UK defense contractor QinetiQ confirmed that it has added Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers to the naval combat systems integration support service (NCSISS) it provides in partnership for the Royal Navy. Confirmation of the £9 million contract extension follows the company’s announcement earli
The second Royal Navy Dreadnought-class ballistic missile submarine will be named HMS Valiant, the UK defense secretary has announced. In addition to naming the submarine, defense secretary Gavin Williamson announced a £400 million funding boost for the Dreadnought program. The planned funding relea
The Norwegian defense ministry has shared a detailed, and illustrated, plan of how it plans to salvage the HNoMS Helge Ingstad which has been sitting on the sea bottom in the Hjeltefjorden fjord after colliding with a tanker on November 8. While the plan provides no timetable on when the operation w
US Navy aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) worked out with the Italian Air Force in the Mediterranean Sea on November 29. F/A-18s from Carrier Air Wing One (CVW-1) embarked aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier worked with Italian Eurofighter Typhoon fighter aircraft. “Every time we fl
After concluding a visit to the Algerian port of Algiers last week, NATO’s Standing Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2) arrived in Marmaris, Turkey, for a port call on November 27. The group is conducting the visits after resuming regular Mediterranean Sea patrols following their participation in NATO’s major
German Navy combat support ship EGV Bonn is getting underway from her Wilhelmshaven homeport on November 30 to join NATO’s Standing Maritime Group 2 (SNMG 2) in the Aegean Sea. The 173-meter-long Berlin-class replenishment ship is joining SNMG2 after completing an overhaul which started in August 20
Navy ships deployed to NATO’s Standing Maritime Group One (SNMG1) and Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group One (SNMCMG1) stopped in Karlskrona, Sweden, for a port visit from November 23 to 25. The port visit included visits to local military and civilian officials as well as tours of the ships f
The second of the Royal Navy’s two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers has fired up her engines for the first time. Engineers aboard HMS Prince of Wales turned on the diesel generators in a milestone on the road to sending the 65,000-ton warship to sea in the second half of next year. In the bo
Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon has seized three tons of hashish in a Persian Gulf operation, the Royal Navy informed. The Portsmouth-based destroyer was on patrol in the Middle East when they came across a suspicious dhow – a type of vessel common to the Middle East – in a notorious drug sm
Months of rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine in the Sea of Azov escalated on Sunday when Russian forces first fired upon and subsequently seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels as they were trying to enter the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait. Latest reports say six Ukrainian sailors were i
The UK Royal Navy has welcomed two major warships home from operations in Europe and Asia Pacific. On Friday, Type 45 destroyer HMS Diamond returned home to Portsmouth after two months of operations in the Mediterranean while amphibious assault ship HMS Albion returned to Plymouth after a ten-month
The Royal Navy is retaining its three Batch 1 River-class offshore patrol vessels for at least the next two years, UK defense secretary Gavin Williamson announced on November 22. The announcement follows the previous decommissioning of two of the ships in the class, HMS Severn in 2017 and HMS Tyne i
The NHIndustries-developed NH90 Sea Lion has recently achieved two important milestones ahead of the official first delivery of the helicopter to the German Navy at the end of 2019. As announced by Airbus, all ground and flight tests for the qualification of the new NH90 variant were concluded in th
US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) got underway from its forward-deployed homeport of Naval Station Rota, Spain, On November 19 to start its eighth patrol in the US 6th Fleet area of operations. Donald Cook deployed two days after sister ship USS Carney (
