Ben Rich, then the director of Lockheed's Skunk Works, decided to apply the F-117's stealthy coatings and angular shaping to a submarine.

Rich and his Skunk Works team — the industry leaders in stealth design — developed a small-scale model of a submarine dubbed the Sea Shadow to test in a sonic chamber. They found that the angular design of the cigar-shaped hull bounced sonar signals away from the vessel and muffled sounds it emitted from the crew and engine.

However, the Defense Department didn't find a need for underwater stealth craft, prompting Rich to adapt the design into a Small Water Area Twin Hull, a catamaran-style surface vessel designed to be stable and fast in rough seas whose futuristic design looked unlike anything else in the US fleet.

The Pentagon expressed interest in Rich's modified stealth surface vessel model, authorizing a $50 million contract through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to Skunk Works to "test the effects of stealth shaping and coatings on surface vessels and effects of seawater on radar absorbing iron ferrite coatings," according to Lockheed Martin.

The Soviet Union's network of reconnaissance satellites could expose the positions of the US Navy's surface fleet. Drawing inspiration from the Nighthawk, the Sea Shadow incorporated sharp angles and flat surfaces of 45-degree angles to reduce the ship's radar visibility and avoid detection.

The stealth concept was tested in a 100-by-80-foot plastic swimming pool in Death Valley, California, using a simulated Soviet radar satellite. The successful test earned the project more funding to develop a prototype of the Sea Shadow.

Developed under strict secrecy, the Sea Shadow was constructed modularly, building smaller sections of the ship before they were taken to a submergible barge in California to be fully assembled.

The 164-foot vessel could accommodate a four-man crew consisting of the commander, helmsman, navigator, and engineer. The diesel-electric propulsion system allowed the vessel to reach speeds of up to 15 knots, or about 17 miles per hour.

The Sea Shadow prototype was designed to test the application of stealth technology at sea, exploring how its stealth capabilities would perform in real-world conditions.

But the stealth ship was a one-off prototype with limited capabilities, and its odd, unconventional design was highly specialized, making it less practical for general use. Without the flexibility or features of the other multi-role vessels in the Navy's fleet, the Sea Shadow never saw use.

After nearly three decades sitting in storage at a private shipyard in San Diego, the Navy offered the Sea Shadow to museums for free, but there were no takers. Instead, it was sold at a 95% loss in 2012 — the highest bid amounting to $2.5 million — and was dismantled and scrapped.

Even though the prototype itself didn't fit into the Navy's evolving needs, it did provide valuable insights into adapting stealth technology for the sea. The lessons learned from Sea Shadow contributed to more advanced stealth ships and systems, like the Zumwalt-class destroyers.

While the expensive Zumwalt class has long struggled to find a suitable mission and weapons, they featured similar stealth characteristics to the Sea Shadow, like low radar cross-sections and angular shapes, to achieve greater survivability and effectiveness in modern naval warfare.

The Sea Shadow's design also has similarities with a new vessel. Developed by General Dynamics, the GHOST is an uncrewed vessel designed for coastal defense, special operations, and anti-piracy patrols. It can raise or lower its wings for low visibility, high speed, or stability.

The 62-foot drone has a shallow four-foot draft for coastal operations, and its hybrid turbine-and-electric drive allows the vessel to reach speeds of up to 32.5 knots, or about 37 mph. A General Dynamics brochure said it has two "stealth" modes.

Not only can the GHOST be modified physically to fit the mission at hand — like carrying missiles or ferrying 16 Navy SEALs — but it can also be operated by a pilot and navigator onboard, controlled remotely, or programmed as an autonomous platform.

During its first year, authorities cleared 15 square miles for the camp.

Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Sources: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Auschwitz‑Birkenau Memorial and State Museum 

Electrified barbed wire divided it into 10 different sections.

Sources: Jewish Virtual Library, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Sources: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Five to six prisoners were packed in so over 500 prisoners were in each unit.

Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Auschwitz was the only concentration camp to do this.

Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Source: Museum of Jewish Heritage

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Four new chambers were built between March and June 1943, each containing a disrobing area, gas chamber, and crematory ovens.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Nazis made prisoners work on large farms, in coal mines, in weapons production — basically anything the German military needed for war.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Source: Museum of Jewish Heritage

Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The majority of them faced starvation, illness, and death.

Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Source: Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum

Of 180 children examined after liberation, 40% had tuberculosis.

Source: Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Editor's note: This list was first published in January 2020 and has been updated to reflect recent developments.

Leveraging its domestic transportation industry, the US military partnered with Holt Manufacturing Company, known for its tractors used to tow artillery.

They developed a prototype built off of an existing Holt Model 75 tractor powered by a modified hybrid gas-electric engine. The four-cylinder gasoline engine supplied power to two General Electric motors that drove each track individually for improved mobility and had enough space at the front to accommodate its main cannon.

Tracked treads better distribute weight than wheels and allow a vehicle to cross more types of terrain — an especially important quality for heavy vehicles whose weight is measured in many tons.

Protected by a layer of 15mm steel armor, the tank could accommodate a crew of six — commander, driver, two machine gunners, a main gunner, and a loader.

It was armed with a Vickers mountain cannon at the front and two machine guns on either side of the boxy tank.

The tank was a response to the annihilating firepower seen on the Western Front, where artillery barrages were commonplace and advancing columns of foot soldiers were mowed down by emplaced machine gunners.

The sheer scale of the carnage was shocking. In the Allied offensive known as the Battle of the Somme in 1916, an estimated 620,000 British and French troops were killed or wounded.

A shielded hull was intended to carry troops past deadly machine gun nests and target those positions with heavy fire, clearing the path for infantry.

However, its bulky armor and equipped weaponry made the prototype of the hybrid tank far too heavy, weighing about 25 tons. Its 90-horsepower engine struggled to propel the tank, which moved at a top speed of 6 mph and was practically immobile on an incline.

That was hugely underpowered. A modern M1 Abrams, the US Army's main battle tank, moves its 68-ton bulk around with a 1,500-horsepower engine.

But the US military didn't give up. Instead, it chose to create a variation of the first design by adding just an electrically propelled gun mount to the gas-electric tractor.

While more successful than its predecessor, the armed tractor ultimately never made it to combat since it was completed after the armistice was signed and WWI came to an end.

Though the hybrid tank didn't appear on the battlefield, it did appear on the silver screen.

American animation studio International Film Service, owned by media magnate William Randolph Hearst, produced a miniseries in 1917 that featured vehicles similar in design to the Holt tank.

The series' final battle featured US troops ahead of a twin-turreted prop tank, though much of the footage for the series has been destroyed or lost in the last century.

The former president displayed a penchant for using the distinctive black marker on documents throughout his first presidency. The bold strokes can be seen on anything from executive orders to speech drafts to allegedly altered hurricane maps.

Trump loved to use a Sharpie so much that he even reached out to the stationary company to design a custom pen for him to sign documents, emblazoned with his mountain-peak-like signature.

In a four-part HBO series done in partnership with Axios in 2018, he made no secret of his love for a Sharpie pen — and how much he hated using government-ordered writing utensils traditionally used by presidents.

"I was signing documents with a very expensive pen and it didn't write well," Trump said, referring to the government pen. "It was a horrible pen, and it was extremely expensive."

He added: "And then I started using just a Sharpie, and I said to myself, 'Well wait a minute, this writes much better and this cost almost nothing.'"

The Trump Organization — but not Trump himself or his children — in 2022 faced charges of criminal tax fraud, falsifying business records, and filing false tax returns in a scheme to defraud the state.

After the trial kicked off, documents from the Trump Organization were presented to jurors by the trial's first witness, Jeffrey McConney, the company's longtime controller.

McConney identified the signatures — in distinctive bold Sharpie — on some half-dozen documents, which included important letters and payroll documents, as that of the former president.

In a May 1, 2005 letter detailing an overhead projection, Trump personally authorized a $6,500-a-month lease for a Manhattan apartment to be lived in exclusively by his longtime chief financial officer.

"In other words, Donald J. Trump authorized Donald J. Trump to sign the lease" for the apartment, Joshua Steinglass, one of the two lead prosecutors, said during the trial.

Trump's notes were clearly visible to cameras — aided by his tendency to hold them up to the crowd for emphasis.

At a campaign rally in Virginia in 2016, Trump touted national polling numbers and talked about Jeff Sessions, who was an early supporter of Trump's presidential campaign in 2016.

Trump also mentioned Ashley Guindon, a Virginia police officer who was killed on her first day on the job, and he vowed to "restore law and order [and] respect [for] the men and women who protect," per his notes.

In a press conference ahead of declaring a state of emergency amid the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020, Trump briefed the nation on the distribution of ventilators and respirators ahead of the rapidly spreading respiratory disease that was then shrouded in mystery.

In his notes, the president jotted down to mention how "good govs are getting it done, bad ones are not."

"We're really backing up the governors. The governors have to go out and do their things and you have a lot of governors, they've done a fantastic job," Trump said during the press conference on March 22, 2020. "You have some that haven't. Usually, it's the ones that complain that have the problems."

He added: "But we've had a great relationship as an example with Governor Cuomo, with Governor Newsom," noting them specifically due to the "hotbeds" of infection that were transpiring in their states respectively.

One of the platforms that Trump infamously campaigned on for his first presidential campaign was building a wall at the border, which eventually came to fruition — though not to completion — during his first administration.

In September 2019, he paid a visit to a border wall construction in Otay Mesa, a neighborhood in San Diego County, California. With a hefty price tag of $147 million, the 14-mile section of steel beams, concrete, and rebar replaced the construction of a decades-old wall that was previously installed in the 1990s.

"You can fry an egg on that wall," Trump told the reporters and officials gathered during his visit, referring to the wall's design to absorb heat.

