Huntington Ingalls Industries announced yesterday that structural production of the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is 75 percent complete. The lead ship in the new class of carriers has been under construction at the company’s Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division since November 2009. I
£14m of drugs used to fund terrorist activity will never reach their destination thanks to a major bust by HMS Westminster. The Portsmouth-based warship intercepted a suspicious dhow in the Indian Ocean, seizing over 70 bales containing more than 180kg of pure heroin. The Portsmouth-based frigate po
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced April 16 the next Zumwalt-class destroyer will be named the USS Lyndon B. Johnson. The selection of Lyndon B. Johnson, designated DDG 1002, continues the Navy tradition of naming ships after presidents and honors the nation’s 36th president. USS Lyndon B. Jo
As part of a foreign military sales case, the U.S. Navy worked together with French military to execute France’s first aerial-target live-fire event using a GQM-163A Coyote Supersonic Sea Skimming Target (SSST), or missile, on April 4. France’s military procurement agency Direction Generale Pour L’A
Warships from across the globe – including a dozen Royal Navy warships, submarines and auxiliaries – are converging on Scotland for the largest military exercise staged in home waters in many years. Thirty two naval units, plus soldiers and air forces – some 8,000 personnel in all from eight nations
Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Port Hueneme Division led an Evolved Seasparrow Missile integration test aboard the Turkish navy frigate TCG Gediz (F-495), March 5-18, in preparation for live-fire testing to be conducted in April. The integration test verified the ability of the ship’s Seasparro
On 4 April, the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard intercepted a stash of 91 kilos of drugs near Curaçao. Earlier, on 20 March, 500 kilograms of cocaine had been found on a so-called go-fast boat in the international waters of the Caribbean Sea. These seizures were made during an operation led by the Royal
HMS Middleton demonstrated her minehunting prowess during an exercise with the US Navy – finding a grand total of 13 dummy mines in the Gulf. The two Allied navies worked hand-in-hand for ten days – just one important episode in a busy month for Bahrain-based Middleton And despite the trompe-l’œil o
After passing through the Suez Canal on 1 April, the multipurpose frigate HNLMS Van Amstel officially began its participation in EU Operation Atalanta. The Van Amstel will contribute to the mission against pirates operating off the coast of East Africa up to the end of May 2012.Operation Atalanta is
HMS Westminster’s pirate-busters trained with their Kenyan counterparts when the Portsmouth warship visited the great port of Mombasa. As well as exercising with local forces, the frigate was used to promote trade between the UK and East Africa and launched an initiative by Anglo-Kenyan authorities
Pirate camps on the Somali coast may now also be tackled from Dutch ships. The Dutch Government approved the expansion of the Atalanta counterpiracy mission and informed the House of Representatives of the decision on 6 April. However, military personnel will not set foot on land for the purposes of
Russian destroyer Vice-Admiral Kulakov of Udaloy class together with a Northern Fleet’s task force is scheduled to arrive in the Gulf of Aden in the beginning of May with a mission of contributing international activities on anti-piracy off the Somali coast, Ria Novosti informed. The destroyer will
On Wednesday 11 April, in Harlingen the third of four Holland Class Oceangoing Patrol Vessels, “Friesland” built by Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding for the Royal Netherlands Navy, was transferred to the Defence Materiel Organization of the Ministry of Defence of the Netherlands. After delivery the
Guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) arrived in the Gulf of Aden, April 8, to join with Combined Maritime Forces, Combined Task Force (CTF) 151. CTF 151, a multi-national, mission-based task force based in Bahrain, conducts counter-piracy operations in the Southern Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Som
