranian...

Celebrating the Miracle at Midway It is hard to imagine now but in June of 1942 it seemed a good possibility that the Americans and British could be on the losing side of the Second World War. In June 1942 the Japanese onslaught in the Pacific appeared nearly unstoppable. The Imperial Navy stormed across the Pacific and Indian Oceans in the months after Pearl Harbor decimating Allied Naval forces that stood in their way.

The (UK) government has changed its mind over the type of fighter planes it is ordering for the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier.

Russia will start producing six submarines and one aircraft carrier annually starting in 2013, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Thursday. “By 2013, production capacity [at Russian shipyards] will allow us to build six submarines and an aircraft carrier every year,” Rogozin told reporters, adding that the number includes both nuclear and diesel-powered submarines. As a result, the production output will surpass that of the Soviet era when Russia built an average of five submarines annually, he said. Rogozin earlier said the production had been bogged down in the past by a lack of financing, outdated equipment and a...

Underscoring its desire to keep U.S. aircraft carriers from the Persian Gulf, a senior Iranian military commander today announced his possible plan to ambush the American fleet. Chalk this one up to more bluster, or part of a mounting back and forth rhetoric headed nowhere good, either way - Tehran plans to rely on its subs. Lieutenant Commander of the Iranian Army's Self-Sufficiency Jihad, Rear Admiral Farhad Amiri told Fars that Iran has the finest electic diesel submarines in the world, and that while the U.S. has focused on Tehran's "astonishing surface capabilities," it has forgotten about the underwater threat....

Wonder why the administration made such a stink of reducing the US airborne presence around Libya, and handing it off to France, Italy, Canada and Turkey? Here's the answer: the CVN65 Enterprise which last week was within striking distance of Libya, has quietly left the Red Sea and is now virtually swimming in the wake of CVN 70 Vinson in the Strait of Hormuz. Because obviously whatever is about to happen in the Persian Gulf will need not one but two aircraft carrier formations. And meanwhile in Japan the Washington is doing all it can to put radiation free miles...

Any Chinese move to take over Taiwan would trigger a confrontation with the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Is the U.S. prepared to counter this growing threat? August 9, 2015 - 0400 Hours The war for Taiwan starts in the early morning. There are no naval bombardments or waves of bombers: That's how wars in the Pacific were fought 70 years ago. Instead, 1200 cruise and ballistic missiles rise from heavy vehicles on the Chinese mainland. Taiwan's modest missile defense network—a scattered deployment of I-Hawk and Patriot interceptors—slams into dozens of incoming warheads. It's a futile gesture. The mass raid...

That slide above is no joke -- it comes from a marketing webinar put on by two companies that count Verizon, AT&T and Vodafone as clients, and it describes a system that identifies customer internet activity and charges a different rate for using Facebook than watching YouTube, while allowing access to Vodafone services for free. Yes, that's basically the nightmare scenario for net neutrality advocates. The two companies behind the slide are Allot Communications and Openet, which sell subscriber-management tools to carriers around the world -- tools that Allot's director of marketing says can scan even encrypted packets to determine...

I'm pleased to inform you that Consumer Reports has rated AT&T as the worst of all major cell phone carriers.  I can assure you that they deserve the honor, at least with regard to their customer service telephone line. A few months ago, I had some trouble with my broadband connection.  I was told to call the AT&T customer service number for technical support.  Half an hour later, I wearily hung up the phone after having endured something like this: (1) Welcome to the American Thinker! Si Usted lee sola en español, por favor vaya al (14).  If this...

Military Superiority: By the end of the year, China could deploy an anti-ship missile capable of hitting U.S. aircraft carriers at long range. The naval dominance that American foreign policy depended on may be at an end. When the naval planners of Imperial Japan were laying out the attack on Pearl Harbor, the major question on their mind was — where are the American carriers? In the end, their failure to find them doomed Imperial Japan to defeat. Since World War II, every president alerted to a crisis has asked the same question — where are the carriers? These floating...

Strategy: As the U.S. retreats from the world stage, the nation's top military officer is warning us about China's military buildup and intentions. Already, China is telling us to keep off the grass. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, visiting U.S. troops at Camp Red Cloud in South Korea on Wednesday, talked about his growing concerns about China. "I've moved from being curious about what they're doing to being concerned about what they're doing," the admiral said. "I see a fairly significant investment in high-end equipment — satellites, ships ... anti-ship missiles, obviously high-end aircraft and all those kinds of things....

must come from the sea,” said the chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead, recently about any new U.S. Navy procurement, leaving open to interpretation the programs and projects that will be included in coming budgets. The Navy is “reimagining naval power,” he said. “With cyber-power and unmanned systems we must ask ourselves fundamental questions.” If new capabilities proposed for procurement do not “come from the sea,” Roughead is not interested. The Navy no longer has the luxury of being interested in every new program or platform. The defense budget is getting slimmer. And pressure is coming from above to...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, announced in Ramallah on Tuesday that 50 Russian troop carriers would soon be delivered to the PA. Lavrov told reporters that Moscow provided the carriers a few years ago, "but Israel refused to hand them over." Now, he said, "we have already sent the carriers. The vehicles arrived in Jordan and we hope they will arrive in the next few days." It was not clear if he expected Israel to block them again or allow them through.

The shocking video of Israeli commandos boarding a Turkish vessel, being attacked with knives and iron rods, then shooting back and killing nine, prompts one big question: Where was our Sixth Fleet? Since the end of World War II, America's Sixth Fleet has been the sheriff of the Mediterranean, a shield for our allies and a bulwark against enemies large (like the Soviet Union during the Cold War) and small. As recently as 2003, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, it consisted of 175 aircraft and 40 ships. Today, it consists of exactly one: a command and intelligence ship, half of whose...

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...

Steel-cutting on a section of the hull of the first of the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers began at Portsmouth Thursday 25 February 2010. Portsmouth, which will be the future home of both Queen Elizabeth Class carriers, became the fifth UK shipyard to be involved in construction on the programme. Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth pushed the button to start the laser cutter. He said: "Here in Portsmouth work is just beginning but across the country in Devon, Newcastle, Glasgow and Rosyth work is already under way. "In all, six shipyards across the UK will be involved in the manufacture...