And without fail, the president brought out a Sharpie to sign one of the slats of his beloved border wall, which he said was at the request of the border patrol agents at the site.

"I autographed one of the bollards," he said. "There are a lot of bollards. That's a lot of bollards."

In September 2019, ahead of the devastation brought in by Hurricane Dorian, the president said the storm was headed to Alabama.

"In addition to Florida - South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated," Trump tweeted at the time. "Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!"

In a bid to quell public panic regarding the former president's errant forecast, the Birmingham branch of the National Weather Service set the record straight, blatantly correcting his prediction.

"Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian," the agency said in a tweet the same day. "We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east."

But Trump doubled down once again on his claims and refused to accept the NWS' forecast, instead presenting a map of Hurricane Dorian's path with a black Sharpie stroke extending the storm's path over Alabama. The incident later became known as "SharpieGate," prompting its fair share of internet mockery and memes in its wake.

During Trump's first impeachment inquiry, Gordon Sondland, former US Ambassador to the European Union, delivered damning testimony publicly confirming the quid pro quo request from Trump to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The articles of impeachment were related, in part, to Trump's reported efforts to strong-arm Zelensky into launching politically motivated investigations against the Bidens ahead of the 2020 election and withholding vital military aid while doing so.

But like Trump's persistent spoken words in denying the accusations of quid pro quo, his written ones echoed the same denial, as written in bold Sharpie on Air Force One stationary in 2019.

"I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo," he wrote. "Tell Zelensky to do the right thing. This is the final word from the pres of the US."

And, of course, the note had its heyday on the internet as people turned it into Eminem jokes, Pearl Jam setlist jokes, and lyrics of a Morrissey song.

On the first day of his second administration, Trump showed the world his love for Sharpie pens persists.

He signed a flurry of executive orders to usher in his second non-consecutive term in the White House, including a freeze on federal hiring, a return-to-office mandate for federal workers, and an order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord — each bearing his name in thick Sharpie strokes.

The president's supporters appear to share his penchant for the black permanent marker, with one fan in the inaugural audience calling for Trump to toss him a pen after signing an order with it. Trump did, throwing each Sharpie he used to sign the orders into the crowd. 

Commissioned in September 1968, the Kennedy was the fourth and final vessel in the Kitty Hawk class, initially designated as an attack aircraft carrier.

Comprised of the first-in-class Kitty Hawk, USS Constellation, USS America, and the Kennedy, the vessels were the last group of carriers to be powered by fossil fuels, which were replaced by the Navy's Nimitz-class nuclear-powered flattops.

The name honored the president slain five years before, who had served as a naval officer during World War II. After his motor torpedo boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, he famously helped save his men from the water and relayed their stranded location to nearby allies by writing on a coconut husk.

After undergoing heavy modifications to adapt to a broader range of missions, the Kennedy became a class of its own, changing its classification to CV-67.

Nicknamed "Big John," the Kennedy completed 18 deployments over nearly four decades in service, including operations in the Mediterranean, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Ligurian, Aegean, and Adriatic Seas.

In 2005, the Navy decided the cost of the maintenance overhaul for the aging carrier outweighed the benefits, opting to retire the ship instead. The aircraft carrier was taken out of service in August 2007 and towed to Philadelphia, moored alongside other inactive Navy vessels.

The Kennedy was notably involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the 1970s and deployed to the Middle East as part of the US response to the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

The vessel was also sent to waters off the coast of Lebanon after a suicide bomber struck the US Marine Corps Multi-National Forces Barracks at the Beirut International Airport, killing 241 Marines.

Aircraft aboard CV-67 launched the first major strikes on Iraq on the night of January 17, 1991, lighting up the night sky as the 80 sorties flying over Baghdad were pummeled with heavy fire from below.

"Imagine the Disney World light show, then magnify it 100 times," one pilot said. "That's what it looked like from the sky last night… it was incredible!"

The Kennedy and its battle group were also briefly deployed to the mid-Atlantic coastline to support the Nimitz-class carrier USS George Washington, establishing air security following the terror attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001.

"While John F. Kennedy Battle Group's services were needed for only a brief time, every member of the Battle Group was proud of their role in Operation Noble Eagle, providing security along the eastern seaboard of the United States," an observer with the Kennedy's battle group wrote, per the Navy.

The Kennedy also played an early role in the war in Afghanistan, launching the first air strikes off the coast of Pakistan that commenced Operation Enduring Freedom.

Not only will the Kennedy go down in history for its involvement in key conflicts in US history, but it was also the setting of one of the greatest military pranks of all time.

A Navy tradition dating back to the 1960s, crews aboard Navy aircraft carriers would prank the sailors aboard the relieving ship by releasing greased pigs on its flight deck.

When the Kennedy was set to relieve the Kitty Hawk-class supercarrier USS America in 1986, aviators aboard the America dropped off an unusual payload on the new arrivals: three greased pigs dyed with red, white, and blue food coloring.

In 2021, the Navy sold two old aircraft carriers — the Kennedy and the Kitty Hawk — to scrap dealers for just one cent each.

Though towing and breaking down the ship for scrap is a costly process, the profit from selling scrap steel, iron, and non-ferrous metal ores will benefit the company.

After 17 years at the Navy's decommissioned ship facility, Big John embarked on its final voyage to International Shipbreaking Limited's scrap metal yard in Brownsville, Texas.

Departing from the Philadelphia naval facility, the ship is set to sail into Delaware Bay and into the North Atlantic Ocean before transiting south, around the Florida peninsula, and then across the Gulf of Mexico.

The Kennedy namesake will live on in the future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier.

Expected to be delivered to the Navy in the summer of 2025, the second-in-class PCU John F. Kennedy touts a hefty $11 billion price tag — albeit $2 billion shy of the $13 billion first-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford.

Measuring 1,092 feet in length — only a few feet shy of the height of the Eiffel Tower — the future Kennedy will be able to accommodate more than 75 aircraft.

Powered by two nuclear reactors, the Navy said its newest warship will incorporate nearly two dozen technological upgrades to make it more efficient, including improvements in propulsion, power generation, ordnance handling, and aircraft launch systems.

''USS John F. Kennedy will carry the legacy of its namesake and the power of our nation,'' then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said in a 2019 statement. ''The advanced technology and warfighting capabilities this aircraft carrier brings to our global challenges will strengthen our allies and partners, extend our reach against potential adversaries, and further the global mission of our integrated naval force.''

At just 9 years old, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the 35th president, was chosen as the sponsor for the first carrier named after her father.

Fifty-two years later, Caroline Kennedy was once again selected to be the sponsor of the future CVN-79, christening the ship in December 2019 in a ceremony attended by over 20,000 people at Newport News shipyard.

"Having a chance to get to know the people who served on the USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) really gave me insight into who he was and what kind of leader he was in a way that I wouldn't have had any other way," Caroline Kennedy said. "And I know that's going to be just as true now with a whole new generation."

Navy Capt. Todd Marzano, then the commanding officer of the Kennedy, told Business Insider said the Kennedy's construction was streamlined by improvements from the inefficiencies and delays that plagued the Ford.

"We are definitely benefiting from being the second aircraft carrier in the class," Marzano said in 2019. "We're leveraging their lessons learned, which has helped not only from the construction side but from our sailor training."

Using a modular process, workers built smaller sections of the ship to form a superlift, a structural unit fitted with piping, electrical equipment, cable, ventilation, and joiner work, before bringing it to the assembly area on the dry dock.

The second-in-class carrier was launched into the James River three months ahead of schedule in October 2019 — then set to be delivered to the Navy in 2022.

Despite being leagues ahead of schedule compared to its predecessor, the Kennedy was not immune to shipbuilding delays of its own. The carrier's delivery date kept being pushed back, due in part to supply chain issues brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and delays in the ship's capability upgrades.

At first, PCU Kennedy wasn't designed to launch fifth-generation stealth fighters, prompting Congress in 2020 to step in and pause the delivery of the $13 billion flattop until it was retrofitted to support the aircraft, which cost over $100 million.

In February 2024, the future supercarrier tested its new electromagnetic aircraft launching system by catapulting 80,000-pound wheeled carts into the James River to ensure it could handle actual loaded aircraft.

An improvement on the Nimitz class' steam-powered catapult, the EMALS has a higher launch capacity, sending aircraft barreling down the 300-foot track at over 150 miles per hour.

The modernized catapult and arresting gear are also optimized for more accurate end-speed control, reducing stress on the aircraft.

The Navy said the second-in-class carrier is now expected to be delivered in July 2025 to perform more work and prepare it for its first deployment in the Indo-Pacific.

The Navy said that assigning the Kennedy to the Pacific fleet would cut down the amount of time the carrier needed at the shipyard to identify any issues with the ship's systems, equipment, or performance.

Deploying the Kennedy to the Indo-Pacific is also intended to strengthen the US' naval presence in the region amid heightened tensions with China.

"Our adversaries are modernizing at speeds akin to the Germans and Japanese during the Interwar period — both in the physical and technological sense," US Fleet Forces Commander Adm. Daryl Caudle said in June 2024.

"Winning this competition means achieving an overmatch of our adversaries," he added. "That necessitates having a fleet of technologically advanced warships with the readiness and lethal capabilities to answer our nation's call at a moment's notice."

Set to take effect on January 19, the complex cease-fire deal includes a phased approach. Lasting six weeks, the first phase consists of a "full and complete" cease-fire, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the release of hostages held by Hamas, US President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

Israel said it would reduce the number of forces operating in the Gaza Strip and expected to fully withdraw its military presence in a later phase of the deal. Hamas agreed to initially release nearly three dozen Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel but has not confirmed when the final hostages will return home.

