Sam LaGrone

THE PENTAGON – The House Armed Services Committee is investigating substandard welding on submarines and aircraft carriers at Newport News Shipbuilding, the committee announced on Friday. Following a Thursday report in USNI News, lawmakers are now looking into how shipbuilders at the Virginia yard had violated proper welding procedures on work that made it into current in-service submarines. The flawed work was found by quality assurance teams at Newport News Shipbuilding, which led to a wider investigation into welding quality that’s drawn in the Department of Justice, USNI News reported. “It is deeply concerning to learn that faulty welds may

West coast carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) was ordered to remain in the Middle East as regional conflict intensifies, according to a Sunday Pentagon statement. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin instructed the carrier strike group to remain in U.S. Central Command as part of an increase of American forces in the region. “The Secretary has directed that the [Lincoln CSG] remain in the USCENTCOM theater and that the [Wasp Amphibious Ready Group] will continue to operate in the Eastern Mediterranean,” reads the statement. “This afloat posture is complemented by [Department of Defense’s] elevated fighter and attack squadron presence, including F-22, F-15E, F-16

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Two U.S. guided-missile destroyers destroyed a handful of Iranian missiles using a combination of weapons, including the Standard Missile 3, a U.S. official confirmed to USNI News on Wednesday. USS Bulkeley (DDG-84) and USS Cole (DDG-67) fired about a dozen interceptors at Iranian missiles fired at Israel, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The two destroyers are independently deployed and are in the Eastern Mediterranean as of Monday, according to USNI News’ Fleet and Marine Tracker. Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder did not have additional details about the destroyers’ involvement in protecting Israel from the barrage of

HII’s Lucas Hicks, with the Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, right, and Capt. Colin Day, left, commanding officer of the Ford-class aircraft carrier Pre-Commissioning Unit John F. Kennedy (CVN 79), during a tour of the flight deck, Aug. 28, 2024. US Navy Photo

ABOARD AIRCRAFT CARRIER ITS Cavour (550), Changi Naval Base, Singapore – The Itatlian Navy’s extended deployment to the Pacific resulted in its sea-based F-35B Lightning II fighter achieving initial operational capability and exercising with partners in the Indo-Pacific deployment, said CSG commander Rear Adm. Giancarlo Ciappina. “This campaign has been very fruitful for us to declare our initial operational capabilities of our F-35Bs, because all the training that we have been performing has composed the necessary frame for us to be able to operate the aircraft,” said Ciappina at a media conference on the carrier while it was docked at

PASCAGOULA, Miss. – The first shift at Ingalls Shipbuilding starts two hours before dawn in the summer. Around 4 a.m. workers begin to arrive at the 800-acre shipyard – an incongruous white square in the middle of brown-green Mississippi swampland. Welders, pipefitters, machinists and painters hustle to work on ships that tower skyscraper-high over the concrete of the shipyard. Temperatures in Pascagoula routinely hit triple digits in August and keeping a tropical schedule – borrowed from the U.S. Navy in the Pacific – that ends the day before the late afternoon heat makes the work more bearable. Giant movable shades

Army watercraft used to assemble the humanitarian pier in Gaza have been loaded onto a transport ship and are preparing to head back to the East Coast, Army officials confirmed to USNI News on Tuesday. According to Army photos provided to USNI News, LCUs were loaded onto MV Ocean Jazz, which is under contract to move the ships back to Virginia, where the craft will return to their homeport at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., next month. The watercraft are assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary) that were dispatched in March along with Navy and Maritime Administration personnel and vessels

The prime contractor behind the Pentagon’s top acquisition priority is slowing its rate of producing submarines due to a lack of “major components,” company officials said on Wednesday. General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic said GD Electric Boat work on the Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines and the Virginia-class nuclear attack boat would slow to keep pace with a supply chain that’s lagging construction. “EB continues to be severely impacted by late deliveries from major component suppliers, which has delayed schedules and is continuing to impact costs,” Novakovic said during GD’s Fiscal Year 2024 third quarter earnings call with investors. “There

The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force has grounded its fleet of Ospreys after an aircraft failed to take off during an ongoing exercise with the United States. On Sunday, a JGSDF V-22 Osprey participating in Keen Sword 25 sustained damage during a failed take-off attempt. At approximately 11:38 a.m. that day, a V-22 Osprey from the JGSDF’s 1st Helicopter Brigade attempted to take off from Yonaguni Garrison on Yonaguni Island, but the aircraft became unstable and swayed from side to side, according to a Japan Joint Staff Office news release. The lower part of the left wing came into contact with

Fewer than two dozen shipyard workers are responsible for suspicious welds that were discovered on aircraft carriers and submarines built at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding, company officials said during an earnings call for the shipbuilder on Thursday. Company leaders in the earnings call framed the suspicious welds, made on Ford and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and Columbia and Virginia-class submarines, as the a result of a small subset of workers in the yard. “This is a process issue. This is a small fraction of some welders in the yard and a small fraction of welds that were impacted,” HII CEO Christopher