Sea-Air-Space: A recap of news and tech from the Navy League event

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An Amphibious Combat Vehicle, with a TV mounted to its side, sits at the BAE Systems booth at the Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Md., in April 2023. (Colin Demarest/Staff)

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — U.S. military and defense industry officials flocked to the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference south of Washington, D.C., this week. And so did Defense News, C4ISRNET, Marine Corps Times and Navy Times reporters.

From breaking news about an unmanned technologies hub within U.S. Southern Command to industry collaboration on the Navy’s next command-and-control aircraft to be used if nuclear war breaks out, here’s what you may have missed:

• The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are nearing an agreement on the requirements and cost of the Landing Ship Medium program, formerly called the Light Amphibious Warship, after the services previously diverged in their visions for this program. Click here to read all about it.
• The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will need a more resilient supply chain to ensure the military can keep it flying in a future, highly contested war, according to a U.S. Air Force officer in charge of the program. Get all the details.
• The U.S. Navy is testing technology developed as part of its secretive Project Overmatch using the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group in the waters off California, a move one official described as the “starting gun.” Find out more.
• U.S. Marines may soon use uncrewed systems and robots to gain an upper hand in faraway places like the Indo-Pacific region. Here’s what that could look like.
• Nearly 200 of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle’s basic variant were already fielded to the U.S. Marine Corps, with several other variants coming soon. Find out what the service has planned.

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