Biden added that women, the elderly, and the wounded hostages would be released as part of the first phase, as well as American hostages being held in Gaza. Seven Americans are being held hostage in Gaza, three of whom are presumed to be alive.

To ensure both sides adhere to the terms of the cease-fire agreement, diplomats from the US, Qatar, and Egypt said they plan to create a "follow-up mechanism" to track reports of violations.

"We expect that the parties will adhere to the agreement and stay committed … but we know that these kinds of agreements are very complex and will have some issues down the line," Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said.

Over the next six weeks, Biden said negotiations between Israel and Hamas will continue to work out the second phase of the cease-fire deal: a permanent end of the war in Gaza.

"There are a number of details to negotiate, to move from phase one to phase two," the US president said. "But the plan says if negotiations take longer than six weeks, the cease-fire will continue as long as the negotiations continue."

Biden added that Palestinians can return to their homes in all areas of Gaza as officials work to get humanitarian assistance into the war-torn territory.

In a possible third phase of the deal, Biden said the remains of hostages who have been declared dead would be returned to their families, and "a major reconstruction plan for Gaza will begin."

Photos and video taken in the Gaza Strip captured celebratory cheers and gunfire as Palestinians crowded the streets after learning that this could be the end of the humanitarian crisis that has gripped the Gaza Strip and forced the vast majority of them from their homes.

Israel's war against Hamas has leveled neighborhoods and led to the deaths of at least 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

Some gathered outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, a medical facility in central Gaza that doubled as a displacement camp that was frequently targeted by Israeli attacks. The Israeli military said they believed the complex concealed a Hamas command center.

One of the celebrants, Alaa Abu Karsh, told CNN that the news of the cease-fire was a "very big surprise for the Palestinian people and the whole world."

"We wish many people could be celebrating this moment with us, but they are now in a better place," he said.

Ahead of the announcement of the cease-fire agreement, thousands of Israeli protesters gathered outside the country's defense ministry to call for the return of the hostages still being held in Gaza.

The remaining hostages have been held for 466 days in abject conditions in Gaza after being seized by Hamas fighters during the Oct. 7, 2023 terror rampage into Israel.

Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant condemned National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom were against the hostage deal and threatened to quit the government if it was approved.

"It is neither Jewish, nor Zionist, nor humane," Gallant said at the rally.

However, the protests soon turned to celebrations as news spread to Tel Aviv that the cease-fire and hostage deal had been reached.

Demonstrators were seen embracing and crying as they held their picket signs depicting their friends and family still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a volunteer-based organization, said the agreement is a "significant step forward" to bring Israeli hostages home, expressing "profound gratitude" to the US and international mediators involved in brokering the peace deal.

"Since November 2023, we have been anxiously awaiting this moment," the organization said in a statement, "and now, after over 460 days of our family members being held in Hamas tunnels, we are closer than ever to reuniting with our loved ones."

"However, deep anxiety and concerns accompany us regarding the possibility that the agreement might not be fully implemented, leaving hostages behind. We urgently call for swift arrangements to ensure all phases of the deal are carried out," the group continued.

Though a majority of Israelis support the peace deal, the Tivka Forum, a right-wing organization advocating for the release of hostages, said they believe the agreement includes steep concessions, like the release of Palestinian prisoners, that could compromise Israel's national security and its leverage against Hamas.

"The proposed deal endangers the hostages and endangers the State of Israel," the organization said in a statement. "It is high time we stop the immoral surrender to terror, and demand that all the hostages be released at once, unconditionally and immediately."

The forum added: "Our only option is to win this war and to remove any incentive to ever attack Israel again."

World leaders reacted with messages of hope for peace.

The peace deal came less than a week before Biden leaves office and US President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House, with both administrations taking part in the negotiations.

"In these past few days, we have been speaking as one team," Biden said, as his administration will work to implement the deal while the Trump administration will work to carry it out.

António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general, emphasized the importance of implementing the deal and getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

"It is imperative that this ceasefire removes the significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid across Gaza so that we can support a major increase in urgent lifesaving humanitarian support," Guterres said.

Netanyahu had yet to officially announce that Israel accepts the agreement announced by Biden and Al Thani on Wednesday, saying that some final details are still being agreed upon. The Israeli prime minister said he will release a statement "after the final details of the agreement, which are currently being worked on, are completed."

Hamas said in a statement that the cease-fire was "the result of the legendary resilience of our great Palestinian people and our valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip."

The first-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford is named after the 38th US president who office after then-President Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate Scandal.

Ford granted Nixon a controversial pardon saying it was in the country's best interest to put an end to the "American tragedy in which we all — all have played a part," he said at the time.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, completed its first full deployment last January, which the Pentagon extended in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

The Ford and the other warships in its strike group served in part as a deterrence message for its 239-day deployment to the Mediterranean in 2023.

The second-in-class USS John F. Kennedy was named after the 35th US president, sharing its namesake with the last conventional aircraft carrier built for the Navy before the introduction of the nuclear-powered Nimitz class.

The future carrier was initially set to deliver in June 2024 but was delayed a year to July 2025 so the Navy could perform more work to prepare it for deployment in the Indo-Pacific.

The Navy said the Kennedy would be equipped with "new technology and warfighting capabilities," making the future aircraft carrier the "most agile and lethal combat platform globally."

The future USS Enterprise is one of two Ford-class carriers that wasn't named after a US president. It carries on a storied name whose heritage includes the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a decorated World War II carrier, and a brig from the Barbary War over 200 years ago.

Still under construction at Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News — the US's only aircraft carrier shipyard — the Enterprise was initially scheduled to deliver by March 2028, but the Navy's shipbuilding review found that it will now deliver by May 2030 at the latest.

In November, the Enterprise was moved for the first time at the shipyard to accommodate the construction of USS Doris Miller on the same dry dock.

The other Ford-class carrier without a US president's name is the future USS Doris Miller.

The future supercarrier, named after US Navy sailor Doris "Dorie" Miller, is expected to be delivered a year and a half later than scheduled in early 2032.

Miller was a World War II hero of the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The mess attendant fired at Japanese aircraft with a .50 caliber machine gun on the battleship USS West Virginia and was the first Black person to be awarded the Navy Cross, the service's second-highest award for valor.

"Naming CVN 81 for Dorie Miller casts long overdue recognition to a true American hero and icon," then-Master Chief Petty Officer Russell Smith said during the ship's naming ceremony. "It also honors the contributions of African Americans and enlisted sailors for the first time in the history of American aircraft carriers."

One controversy has been that the Nimitz-class carrier John C. Stennis honors a key lawmaker behind the funding of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, who was also a longtime segregationist and opponent of the US Navy's racial integration.

Bill Clinton served as the 42nd president of the US, becoming the second president in US history to be impeached after Andrew Johnson in 1868. He faced charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice in the wake of his infamous affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

In his time as commander-in-chief, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes against Iraq in retaliation for the assassination attempt on former President George H.W. Bush. He also played a key role in promoting peace in the Middle East and Northern Ireland through the Oslo Accords and the Good Friday Agreement.

The name of the future CVN 82 was announced in a private ceremony shortly after the new year, during which former President Clinton's daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was announced as the carrier's sponsor.

"It's never far from my mind that the precious freedoms Americans enjoy are safeguarded by our armed forces, anchored by a strong, modern, and agile Navy," Clinton said in a statement. "I'm honored that future servicemembers carrying on that proud tradition will serve on a carrier bearing my name."

The sixth Ford-class carrier will bear the name of former President George W. Bush, whose presidency was defined by the 9/11 attacks and the launching of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

He implemented domestic counterterrorism measures and built a worldwide coalition to dismantle terrorist groups globally.

"I am honored that my name will be associated with the United States Navy and a symbol of our Nation's might," Bush said in a statement. "I have a special admiration for the men and women of our Navy — including my dad — and ask God to watch over this ship and those who sail aboard her."

The 10th and final Nimitz-class carrier was named after Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, who served as the 41st president of the US. The elder Bush was honored for his service as one of the youngest naval aviators serving in World War II, receiving military decorations like the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation.

CVN 82 and CVN 83 will be the fifth and sixth carriers to join the Navy's fleet in the coming decade, but they are not yet under construction, nor have contracts been issued to HII's Newport News.

In a briefing last week, Christopher Kastner, CEO and president of HII, urged the US Navy to follow its shipbuilding timeline to procure USS William J. Clinton by 2028 as planned to avoid supply chain and workforce issues.

First unveiled at the Eurosatory Defense exhibition in Paris in 2018, it didn't take long for the Lynx KF41 to make waves due to its future-proof design.

The KF41, which stands for "Kettenfahrzeug," meaning "tracked vehicle" in German, is the successor of the KF31. With a more spacious interior than its predecessor, the KF41 can accommodate a crew of a commander, gunner, and driver, as well as up to nine fully equipped soldiers. It is designed to carry infantry to key objectives and with tailored firepower like autocannons to destroy enemy vehicles or strong points in the process.

The KF41 also features a more powerful diesel engine, allowing it to reach speeds of up to 43 mph. The tracked vehicle can also operate across various terrain and on long missions with a range of over 300 miles.

Depending on the armament and passengers, the combat vehicle can weigh over 40 tons, but it has a flexible suspension system to protect troops and payload without compromising mobility.

The KF41 is equipped with a 35mm Wotan cannon that can fire 200 rounds a minute at targets nearly two miles away using an advanced 360-degree weapon sight system. The IFV can also be configured to launch anti-tank guided missiles, loitering munitions, drones, or other electronic warfare packages.

Not only is the German light tank armed to the teeth, it can counter a range of threats, from rocket-propelled grenades to anti-tank missiles. Its formidable modular armor can be equipped with active hard-kill weapon systems to destroy incoming missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, or it can take on a more passive defense by deploying smoke cartridges to conceal its location.

