The British Royal Navy’s next-generation nuclear ballistic missile submarines — HMS Dreadnought, HMS Valiant, HMS Warspite, and HMS King George VI — are all currently under construction at BAE Systems’ Barrow-in-Furness shipyard. Each Dreadnought-class boat displaces approximately 17,200 tonnes, making it the largest submarine ever built for the Royal Navy. They will be powered by the Rolls-Royce PRW3 nuclear reactor — a design influenced by the American SG9 reactor used on the Virginia-class — and will carry 12 Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles each.
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Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle acknowledged this month that American shipyards are unlikely to consistently achieve the U.S. Navy’s target of two Virginia-class submarines per year until the early 2030s. The Virginia-class — built jointly by General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII Newport News Shipbuilding since 2004 — is now in its fifth production block. Block V introduced the Virginia Payload Module, an 84-foot hull extension that tripled Tomahawk capacity from roughly 12 missiles to 40.
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The maniacal push for deploying U.S. forces on the ground in Ukraine is relentless. The Blob’s urge must be resisted.
In an oped recently at Real Clear Defense, William Courtney and Philip Wasielewski published a piece outlining their vision of why American troops should be on the ground in Ukraine to support ‘security guarantees’ for Kyiv in any pending ceasefire.
It should be noted that Courtney is former foreign service and Wasielewsi is former CIA.
After years of considering how to leverage in-space refueling and servicing technologies, the Space Force is kicking off a number of near-term efforts to chart a path toward operationalizing the capability.
The service is planning to host two demonstrations in 2027 for on-orbit logistics — one focused on refueling satellites in space and another on augmented maneuver, Col. Scott Carstette, Space System Command’s director of servicing, mobility and logistics (SML), told reporters Wednesday.
The F-35A Lightning II has been certified as a Dual-Capable Aircraft, allowing it to deliver both conventional and thermonuclear weapons. It is the first fifth-generation stealth fighter ever certified for the nuclear mission and the first tactical fighter to receive the designation since the early 1990s. The F-35A can carry two B61-12 thermonuclear bombs internally, preserving its stealth profile. The B61-12 features a Boeing guidance tail kit, inertial navigation, and a variable yield from 0.3 to 50 kilotons. The aircraft uses an isolated Nuclear Aircraft Monitoring and Control system.
In 2012, two German Eurofighter Typhoons notionally shot down U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors during a Red Flag exercise over Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. The F-22s were flying with external fuel tanks that compromised their stealth, and the engagement was a close-range dogfight rather than the beyond-visual-range fight the Raptor was designed to win. Colonel Andreas Pfeiffer and Major Marco Gumbrecht of the Luftwaffe later called the F-22’s capabilities overwhelming at long range.
A company violated federal law for acting as a vetted agent and charging veterans fees to help file disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs, a North Carolina court ruled this week.
The federal circuit court ruling issued Wednesday found that Veterans Guardian VA Claim Consulting, LLC, also referred to as “Guardian” in court documents, ran afoul of federal law. The class action lawsuit brought by veterans also alleges that the company violated North Carolina laws around deceptive trade practices, but the court has not ruled on it yet.
The Defense Department is requesting close to $30 billion in fiscal 2027 to purchase and enable next-generation AI supercomputers and modernize the military’s computing infrastructure to power them.
According to recently published budget documents, the Pentagon aims to build out its portfolio of highly secure data centers, and ultimately centralize and scale supercomputing assets across the joint force through its new “AI Arsenal initiative.” The fiscal 2027 proposal comes with a $29.5 billion spending plan.
The U.S. Navy’s FY2027 shipbuilding plan strongly signals that the Trump-class nuclear-powered battleship has effectively superseded the DDG(X) destroyer program. The Navy had planned to begin DDG(X) procurement around FY2028 to replace the Arleigh Burke-class and assume roles once held by the retired Ticonderoga-class cruisers.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Duchaine Paul knows something about working in hot places.
As a Security Forces airman, Paul is assigned to Moody Air Force Base in southern Georgia, which sits adjacent to two federally protected swamps and ranks among the hottest and most humid military duty stations in the U.S.
But Paul recently spent time in an even hotter spot, making some history as he did, becoming the first member of the Air Force to graduate from the Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course-Panama.