Fred Pyle News Today

The USS Harry S. Truman will soon lead a Navy strike group into the volatile Red Sea, where U.S. sailors have fought almost daily for months to down drones and missiles launched by Houthi rebels from Yemen.

The sea service spent billions of dollars to increase its weapons inventory. Now it has run into a major obstacle.

A lot could ride on the DDG(X), especially after the fiascos that included the U.S. Navy's Zumwalt-class and Littoral Combat Ship program. Both failed to deliver on their highly-touted promises.

“We’re 10 years down the road and we still don’t have something we can field?”

The goal is to keep ships at sea and those in queue up to date, the service’s surface warfare director said.

The UK lauded the test of the laser air defense weapon, developed by Britain’s defense innovation unit, just weeks after an American admiral said it was time to be more "intellectually honnest" about what the class of weapons can do.

The surface fleet has shot down scores of attack drones and missiles since October, activity without modern precedent in U.S. Navy history.

Mod 2.0 Arleigh Burke destroyers will get new radar, electronic warfare, and other capabilities as part of larger modernization push.

There's no lack of excitement in the Navy about the idea of an operational laser on a ship underway, but the service must be more "intellectually honest" about what's possible, Rear Adm. Fred Pyle said at the Surface Navy Association's annual symposium.

The director of surface warfare provides his vision for modernization over the next 15 years.