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger announced the delivery of Lynx IFVs at the Ukraine Recovery Conference held in Berlin last June, adding that the company hopes to start "manufacturing these systems in Ukraine in the near future."

"It is now being tested by the armed forces so that a mass order may be placed as soon as possible," Papperger told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The delivery and production of Lynx IFVs in Ukraine is part of a larger effort by Rheinmetall to build "closer cooperation" with the country and bolster its waning defense industry. The Düsseldorf-based contractor also plans to open facilities in Ukraine to domestically produce munitions and repair armored systems. The publicly traded Rheinmetall, Germany's largest arms maker, reported €6.3 billion in group sales during the first nine months of 2024, a 36% increase.

After opening its first manufacturing facility in Ukraine last summer, Papperger recognized the vital role that ramped-up arms and ammunition production play in Ukraine's "re-industrialization and in strengthening its defense capability."

However, the Rheinmetall CEO added that more government support from other countries is needed in the long term, with the current industrial strategy likely lasting only six to 12 months.

"This is not enough if you are waging a war against Russia, a very dangerous counterpart," Papperger said at the June conference. "I really hope that this will not happen, but if Ukraine loses, Europe will have a very large-scale problem."

Ukrainian forces have suffered heavy losses in their mechanized forces, which include US-made Bradleys and outdated Soviet-era vehicles, heightening the growing need for fighting vehicles like the Lynx against advancing Russian forces.

"Why the Lynx? This is one of the most modern infantry fighting vehicle platforms," Oleksandr Kamyshin, then the head of Ukraine's strategic industries, said at the June conference in Berlin. "For our European partners, this is a good opportunity to test it in battle and make it better. And for our soldiers today, we need every additional vehicle that will help them stand at the front."

The domestic production of Lynx IFVs is also aimed at creating a more self-reliant defense industry in Ukraine while sustaining efforts to maintain and repair its fleet locally.

Rheinmetall isn't the only defense company setting up operations on Ukrainian soil. American defense contractor AeroVironment partnered with a Ukrainian company to locally manufacture its loitering munition, Switchblade 600.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 30% of the military equipment used by Ukrainian forces was domestically made, including sea drones, howitzers, glide bombs, and even its own missiles.

"The Ukrainian defense industry has been in decline for decades," Kamyshin said in June. "But today, it is reviving and making a significant contribution to Ukraine's economic recovery — also thanks to partners like Rheinmetall."

Zelenskyy said the efforts and support from the US and other European allies "have made us stronger." But defense experts have criticized Western governments for being too slow to provide essential military aid to Ukraine, forcing the country to become more reliant on its own supply.

President-elect Donald Trump's second term has also raised international concern about the US' role in providing assistance to Ukraine. On the campaign trail last year, the former president proposed his intention to cease support to Ukraine and negotiate a peace deal with Russia that would likely cede much of the territory it lost since the war began.

Ahead of his return to the White House, NATO officials are bracing for US support to diminish during his administration, sparking discussions to "Trump-proof" future aid packages to Ukraine.

Constructed at the docks of Hamburg, Germany, the U-505 was one of the German navy's Type IX-class submarines, a long-range attack boat developed with longer dive times and agility compared to its predecessors.

Given the Kriegsmarine's limited surface fleet, the U-boat was tasked with destroying shipping vessels in the Atlantic owned by the US and other Allied nations. After the U-505 entered the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942, it sank eight ships over a dozen war patrols and was credited with the loss of nearly 50,000 tons of Allied supplies and goods.

Tens of thousands died in the brutal war at sea. Allied mariners died in the torpedo explosions or drowned in the cold ocean waters afterward. In some incidents, U-boats also attacked passenger liners like the SS Athenia.

The string of sunken ships earned the U-505 a feared reputation as an underwater predator, but little did the crew know that its winning streak would someday come to an end.

The U-505 had a displacement of over 1,100 tons and measured about 250 feet long. Propelled by two saltwater-cooled diesel engines, the U-boat had a range of nearly 17,000 miles, allowing it to deploy on long-range patrols to target merchant vessels.

Its surface speed was 18 knots, but its underwater speed was eight knots, which left it vulnerable to faster enemy ships while it operated below the surface. It mostly sailed on the surface at night and dove when spotted or when sneaking up on ships to torpedo.

Serving as an attack submarine, the U-505 had six 21-inch torpedo tubes — four in the bow and two in the stern — with storage to carry up to 22 torpedos at a time.

The U-boat's surface armament included two antiaircraft guns and a 4.1-inch deck gun that could fire 15 rounds per minute.

Built to endure longer voyages and dive times, the U-505 could operate on patrols for 100 days or more. Despite the larger design of the Type-IX subs, the pressure hull was no bigger than a subway car.

As many as 60 people would live and work on the U-boat, taking turns sharing the 35 bunks, some of which were installed in the sub's front and rear torpedo rooms.

Space was hard to come by in the cramped hull. Only one sailor could stand in the tiny kitchen at a time. The fumes would waft from the engine room to the rest of the U-boat, leaving the crew's limited provisions tasting like diesel.

Personnel often just wore shoes and underwear while living in the submarine, where temperatures could exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the warmer months.

The U-505 only had two bathrooms aboard — one of which was used to store food — but the crew never bathed and had to clean themselves with alcohol throughout the two-month patrols.

On June 4, 1944, a US Navy hunter-killer group detected the U-505 operating off the coast of Rio de Oro in Africa's Western Sahara. Commanded by US Navy Capt. Daniel V. Gallery, Task Group 22.3 was comprised of the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal and five destroyers.

Depth charges launched by the Edsall-class destroyer escort USS Chatelain, which detected the German vessel with sonar, jammed the U-boat's rudder and flooded the aft compartment, forcing the vessel to surface.

Setting out on an anti-submarine sweep with the stated purpose of capturing and bringing back to the United States a German submarine, all units of the Task Group worked incessantly throughout the cruise to prepare themselves for the accomplishment of this exceedingly difficult purpose.

German intelligence was vital during WWII, making recovery efforts for the sinking U-boat a top priority for the Navy task group.

German Capt. Harald Lange, who commanded the U-505, ordered the crew to abandon ship. To avoid capture, the Germans attempted to sink the U-boat with time bombs throughout the submarine and opened a sea strainer that caused water to rush inside the hull.

US Navy sailors who boarded the quickly flooding vessel disabled the scuttle charges and replaced the strainer cover.

In an operation wrought with numerous risks and dangers, the capture only resulted in one recorded casualty from the U-505's crew as a result of Allied gunfire.

A boarding party from the Edsall-class destroyer escort USS Pillsbury took a whaleboat to rescue the surviving 58 German sailors and salvage the U-505.

"Undeterred by the apparent sinking condition of the U-boat, the danger of explosions of demolition and scuttling charges, and the probability of enemy gunfire, the small boarding party plunged through the conning tower hatch, did everything in its power to keep the submarine afloat and removed valuable papers and documents," Adm. Royal E. Ingersoll, then-Commander in Chief of the US Atlantic Fleet, said in the presidential unit citation awarded to the task group.

Following the harrowing capture came the task of towing it back home. Operating under utmost secrecy, the US Navy painted the U-boat black and renamed it USS Nemo to hide its capture from the Germans.

The partially submerged vessel was towed over 2,500 nautical miles to Bermuda to study the submarine's technology and intelligence on board.

The 58 sailors from the U-505 were transported and held at a prisoner-of-war camp in Louisiana, kept under special conditions like isolation and limited communication to keep the submarine's capture a secret.

They remained at the camp until the end of the war, with the last of the captives repatriating back to Germany in 1947.

The Navy recovered codebooks, thousands of communication documents, and two Enigma machines used by the German military to decode and encrypt messages to and from the U-505. Breaking Enigma codes allowed fleet commands to know where U-boats would attack. That, along with increasing Allied aircraft patrols for submarines, turned the tide of the Battle of the Atlantic.

American naval engineers uncovered that the Germans were developing an advanced acoustic-homing torpedo to target a ship's propellers.

The intelligence also allowed the US to get more precise locations for German U-boat operations, redirecting merchant vessels from those areas.

"The Task Group's brilliant achievement in disabling, capturing, and towing to a United States base a modern enemy man-of-war taken in combat on the high seas is a feat unprecedented in individual and group bravery, execution, and accomplishment in the Naval History of the United States," Ingersoll said in the presidential citation.

Once the Navy learned what it could from the German submarine, the U-505 was destined to become gunnery and torpedo target practice, a typical fate for captured enemy vessels.

Two years after its capture, Chicago native John Gallery, the brother of Guadalcanal Capt. Gallery, contacted the president of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry to preserve the wartime relic as an exhibit.

The Navy donated the U-boat to the museum, but the city of Chicago was tasked with raising $250,000 to move, install, and restore the submarine for exhibition.

In 1954, the U-505 was towed from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where it was being stored, through 28 locks and four Great Lakes to Chicago.

After being towed 3,000 miles to 57th Street Beach in Chicago, the next hurdle was transporting the submarine from the waters of Lake Michigan to the museum — an 800-foot journey that included passing over an urban expressway.

Over the course of a week, engineers removed parts of the sub to make it easier to pull, then moved it across Lake Shore Drive using a network of rails and rollers to its permanent display outside the museum.

The U-505 was initially berthed outdoors but was later moved into an indoor climate-controlled environment to better preserve it in the long term.

"The lives and the history that is embedded within the U-505, we don't want to lose any of that," Voula Saridakis, a curator at the Museum of Science and Industry, told Business Insider. "It's so important, historically, of what this war was all about, especially the Battle of the Atlantic, which often, I think, gets overlooked in many ways."

