Second Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer passes sea test
The second Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer has passed its sea test.
A statement from Naval Sea Systems Command says the future USS Michael Monsoor successfully completed its acceptance trials Feb. 1.
The Portland Press Herald [Portland, Maine] reports the statement says onboard systems such as navigation, damage control, mechanical, combat, communication and propulsion met or exceeded specifications.
The 610-foot-long Monsoor headed out to sea for the first time in December. Its first sea trials were cut short because of equipment failures.
The Monsoor is the second built at Maine’s Bath Iron Works in a class of three futuristic-looking ships that feature electric-drive propulsion, new radar and sonar, powerful guns and missiles and a stealthy shape.
The cost of the three Zumwalt-class destroyers is estimated at $22 billion, the most expensive Navy destroyers ever built. AP
Air Force’s next look at attack planes set for Arizona base
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in southern Arizona will be the site of continued experimentation aimed at collecting data to enable the Air Force to buy an off-the-shelf light-attack aircraft at low cost.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson says in a news release issued Feb. 2 in Washington that the experimentation May through July will involve using the AT-6 Wolverine and the A-29 Super Tucano.
Wilson calls those aircraft “the two most promising” among four included in tests conducted last summer at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The release says further experimentation will examine logistics and maintenance requirements, weapons and sensor issues and other characteristics.
Davis-Monthan hosts a unit that flies the A-10, an attack jet first flown during the Cold War and still in service to support ground forces. AP
Remains of Kansas soldier killed in WWII recovered
More than 74 years after his death, the remains of a Kansas Marine killed in World War II have been recovered.
Jack Krieger of Larned, Kansas, is believed to have died on Nov. 20, 1943. The Great Bend Tribune reports that the Department of Defense’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Feb. 1 that Krieger’s remains have been accounted for.
Krieger was part of a battalion fighting the Japanese on the small island of Betio of the Gilbert Islands. The Defense Department says about 1,000 Marines and sailors died and more than 2,000 were wounded during the battle. Krieger was 27.
His remains were exhumed from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, where he was buried as an unknown.
Burial services are pending. AP