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World Naval Developments Update
Because this overview is limited in length, it includes only highlights, and it cannot cover even most of the world’s navies. Many navies continue to be involved in anti-piracy operations off Somalia;...
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A2/AD Answers?
Two of the most important recent naval developments both relate to aircraft carriers: the flight of the U.S. Navy’s X-47B unmanned carrier attack aircraft in February 2011 and the advent of the Chinese...
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Sensors at Sea
Surely the most spectacular recent advance in naval sensing has been the rise of unmanned vehicles – air, surface, and underwater – carrying sensors, whose output they can record or transmit back for...
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Naval Ballistic Missile Defense
It has now been two decades since the U.S. Navy formally adopted the ballistic missile defense mission. For much of that time, ballistic missile defense was a relatively minor role, funded mainly by...
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World Naval Developments 2011-2012
Surely the most spectacular of the world naval developments of 2011 was the advent of the first Chinese aircraft carrier, the former Soviet Varyag. Rumors have it renamed Shi Lang, after the Chinese...
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The U.S. Navy of 2030
Looking ahead is always daunting; crystal balls are not what they once were. If you were looking 20-odd years ahead in, say, 1975, when the Soviets seemed to be doing rather well in the Cold War, would...
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The Falklands War, 30 Years Later
It is now 30 years since the Argentineans seized the Falklands, one of the last British colonies, and the British seized them back. The war between the two included the hottest naval action of the Cold...
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Submarines and Their Future
Do submarines have a future? They are the oldest stealthy vehicles. It is often argued (recently by the chief of naval operations himself) that accelerating computer power (Moore’s Law) is likely to...
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World Naval Developments 2012
What follows are only highlights of world naval developments and programs for 2012. They are restricted to a few navies, and within those navies to a few high-profile programs. Surely the most...
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Aegis Air Defense System at Thirty
It has been 30 years since the missile cruiser Ticonderoga first took the Aegis system to sea. In 1982, Aegis was a vastly expensive anti-aircraft system entering a world in which much simpler ones had...
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Invested in Carriers
This seems to be a boom time for carriers. The first Chinese carrier, the Liaoning, is running operational trials and has recently demonstrated the ability to launch and recover its supersonic...
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Nuclear Power for Surface Combatants
As the price of oil skyrocketed in 2008, some in Congress argued that it was pointless to keep building oil-powered warships. Surely the future lay with a return to the vision of the 1960s, when it...
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From Davits to Docks: The Evolution of U.S. Navy Amphibious Ships
USS Arlington (LPD 24) is the culmination of a century of attempts to answer one question: how do you move heavy equipment from the sea onto a beach without piers or other port facilities? That is the...
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Nuclear Power in Aircraft Carriers
It has been a little over half a century since the first nuclear-powered warship, the submarine USS Nautilus, signaled that she was under way on nuclear power in 1955. Carriers like USS George H.W....
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Going Electric: The History and Future of Naval Electric Drive
The new Zumwalt-class destroyer is described as an “electric ship.” The next-generation carrier is more “electric” by far than any predecessor. Probably the same will be true of the coming cruiser....
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Aircraft Carrier Evolution
The USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) is the latest chapter in a carrier story which began almost a century ago, in November 1910, when an intrepid aviator named Eugene “George” Ely flew off the deck...
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