Due to its size, the exhibit's concrete housing was erected around the U-505, surrounded by external exhibits that relayed the history of the submarine and the Battle of the Atlantic, whose toll included over 100,000 sailors and mariners and 3,500 merchant ships; Germany alone lost 783 U-boats and an estimated 30,000 crewmen.

The interior of the submarine was meticulously restored to replicate the atmosphere and environment as it was before its capture more than eight decades ago, complete with simulated lighting and sound effects to add to the immersiveness.

"As our visitors come through, they can get an idea of what life was like for these submariners and the living conditions and the tech and the innovation that went into this Type IXC," Saridakis said.

In 1982, members from the US Navy's Task Group 22.3 reunited with members of the German submarine's crew in Chicago, marking the first time the German sailors saw the U-boat since the war.

"Part of what we want to do is preserve the history of the U-505, the battle, and the capture for future generations," Saridakis said, "and we do this through telling this story, helping our guests understand its history and keeping this up and preserved for as long as we can."

At least 10 people have died and 10,000 properties have been damaged in the fires, and officials expect figures to grow as firefighters and first responders struggle to contain the flames.

The Santa Ana winds annually threaten to stoke the flames during California's wildfire season, but extreme drought combined with the powerful offshore winds catalyzed the record-breaking wildfires that continue to burn through Southern California.

Since California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles County, tens of thousands of residents have been impacted by evacuation orders.

More than 600 personnel, 10 rotary-wing aircraft, and two C-130 Hercules aircraft from the California National Guard were deployed to battle the blaze.

The Biden administration ordered the Pentagon to send eight MAFFS-equipped C-130s from Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado to support firefighting efforts in Los Angeles. Some were expected to start fire-suppression flights on Friday.

Hazardous weather conditions prevented the DoD from getting the planes in the air earlier and from sending additional assets to respond to the massive fires.

"We can surge assets, and the president has directed this department to bolster whatever California needs, but we have to work with California," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said during a press conference Wednesday, "and right now, we can't even get assets up in the air because the fires are so bad and the winds are so bad."

"Until we can get more assets in the air, there's only so much we can provide," she continued. "So we're going to be standing by to support in every single way that we can."

In the meantime, the Defense Department is also sending 10 Navy helicopters with water delivery buckets for immediate aerial suppression, in addition to two firefighting teams and four military police groups on the ground.

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a versatile workhorse plane with a spacious cargo hold that can be equipped for a wide range of operations.

When deployed as a firefighting aircraft, the C-130 can be equipped with a Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System (MAFFS) unit to support other air tankers in aerial suppression.

The MAFFS units can be filled with water or a fire retardant called "slurry," which is mostly made of water with the addition of ammonium sulfate, a jelling agent, and red coloring to make it visible to pilots when dropped.

The US military has eight MAFFs units ready for use nationwide, operated by National Guardsmen stationed in California, Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado.

The MAFFS Program was launched by Congress in the 1970s after a massive wildfire in Long Beach, California, overwhelmed the responding civilian air tanker fleet and destroyed hundreds of homes.

The unit can fit inside the cargo hold with no structural modification to allow for quick loading on short notice, taking about four hours or less for a crew of five to set up, fill, and load the 11,000-pound unit.

The C-130 drops its contents through a discharge tube installed on the rear left side of the C-130 and through the open cargo bay door, releasing 3,000 gallons in less than five seconds and covering an area over 1,300 feet long and 100 feet wide.

Because the fire retardant slurry is released in a mist, it doesn't cause damage to buildings and structures while acting as a fertilizer, but it can be harmful to the environment and local wildlife if used in excess.

The unit can be refilled and airborne again in under 20 minutes.

Produced by the Russian manufacturing company Kurganmashzavod, the BMP-3 — an abbreviation of Boevaya Mashina Pekhoty, or infantry fighting vehicle in Russian — was first used by the Soviet army in 1990.

The armored, tracked, and the amphibious vehicle was designed to transport troops across varied combat terrain and water while protecting troops and providing direct fire support.

The combat vehicle was developed to replace Russia's aging fleet of BMP-1 and BMP-2 vehicles, upgraded with a thicker armour made of steel and aluminium and equipped with more modern weaponry with improved precision.

The 23-foot-long light tank is operated by a crew of three — a commander, gunner, and driver — and can accommodate up to seven additional personnel with space for storage.

Weighing about 20 tons, the aluminum-hulled vehicle is still light enough to be fully amphibious, propelled by two water jets at the rear. With a range of about 372 miles, it can reach speeds of up to 43 mph on land and about six mph while afloat.

The BMP-3 is armed with a 100mm cannon, a 30mm automatic cannon that fires up to 330 rounds a minute, as well as three machine guns. The crew can also fire anti-tank guided missiles through the main gun's barrel.

The fighting vehicle features advanced sights that allow crews to operate at night and in low visibility, as well as a two-plane weapon stabilizer that can precisely aim at targets while traveling at speeds up to 18 mph.

Equipped with the firepower to engage fortified positions and armored vehicles, Ukrainian troops have operated IFVs in both direct and indirect fire support roles as light tanks, closing the capability gap as Ukraine faces a shortage of battle tanks.

Ukrainian forces have suffered heavy losses in their mechanized forces, including combat vehicles like the Bradleys and refurbished Russian BMPs.

Russian BMPs are equipped with heavier armament compared to the American Bradley vehicles, whereas the latter has heavier armor that better protects troops inside from small arms and artillery.

So while more lethal Russian BMPs have been battering Ukraine's mechanized forces, Ukrainian troops have a better chance of survival in Western-made vehicles.

But repairing and redeploying captured Russian vehicles hasn't been an easy task. Ukrainian troops struggled to find parts to fix the seized equipment, which they view as "trophies" of the ongoing war, The Washington Post reported in 2022.

A commander of a Ukrainian maintenance squadron told The Post that it's "obvious it should be fighting the enemy and not sitting in a hangar."

There are several variants of the BMP-3, adapted to its combat environment.

The upgraded BMP-3M features more advanced automatic fire control systems and thermal imaging, as well as a new ammunition loading system that can launch laser-guided projectiles.

The BMP-3F was purpose-built for at-sea operations, designed with improved buoyancy and seaworthiness that allow it to operate on amphibious assault missions for up to seven hours.

The BMP-3K, a tactical command variant, can act as a mobile command center, lacking the machine guns mounted at the front of the hull and instead equipped with additional radio and navigation systems.

As drone warfare redefines the battlefield in Ukraine, IFVs like the BMP-3 are no exception. Earlier this year, Russian state media reported that the BMP-3 could soon carry mini-drones.

"The work to introduce drones into the armament of armored vehicles is one of the tasks for specialists of SKBM [Special Design Bureau of Machine-Building] at present," according to a statement from High Precision Systems, a subsidiary of the state-owned military conglomerate Rostec, to Russian news agency TASS.

Rostec previously announced plans to integrate drone countermeasures on light armored platforms, as well as the addition of first-person view drones to assist in reconnaissance and live surveillance.

The company's press office added that "draft organizational decisions and a schedule of joint work for integrating mini-UAVs into the BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle" are still in the works, per the TASS report published in August.

"Drones are planned to be introduced into the design documentation of armored vehicles after the results of type testing," according to the statement.

Construction on the next-generation assault ship began in early 2024, according to the Pentagon's annual congressional report on China's military.

With a displacement of 40,000 tons, satellite images show the Sichuan measures more than 850 feet long and about 170 feet wide, making it considerably larger than its Chinese predecessor, the Type 075, but smaller than the Fujian, the People's Liberation Army's newest and largest aircraft carrier.

The Type 076 is also much larger than Japan's Izumo-class helicopter carriers. While the Sichuan is about as long as the US Navy's America-class LHAs with a similar displacement, it is more than 60 feet wider.

The Chinese warship's larger size and deck space allow it to accommodate both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, with additional storage capacity for more personnel and equipment.

Unlike traditional light aircraft carriers, the Sichuan is equipped with a catapult system and arresting gear for the launch and recovery of fixed-wing aircraft — an operative capability typically reserved for aircraft carriers.

"This is not something that we've seen before," Matthew Funaiole, a senior fellow with the China Power Project at CSIS, told BI previously. "No other country has an LHA that has a catapult system on it."

The electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) is likely similar in design to the catapult aboard the US Navy's advanced Ford-class supercarriers.

The only warship in operational service that employs EMALS is the US Navy carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. China's third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, which has been undergoing shake-down trials at sea, also features three EMALS-style catapults, but the Sichuan's catapult trench, which is over 425 feet long, is significantly longer by comparison.

Earlier Chinese carriers had ski-jump-style ramps for launching aircraft without catapults, leaping past steam-power catapult technology to pursue the more advanced electromagnetic launch system.

Operating for a little over a decade, China's relatively young carrier force could still face a"steep learning curve" in employing modern catapult technology, retired Adm. Raymond Spicer, the CEO and publisher at the US Naval Institute, previously told BI. But the installation of the technology aboard the Type 076 could indicate China's confidence in the design.

The Chinese navy has yet to confirm what kind of air wing will operate aboard the Sichuan, but it could have a future role as a massive drone carrier, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The vessel's catapult, wider flight deck, and unobstructed runway make it highly capable of large-scale drone operations as China expands its arsenal of UAVs, like the Hongdu GJ-11 stealth combat drone, Guizhou WZ-7 reconnaissance drone, and the CASC CH-4B Rainbow strike UCAV.

While the exact timeline for the Type 076 still remains unclear, the Pentagon estimated the ship could join China's naval fleet by the second half of the decade.

Operating more than nearly 400 naval platforms, China has the world's largest maritime fighting force but has long been considered a green-water navy, meaning it operates mostly near its shores. Amphibious assault ships and carriers change that equation.

