The Navy is satisfied that land-based and at-sea testing of the new combining gear system — and its bearings, specifically — sufficiently wrung out the new design, and now the service can move forward with installing the fix in new-construction and in-service ships.
House appropriators ripped a proposal to decommission four littoral combat ships contained in President Joe Biden’s Pentagon budget request for next year as “a misuse of taxpayer funds.”
The U.S. Navy has asked for a budget that would boost near-term readiness by investing in ship and aircraft maintenance but shrinks procurement and force structure, again pausing plans to grow the fleet.