US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
Too many hands on the basket. Too many admirals and generals seeking political relevance and wants to put their own hand in the basket. So you go through an exhaustive check list by committee, and in the end, nothing can be done within the budget allotrd or the time period given because trying to achieve all these checks. This is project management cancer that I have been observing from as mundane as AAA games to automobiles to as grand as defense and infrastructure projects.
There's newer generations in charge now and they don't feel the need to learn from their forebears. Their egos and obsession for relevancy sets them up for it.
Even without Trump, the Constellation-class was still a failure; this is a failure of USN and the American shipbuilding industry, there's no way to shift the blame to anyone else.
According to President Trump's American public broadcaster NPR, the United States Navy's largest and costliest warship, the USS Gerald R. Ford is afflicted by clogged up toilets and broken down plumbing on a daily basis.
From on this unfortunate situation:
Worse yet — not only do these lavatory deficiencies occur daily — but urinals and toilets aboard CVN 78 would be left unflushable for hours during repairs
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This foul situation isn't quite as high profile as the Ford's struggles to launch the F-35C with its EMALS, but you can just imagine how having to "hold it in" on the regular is going to affect crew morale.
From on this unfortunate situation:
Worse yet — not only do these lavatory deficiencies occur daily — but urinals and toilets aboard CVN 78 would be left unflushable for hours during repairs
:This foul situation isn't quite as high profile as the Ford's struggles to launch the F-35C with its EMALS, but you can just imagine how having to "hold it in" on the regular is going to affect crew morale.
Congress is moving to revive and protect two major U.S. airborne combat-air programs that the Pentagon recently tried to scale back—the Air Force’s E-7 Wedgetail and the Navy’s F/A-XX—by putting substantially more money in a negotiated FY2026 defense spending bill and adding language that blocks the services from pausing/canceling them.
- Air Force E-7 Wedgetail: boosts FY2026 funding to $1.1B and bars pausing/canceling, to replace aging E-3 AWACS.
- Navy F/A-XX: adds ~$900M above the request, forces an EMD winner selection, and bars pausing/canceling, to keep a next-gen carrier fighter on track.
The F/A-XX is really a question of whether the industrial base is able to procede with multiple sixth gen programs (only they know!). In terms of the E-7, they absolutely need this because it has unique capabilities only this platform can deliver for at least another decade or two. Certain groups are pushing hard for such space-based systems (actually incl. China) but there are many issues still unresolved on that front. The constellations can be complementary but won't be able to replace it.