"I think it is as important, if not more important, to emphasize how mind-bogglingly impressive China's ability to build ships is," Funaiole said.

While not much is known about the capabilities or primary mission of China's next-gen amphibious flattops, the CSIS said the Sichuan "represents a substantial step forward" toward the PLAN's blue-water ambitions, projecting power in waters thousands of miles away.

Hailed for its tank-killing capabilities and operational flexibility, France sent Ukraine more than three dozen AMX-10RC armored vehicles to bolster its frontline defenses.

Developed in the late 1970s, the so-called "wheeled tank" was designed for reconnaissance and close-fire support. It was used to scout and identify enemy positions while armed to rapidly fire on hostile threats.

The 30-foot, 18-ton armored vehicle has a range of about 500 miles and travels at speeds of about 37 mph on roads and about 9 mph off-road; it has less off-road maneuverability than tracked vehicles like tanks.

After about a decade of service, France stopped producing the AMX-10RC in favor of more advanced combat vehicles like the ERBC Jaguar, an armored scout vehicle armed with two anti-tank missiles and a 40mm gun.

The AMX-10 has a turret with two 7.62mm machine guns and a 105mm cannon, which is powerful enough to destroy a tank at close range.

Ukrainian forces operate both the AMX-10RC and AMX-10RCR, an improved variant of the armored vehicle featuring upgraded ceramic armor, more advanced optronics systems like thermal sights, and a self-defense system that automatically launches smoke grenades and decoys.

The AMX-10 can carry a crew of four people — a machine commander, a gunner, a loader, and a driver.

It can carry up to 38 shells for its main gun and 4,000 rounds for its machine guns. An AMX-10 crew featured on Ukraine's state-run Army TV said the vehicle's rate of fire can range from five to 12 rounds per minute, depending on the loader's efficiency.

Ukrainian troops initially struggled to integrate the AMX-10RC into their frontline strategy. The vintage armored vehicle's light aluminum armor left it vulnerable in high-intensity conflict zones, especially against Russia's more advanced artillery and defense systems.

Instead, Ukrainian forces took advantage of the wheeled platform's maneuverability and repurposed the armored fighting vehicles as self-propelled artillery that could engage hostile targets from afar.

Army TV, run by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, captured the AMX-10's capabilities in action in a video posted last week.

While filming a segment aboard the AMX-10, the Ukrainian soldiers and the television crew came under attack by a Russian drone. The personnel and TV crew weren't harmed, and the vehicle was not damaged.

In September, thousands of Ukrainian troops — most of whom had only a few weeks of basic training — were sent to eastern and southern France to hone their skills on the battlefield against Russia.

Named "Anne of Kyiv" after the former Ukrainian princess who became a queen of France, French authorities said the brigade will eventually consist of up to 4,500 troops specializing in infantry battalions, engineering units, artillery teams, and other roles.

The newly trained brigade is set to be armed with various French-supplied military assets and weaponry, including armored vehicles, artillery cannons, and anti-tank and antiaircraft missile systems.

A military task force of about 1,500 French soldiers trained Ukraine's troops on effective fighting strategies and skills and how to use and maintain the French-supplied equipment. Over 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers completed the training in France in late November.

"They have improved a lot," a French colonel told the Associated Press. "Now, they are able to fight. They are able to maneuver. They are able to use the different specialists and to use the different equipment they will have on the battlefield."

The US was among several countries around the world ushering in a new era of fighter aircraft toward the end of World War II.

The T-33 Shooting Star was instrumental in transitioning early military aviators — then already qualified to fly propeller-driven aircraft — to fighter jets. The jet trainer was a direct offshoot of the single-seat P-80 Shooting Star, one of the first operational jet fighters flown by the US Air Force, adding another seat to the cockpit to accommodate both student and instructor.

Equipped with a turbojet engine, the T-33 could reach speeds of up to 600 mph and altitudes of up to 45,000 feet. Just shy of 40 feet long, the jet trainer had a large clear bubble canopy, providing ample visibility to the pilots in the two-seat cockpit decked out with various flight indicators and engine gauges.

Lockheed manufactured over 5,000 so-called "T-Birds" between 1948 and 1959, used by air forces around the world until the fleet was slowly phased out starting in the 1980s. The US Air Force retired its last T-33, a variant modified for aerodynamic research, in 1997, ending the storied aircraft's five-decade tenure with the service.

While the T-Bird no longer trains military pilots, the aircraft's legacy has been preserved in aerial museums and heritage flights.

I flew with Greg "Wired" Colyer, a longtime performer at the Pacific Airshow. Colyer founded Ace Maker Aviation, operating three T-33 aircraft for aerial demonstrations like airshows.

A US Army veteran and aviation enthusiast, Colyer completed his fixed-wing training while studying at the US Navy's Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

He told Business Insider he wanted to fly military helicopters until a knee injury prompted him to instead work as an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration for nearly three decades.

In 2008, Colyer restored his first T-Bird, aptly naming the historic jet trainer the "Ace Maker," teaching himself aerobatic maneuvers for airshows across the US. Aside from airshows, the California native also works as a test pilot instructor for the US Navy and Air Force.

Over the next decade, he added two more T-33s, the Ace Maker II and Ace Maker III, the latter of which I flew in.

"It was just one of my favorite planes as a kid," Colyer said. "It was our very first jet trainer and just an iconic piece of US history."

During the Pacific Airshow, Colyer put the T-33's capabilities on full display, dazzling spectators below with his self-taught aerobatic maneuvers.

The airshow also featured performances from the F-22 Raptor, a fifth-generation stealth jet considered to be the top US air superiority fighter. The Thunderbirds, the Air Force's aerial demonstration squadron, also wowed crowds at the airshow, flying in tight formations at near-supersonic speeds in F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft.

After haphazardly climbing atop the T-33's wing, I peered into the cockpit and was immediately intimidated by the crowded display of gauges and controls.

As a Cold War-era aircraft, the T-33 didn't feature the digital displays or avionics that are routine on more advanced fighter jets. The T-Bird had primarily analog controls, leaving the pilot responsible for manually controlling the plane's speed, altitude, and flight path.

Colyer walked me through a crash course of the T-33's rear instrument panels — the airspeed indicator, altimeter, turn coordinator, heading indicator, radio controls, and various fuel and engine gauges monitoring temperature, pressure, and fuel state.

As a tandem trainer, the backseat also had a yoke and rudder pedals, allowing student pilots to practice controls and maneuvers. I was explicitly instructed not to mess with either.

Though rudimentary to an experienced pilot, I could see how it would benefit early military aviators to develop essential skills for operating the advanced jet aircraft of the time.

As a journalist, however, the mechanics of the aircraft were lost on me, but I paid close attention to two controls in the cockpit:

1. The switch that muted my transceiver so I wouldn't distract the pilot.
2. The lever that operated the plane's rocket-powered emergency ejection seat — for obvious reasons.

As Colyer strapped into the pilot seat, I settled in the seat behind him, my head barely peeking over the edge of the cockpit.

I adjusted my flight helmet and oxygen mask, snapping a few shameless selfies to show off in group chats with my friends and family after the flight.

Colyer's voice crackled in my headset as he communicated with the control tower. In an instant, the plane's engine roared to life as the plane taxied the airfield in Orange County.

With one final check-in, I signaled my OK with a meager thumbs-up to the pilot before we sped down the runway and into the air.

The acceleration pinned me against the seat, and I peered at the blurring silhouettes of buildings and aircraft surrounding us, slowly shrinking as we gained altitude.

I had to stifle my gasp — lest I distract Colyer while he operated the aircraft — as we were soon graced with an unobstructed view of the skies through the glass canopy.

While Colyer spared me from the thrills — and terrors — of complex airshow maneuvers, I was still acutely aware of the G-forces pressing down on me with every sharp movement of the aircraft.

A slight nudge of the yoke sent us banking into a turn, the horizon tilting dramatically. I was repeatedly startled by urgent beeping from the control panel, only to be reassured by Colyer that it was because the plane was idling to maintain slower speeds.

He said the T-33 was only going around 250 mph — a fraction of what the jet trainer was capable of and nearly half the speed he normally goes during airshow performances.

We were accompanied by a former US Navy Texan T-6 during the flight demonstration. A fellow trainer aircraft, the T-6 is a two-seat jet trainer produced by Raytheon Aircraft in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The T-6 was primarily used to train students in basic flying skills through the Air Force and Navy's entry-level training program known as the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System.

Time seemed to pass more slowly as we flew for about an hour, constrained by the fuel capacity of the T-33, which burns about 300 gallons per hour.

Descending back toward the runway, the adrenaline began to ebb before Colyer informed me that he would partially pop open the canopy to create additional drag upon landing. Lowering the visor on my flight helmet, I braced myself against rushing winds as the T-33 touched down with a thud and rolled to a halt on the tarmac.

After sharing the cockpit selfies and views with friends and family, I fielded a number of questions about the flight and whether I got to deploy any onboard weapons (trainer aircraft are not armed). It was a chance to reflect on the unforgettable experience.

In short, we flew in circles over Orange County, cruising at speeds slower than commercial passenger planes. I then spent the rest of the time ahead of the Pacific Airshow talking with demo pilots who operated more advanced frontline fighters.

But the experience was more than just a golden-hour flight in a vintage military jet trainer. The intense rumble of the turbojet engine, the array of analog gauges and controls, and sweeping views through the canopy offered a glimpse into what it must have felt like for early military aviators mastering jet-powered flight for the first time.

While I'm still holding out on future familiarization flight rides on modern fighter jets, my flight on the T-Bird will serve as a constant reminder of just how far US military aviation has come.

