Navy

A Chinese blockade could cut Taiwan’s electrical generating capacity so much that the island is unable to function, according to war games conducted by a U.S. think tank.
“Energy is the weakest element in Taiwan’s resilience against coercion,” warned the report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The overwhelming preponderance of energy must be imported and is thus vulnerable to a blockade.”
China could supplement a blockade with attacks on Taiwan’s electrical grid, as Russia has done with some success in Ukraine.
“Total electricity production might be reduced to 20 percent of pre-blockade electricity levels,” CSIS said. At that level, all manufacturing ceases – including computer chips vital to the U.S. and the global economy.
These conclusions came from a series of 26 war games run by CSIS to test a blockade of Taiwan, an attractive option for Beijing that offers the prospect of Taiwan agreeing to &l..

ROCKHAMPTON, Australia — In the dawn light of July 24, Japanese and American amphibious vehicles churned through the sparkling coastal waters of the Coral Sea, before emerging onto the sands of a central Queensland beach in Australia.
Two hours to the east, another amphibious lodgment was occurring simultaneously at Freshwater Beach. This time the main participants were Australia and South Korea.
The two events, part of a combined joint forcible entry operation, formed the culminating activity for Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025, held in Australia from July 13-27. They were the most sophisticated amphibious landings ever attempted in the eleven iterations of Talisman Sabre so far.
“We maintained a high operational tempo during Exercise Talisman Sabre 25, which was designed to provide intense training to ensure our forces are capable, interoperable, deployable on short notice and combat ready,” Rear Adm. Tom Shultz, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group Seven (ESG-7) an..

MILAN — NATO has deployed a maritime task group made up of Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, and German vessels to boost its maritime presence in the Arctic and High North.
The alliance’s maritime forces assigned to the Standing Maritime Group 1, or SNMG1, have been operating in the strategic waters since this week.
These include the flagship vessel De Ruyter from the Netherlands, the Thor Heyerdahl from Norway, the Bartolomeu Dias from Portugal, and the Rhön from Germany. Additional maritime patrol aircraft have been complementing the ships’ activities.
The NATO task group will conduct anti-submarine activities designed to protect critical sea lines of communication and ensure freedom of navigation in the region as well as routine patrols.
“[They will also carry out] integrated operations involving the coordination of various surface ships and air assets to increase the alliance’s understanding of the maritime environment, enhance information sharing and..

The Navy will continue sharing data with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from satellites that the service had planned to start phasing out on July 31.
The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, or DMSP, satellites used by the Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center will now provide data to NOAA until fall 2026, a Navy spokesperson said Thursday.
“The Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center will continue processing and disseminating Defense Meteorological Satellite Program data through July 31, 2025,” the spokesperson told Military Times.
“The center had planned to phase out the data as part of a Defense Department modernization effort. But after feedback from government partners, officials found a way to meet modernization goals while keeping the data flowing until the sensor fails or the program formally ends in September 2026.”
The DMSP satellites have been in use for over five decades, ..

The U.S. Navy unveiled its new Modular Attack Surface Craft program, which would likely see unmanned surface vessels carrying missiles long distances at sea.
The program calls for the development of a rugged, flexible and high-capacity unmanned surface vessel, or USV, capable of hauling a variety of “containerized payloads,” per a July 28 solicitation. Such payloads would include the maximum equivalent of more than four 40-foot containers — cargo that would roughly equal the size of the Navy’s anti-ballistic missile system, the Mark 70 Mod 1 Payload Delivery System.
“MASC seeks to leverage cutting-edge technologies and modular design principles to create adaptable and resilient solutions that can effectively counter evolving threats,” according to the solicitation.
As shipbuilding efforts have staggered over the years, the Navy has increasingly turned to containerized missile systems to add to the weapons capacity of existing warships, USNI News reported.
The new USVs a..

ROCKHAMPTON, Australia — Long-range fires featured prominently at Exercise Talisman Sabre, the largest war games of their kind ever held in Australia.
Various anti-ship missile firings demonstrated the ability of the U.S. and its allies to hit maritime targets from land-based launchers.
If current tensions between China and Taiwan ever boil over into war, dispersed and mobile anti-ship missiles situated near strategic maritime straits could contain China within the so-called First Island Chain, which stretches southward from the Japanese archipelago down through Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.
This massive exercise in Australia, held from July 13-27, was marked by a number of firsts from Australia, Japan and the United States, as crews aboard HIMARS, Type 12 and Typhon launchers executed their respective fire missions.
The first full day of the exercise kicked off with plumes of rocket engine smoke as HIMARS from three nations – Australia, Singapore and the U.S. &nda..

The U.S. Navy is planning for its next-generation destroyer, currently known as the DDG(X), to feature directed-energy weapons and more capacity to carry and launch missiles.
According to a report this month from the Congressional Research Service, the service is requesting $133.5 million in research and development in its proposed fiscal 2026 budget to manufacture the DDG(X), which it hopes to procure in the early 2030s.
The design for the DDG(X) is larger than previous proposals, with the report noting that it now calls for the ship to have a displacement of 14,500 tons, representing a boost of 1,000 tons from the design put forth in the Navy’s shipbuilding plan for fiscal 2024.
The report questions how an enlarged design would be consistent with the Navy’s stated aim of transitioning to a modernized fleet featuring smaller vessels.
To modernize the fleet and cut costs, the Pentagon has been turning to autonomous vessels, and the Navy recently integrated small unmanned ..

In a seeming bid to counter increasingly aggressive Chinese activities in the South China Sea, the U.S. plans to finance and construct a fast boat facility on the western coast of Palawan in the Philippines.
The facility will be built to launch at least five fast boats, which will be constructed by U.S.-based company ReconCraft. The manufacturer specializes in producing vessels used by law enforcement and the military for rapid interdiction.
According to documents, the vessels will include both “assault boats” and rigid-hulled inflatable boats, USNI News has reported.
The facility, which will also include on-site storage and conference rooms, will provide the Armed Forces of the Philippines with an effective launch point for patrols into the South China Sea.
Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed in increasingly hostile interactions in the region, especially as China has used aggressive tactics to assert its claims over a variety of uninhabitable reefs and shoals.
..

In a seeming bid to counter increasingly aggressive Chinese activities in the South China Sea, the U.S. plans to finance and construct a fast boat facility on the western coast of Palawan in the Philippines.
The facility will be built to launch at least five fast boats, which will be constructed by U.S.-based company ReconCraft. The manufacturer specializes in producing vessels used by law enforcement and the military for rapid interdiction.
According to documents, the vessels will include both “assault boats” and rigid-hulled inflatable boats, USNI News has reported.
The facility, which will also include on-site storage and conference rooms, will provide the Armed Forces of the Philippines with an effective launch point for patrols into the South China Sea.
Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed in increasingly hostile interactions in the region, especially as China has used aggressive tactics to assert its claims over a variety of uninhabitable reefs and shoals.
..