The Navy's Ticonderoga-class cruisers were the first warships to be equipped with the Aegis Combat System, an automated weapon control system designed to detect, track, and engage aerial, surface, and subsurface threats.

These warships were equipped with 122 vertical missile launchers capable of launching Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles, among other weapons, forward and aft deck guns, and two close-in weapons systems.

In 2001, the Navy started work on a new cruiser as it prepared to phase out the Ticonderoga fleet. Nine years later, it abandoned the next-generation program and instead procured upgraded versions of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to fill the gap before the arrival of future destroyers.

New destroyers are still being developed after the failure of the Zumwalt program and delays with the DDG(X) program.

Worried about China, some lawmakers resisted the Navy's initial proposal to decommission the ships faster than it could replace them, so the modernization program was implemented instead.

The overhaul aimed to modernize the ships' aging infrastructure by replacing corroded and worn hull components, upgrading mechanical and electrical systems, and integrating more advanced sensor and radar systems. It was also designed to make the warships compatible with more advanced missile defense systems and next-generation missiles.

During its over three decades of service, the cruiser USS Hué City provided humanitarian aid off the coast of New York in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks and embarked on seven deployments in support of US operations in Afghanistan and other areas in the Middle East.

Despite allocating $161.15 million to upgrade the cruiser after entering the modernization program in 2018, the Navy decided to decommission the Hué City in 2022, before work even started.

The Anzio was decommissioned along the Hué City in 2022 after 30 years of service. The cruiser participated in operations in the Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, and Black Sea. The Anzio's crew also disrupted pirate activity in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea and fired over a dozen Tomahawk missiles in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom while stationed in the Persian Gulf.

The service spent $250.54 million to upgrade the Anzio but later discontinued work on the ship due to cost overruns.

The Cowpens is known for Tomahawk missile action. In 1993, the Cowpens fired 10 Tomahawks into Iraq after violating no-fly zone sanctions. A decade later, the Cowpens launched the first Tomahawk missile into Iraq at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Navy invested $678.56 million to upgrade the Cowpens, but service officials inadequately managed the ship's maintenance and upgrades. Properly repairing and modernizing the vessel would have cost another $88 million. The Cowpens was decommissioned in August after 33 years of service.

The Navy decommissioned USS Vicksburg at the end of June after 32 years in the fleet. It was the first ship to undergo modernization in 2016.

The Navy spent $745.05 million to upgrade the ship, but after the cruiser spent four years in the shipyard, the Navy found that the work was only 85% complete. Contractors dropped the ball on quality control while the Navy let maintenance slip to the point that key systems on the ship were simply not salvageable.

In September 2023, Navy officials found that the Vicksburg was still "years away" from completing its modernization, which would have cost another $120 million to finish.

Only three ships are expected to complete the modernization program — USS Gettysburg, USS Chosin, and USS Cape St. George. The cruisers will serve until fiscal year 2030 due to a service-life extension that the Navy announced in November.

The Gettysburg was the first of the three vessels to complete its modernization in February 2023. Less than a year later, a Navy review identified defects in the ship's weapon systems and several structural issues. It wasn't until this past summer that the warship passed a missile launch test using its updated combat systems.

In September, the cruiser deployed to the Middle East with the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group to help defend against Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

USS Chosin completed its modernization in early 2024 after its nonfunctioning ventilation caused problems with the Aegis' computer equipment, delaying operational testing before it was redelivered to the Navy.

The Chosin was involved in the Navy's first successful attempt to reload a warship at sea. The Transferrable Reload At-sea Mechanism uses an apparatus of cables, rails, and pulleys to transfer missile canisters directly to a cruiser's vertical missile launchers, streamlining the reloading process at sea rather than traveling to the nearest port.

Commissioned in 1993, the Cape St. George is the youngest active Ticonderoga-class vessel. The cruiser is still undergoing modernization and slated to undergo sea trials next year. The Navy plans to deploy the cruiser at least once before decommissioning.

The Navy's failed efforts to modernize its Ticonderogas highlighted the need to address flaws in the service's approach to maintaining a combat-ready fleet.

"The Navy did not effectively plan the cruiser effort," the GAO report said, adding that "this led to a high volume of unplanned work — 9,000 contract changes — resulting in cost growth and schedule delays."

The watchdog report said the Navy "has yet to identify the root causes of unplanned work or develop and codify root cause mitigation strategies to prevent poor planning from similarly affecting future surface ship modernization efforts."

The GAO report released earlier this week spotlighted the flaws in the Navy's modernization efforts for its cruisers. The new report followed the Navy's recently announced $10 billion effort to refurbish its older Arleigh Burke-class destroyers "to keep more ready players on the field" while it works on other shipbuilding projects, like newer Burkes and the Constellation-class frigates.

After a decadeslong dictatorship, rebel forces seized control of the Syrian capital of Damascus over the weekend, forcing Assad to relinquish power and flee the country.

"We declare Damascus free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad," Hassan Abdul-Ghani, commander of the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, wrote in a post on social media. "To the displaced people around the world, free Syria awaits you."

Former Syrian prime minister Ghazi al-Jalali remained in the country after the collapse of the Assad regime, saying the government is willing to cooperate and support "any leadership chosen by the Syrian people."

While Israel supported ousting Assad, a staunch ally of Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the situation in Syria is still "fraught with significant dangers" from the extremists now governing the country.

In the days after the dayslong rebel offensive ousted the Syrian dictator, Israel launched hundreds of strikes targeting Syrian military assets over 48 hours to prevent them "from falling into the hands of terrorist elements." HTS publicly split with the Al Qaeda affiliate from which it formed, but US officials believe it may still have links to Al Qaeda leaders.

"We have no intention of interfering in Syria's internal affairs, but we clearly intend to do what is necessary to ensure our security," Netanyahu said.

"I authorized the air force to bomb strategic military capabilities left by the Syrian army so that they would not fall into the hands of the jihadists," he said, adding that Israel "would like to form relations with the new regime in Syria."

The IDF said the strikes were part of a larger-scale mission known as Operation Bashan Arrow, intended to create a "sterile defense zone" by neutralizing potential threats from the neighboring country.

Israeli forces attacked key Syrian naval facilities in the port cities of Al-Bayda and Latakia late Tuesday, where more than a dozen Syrian naval vessels were docked.

Photos of the decimated port showed half-submerged Syrian warships. Some of the damaged vessels were Osa-class missile boats, Soviet-era vessels whose 30mm turrets and mounted missile launchers could be seen in the wreckage.

The Syrian navy, the smallest branch of the country's armed forces, operated over a dozen of the high-speed — albeit outdated — vessels developed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz said Israeli Navy missile ships "destroyed Syria's navy overnight and with great success." It's not clear how many Syrian vessels were destroyed by Israeli warships in the overnight attack.

Satellite images of Latakia, a former stronghold of Assad, showed the charred wreckage of the naval ships. The IDF wrote in a post on X that "dozens of sea-to-sea missiles" with "significant explosive payloads" were also destroyed.

The IAF carried out an airstrike on the Mezzeh Air Base in Damascus, once a key stronghold of the Assad regime's air force.

At least three major Syrian army air bases were attacked by Israeli warplanes, damaging dozens of helicopters and fighter jets, The Times of Israel reported. Locals living near the bases said they heard several explosions after the Israeli strikes appeared to ignite the ammunition stored there, the Associated Press reported.

In addition to decimating Syria's aerial and naval fleet, the IDF said it carried out strikes on 130 military assets, such as firing positions, antiaircraft batteries, missile and radar systems, and weapons production sites.

Israeli forces also destroyed the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center in Damascus, a key facility thought to be testing and operating the country's covert chemical and biological weapons programs under the Assad regime.

The Barzeh facility was previously bombarded in 2018 by US, UK, and French forces in response to a poison sarin gas attack in Douma, Syria. The US found Assad's government responsible for the April 2018 chemical warfare attack that killed at least 40 people and injured over 100.

However, the head of the center's polymers department told Reuters at the time that the facility, now reduced to rubble, was used to research medicinal components that couldn't be imported, such as anti-venom and cancer treatments.

The fall of the Syrian regime weakens Iran's regional influence and could pose logistical and strategic challenges to Iran's regional proxies like the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

"The collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the severe blows with which we have struck Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran," Netanyahu said during a Monday press conference. "The axis has not yet disappeared, but as I promised — we are changing the face of the Middle East."

Despite the widespread strikes across Syria, Israeli military officials said the country's armed forces were operating beyond the Israeli-occupied demilitarized buffer zone in Golan Heights but not toward the Syrian capital.

"IDF forces are not advancing towards Damascus. This is not something we are doing or pursuing in any way," IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said at a briefing. "We are not involved in what's happening in Syria internally, we are not a side in this conflict, and we do not have any interest other than protecting our borders and the security of our citizens."

Katz, Israel's defense minister, said the country was advancing beyond Golan Heights to impose a "security zone free of heavy strategic weapons and terrorist infrastructures" in southern Syria.

"With regard to what will be in the future, I'm not a prophet," Katz said. "It is important right now to take all necessary steps in the context of the security of Israel."

The Royal Navy Colossus-class aircraft carrier HMS Ocean was commissioned just months before it was a part of the historic carrier landing.

Shortly after commissioning in August 1945 — the same month Japan surrendered after the US dropped two nuclear bombs — the ship was upgraded to conduct night fighter operations, equipped with improved radar and direction-finding equipment.

The light fleet carrier's flight deck measured nearly 700 feet and accommodated more than three dozen aircraft. The Ocean was armed with close-in antiaircraft weaponry, including a Bofors 40 mm gun and a two-pounded naval gun known as the "pom-pom" due to the sound it makes when firing.

The landmark landing could only be carried out by an aviator of equal renown. Capt. Eric "Winkle" Brown was the chief naval test pilot for the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the UK's leading flight research facility at the time.

As a highly experienced test pilot, Brown already had a number of broken records under his belt — he was the first to land a twin-engine aircraft on a carrier, the first to land a tricycle gear aircraft on a carrier, and the first to land a rotary-wing aircraft on a ship at sea.

The Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm developed three prototypes as part of their efforts to create a fighter jet that could operate aboard carriers, as well as new deck-landing techniques.

The flight trials for the Sea Vampire prototype took place off the south coast of England. The Sea Vampire trial planned to have the aircraft land on the Ocean's flight deck at 95 mph, though strong gusts caused the plane to land faster than anticipated.

Due to the aircraft's tail-down angle and the pitching of the carrier's flight deck, the plane's trailing edge wing flaps hit the deck, breaking their hinges upon landing.

Brown, however, was determined to pull off a perfect landing. He made several more takeoffs and landings on the Ocean, accomplishing the feat on the fourth try despite the initial damage to the Sea Vampire.

Carrier landings were considered some of the most challenging maneuvers at the time, so demonstrating that higher-speed fighter jets could safely land marked a turning point in naval aviation. The first successful jet-powered carrier landing catalyzed the innovation of carrier technology and design to better accommodate jet aircraft, including angled flight decks, steam-powered aircraft catapults, and more advanced arresting gear.

The advancements ushered in a new era, expanding and enhancing the capabilities of both the flattops and the aircraft they carried. Jet engines have greater thrust than propellers, allowing aircraft to fly much faster and at higher altitudes. These changes led to a strategic shift in naval warfare with a greater focus on air superiority at sea.

"The only thing we can say is, we took the bull by the horns, accepting the limitations in engine performance, to show jet propulsion was conceivable for naval operations," Brown said in a 2015 interview published in the British aviation magazine Aeroplane Monthly.

Following the successful fight landing and take-off, the FAA ultimately decided to use the Sea Vampire as a more cost-effective training aircraft rather than a first-line fighter.

In 1947, the mass-produced version of the Sea Vampire featured the model's larger flaps and airbrakes and a modified arresting hook. The Navy ordered 30 Sea Vampires, but only 18 were actually delivered to the Royal Navy.

A few years after the 1945 carrier landing, the Sea Vampire went on to test the feasibility of landing a jet with wheels retracted on a flexible 150-foot "carpet" atop a carrier deck.

While the tests aboard the light carrier HMS Warrior were ultimately successful, wheelless aircraft couldn't land on conventional airfields or runways without the shock-absorbing "carpet," making the innovation more trouble than it was worth.

After pilots reported issues with the Sea Vampire's slow takeoff without a catapult, the training jets were pulled in the late 1950s and scrapped by 1960.

While Brown's landing and takeoff on the HMS Ocean is remembered as the first jet-powered aircraft carrier landing, some argue that the US Navy accomplished the feat a month earlier.

On November 6, 1945, US Navy Ensign J.A. West landed a Ryan FR-1 Fireball fighter jet, the Navy's first jet-engine fighter aircraft, on the deck of the escort carrier USS Wake Island using jet power after the plane's main piston engine malfunctioned.

The Fireball was a mixed-propulsion aircraft, meaning it was powered by both a piston and jet engine. Standard takeoffs and landings from carrier decks at the time were typically powered by the aircraft's piston engines because early jet engines alone were not powerful or reliable enough for sustained flight.

While West was approaching the carrier deck, the American-made jet's main piston engine failed, causing the plane's propeller to spin out of control. In a last-ditch effort to safely land the Fireball, West switched to the Fireball's turbojet engine and successfully landed on USS Wake Island using jet power alone.

Although West's landing was ultimately successful — albeit unintentional — the credit for the first jet-powered carrier landing is more often given to Brown's pure-jet Sea Vampire, as the Fireball was a hybrid aircraft.

The Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers are considered the most advanced surface warships in the world, equipped with innovative naval technology.

Named after Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., the youngest chief of naval operations in US history, the lead ship USS Zumwalt is the largest destroyer in the world at 610 feet long. It can house a crew of nearly 200 sailors and accommodate one MH-60R Seahawk helicopter in its hangar.

General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Huntington Ingalls Industries were behind the design and construction of the three stealth destroyers.

The warships feature an all-electric propulsion system and a composite deckhouse covered with radar-absorbing material to hide their sensors and communication systems. But the US Navy has struggled to arm them.

Due to the ship's manufacturing issues and soaring costs, the Navy reduced the Zumwalt class's overall size from 32 ships to just three: the Zumwalt, USS Michael Monsoor, and the future USS Lyndon B. Johnson, which is expected to commission after its combat systems are fully installed and activated.

The stealth destroyers were armed with two 155 mm deck guns for shore bombardment, but ballooning manufacturing costs made the ammunition for the guns ridiculously expensive.

The Navy halted the ammo procurement in 2016, the same year the Zumwalt was commissioned, and publicly announced in 2018 that it was scrapping the now-useless main deck guns for a new weapon system.

In 2021, then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said the stealth destroyers would be the first Navy warships to be armed with hypersonic missiles instead of its Block V Virginia-class submarines, saying that it would be an "important move" toward turning the surface ships into strike platforms.

The Navy said the first-in-class stealth destroyer's "upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal ships in the US Navy."

Photos showed the Zumwalt's main deck gun mounts were removed. The cannons will be replaced with four all-up round canisters containing three hypersonic missiles each. These come in addition to its conventional missile arsenal of 80 vertical launch cells.

The US military is working on hypersonic weapons across all branches. The Zumwalts will be armed with the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) system, the Navy's joint hypersonic weapons program with the Army and US Strategic Command.

Described by STRATCOM as "a strong deterrence message to our adversaries," the "highly lethal platform" would launch like a ballistic missile but instead uses a two-stage solid-fueled rocket booster to get the projectile to travel at speeds faster than Mach 5 speed — nearly 4,000 mph. The booster allows the missile to change trajectory at these speeds, unlike a ballistic missile, and combined with its lower altitude flight complicates efforts to intercept it.

The weapon system features an all-up round (AUR) missile and a separate payload modular adapter, which the Navy is testing along with the missile and eject system.

"It's not like any other type of missile," Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the Navy's director of strategic programs, told reporters at the Naval Submarine League's annual symposium last month. "You don't light this thing off inside."

The CPS system failed its first test in June 2022, as well as subsequent flight tests in March and September 2023. The first successful test was completed this summer.

"The testing that we need to do to get to the final integration of Zumwalt, that's irrespective of where the Zumwalt's at, whether it's in the water," Wolfe added.

In addition to the CPS system, the Navy is also developing a hypersonic air-launched anti-ship missile expected to be compatible with the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet. However, few details about the $178.6 million program have been released to the public.

Developed to provide off-shore precision fire support from a distance, the Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers were armed with a pair of Advanced Gun System (AGS) mounts to fire naval artillery from up to 100 nautical miles away — in what would've been the US Navy's longest-range shell in use.

However, after the Navy reduced the size of its Zumwalt fleet, manufacturing costs for the Long-Range Land-Attack Projectile-guided shells skyrocketed to about $800,000 to $1 million per round — about the same price as a cruise missile.

The rocket-assisted projectiles also fell short of the intended range, prompting the sea service to cancel production of the munitions, rendering the pair of high-velocity cannons useless.

Before announcing the new hypersonic weapon, the Navy floated other weapon systems to replace the failed gun mounts, including an electromagnetic railgun or futuristic laser weapons.

In recent years, US adversaries like Russia and China have been developing hypersonic weapons, adding pressure on the Pentagon to prioritize its own hypersonic development efforts.

China has "the world's leading hypersonic arsenal," and Russia has already deployed two of its three hypersonic weapon systems in Ukraine, according to congressional testimony from Jeffrey McCormick, senior intelligence analyst at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center.

The US, however, has yet to field a single hypersonic weapon amid ongoing development and integration challenges across the military, including the Zumwalt-class artillery upgrade.

Research and development for the destroyer cost about $22.4 billion, and General Dynamics spent another $40 million just to construct a shipyard facility large enough to accommodate the giant hull segments.

Each ship cost an average of $7.5 billion — more expensive than the Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.

Even with all of their costly innovations, the Zumwalt-class vessels continued to be plagued by equipment problems and constantly needed repairs.

Last year, the Navy awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries with a $154.8 million contract to integrate the hypersonic weapon system aboard USS Zumwalt. The Congressional Budget Office also estimated that it would cost nearly $18 billion to buy and maintain 300 of the hypersonic boost-glide missiles for the next 20 years.

As the expenses of fielding US-developed hypersonic weapons pile up, some military analysts say the costs outweigh the benefits.

"This particular missile costs more than a dozen tanks," Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the DC-based think tank Lexington Institute, told the Associated Press. "All it gets you is a precise non-nuclear explosion, someplace far, far away."

"Is it really worth the money?" Thompson continued. "The answer is, most of the time, the missile costs much more than any target you can destroy with it."

While conventional missiles may cost less, long-range hypersonic weapons increase the chances of striking the targets of adversaries protected by advanced air defense systems like those of China and Russia.

"The adversary has them," retired Navy Rear Adm. Ray Spicer, CEO of the US Naval Institute, told the AP. "We never want to be outdone."

Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, told the AP that while the US stealth destroyers were "a costly blunder," the Navy could "take victory from the jaws of defeat here and get some utility out of them by making them into a hypersonic platform."

The jury is still out on whether the Zumwalt hypersonic upgrades are worth the hefty price tag, but it would at the very least give the stealth destroyers a purpose.

"Zumwalt gave us an opportunity to get [hypersonics] out faster," Gilday told USNI News in 2022," and to be honest with you, I need a solid mission for Zumwalt."