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But the backstory matters. When the Air Force awarded the F-47 contract, F/A-XX was widely expected to follow within days — and then it stalled. In July 2025, the White House suggested that moving forward with F/A-XX would imperil F-47 success, touching off an internal fight inside the department over whether to proceed.

The strategic rationale for F/A-XX is straightforward. The Super Hornet is a fourth-generation aircraft; it has done far more than it was ever designed to do, and the Navy even reopened the production line to make additional F/A-18 E/Fs and Growlers when F-35 deliveries slipped. But it is not a long-range airplane, and neither is the F-35. In the high-end fight, stealth matters, range matters, and what Mooch calls “stick length” matters. The MQ-25 Stingray bridges some of that gap as an organic carrier-based tanker, but F/A-XX is the real answer: a platform built from the ground up for the threat environment that actually keeps the Joint Chiefs up at night.

Boeing’s win comes with an asterisk: The company has had well-documented quality and production issues in recent years that are hard to ignore. The contract is a bet on Boeing’s ability to execute at a moment when that ability is legitimately in question.

Check out the entire Punk Series from Ward Carroll

Vice Admiral Ted “Slapshot” Carter walks through what it takes to earn command of a nuclear-powered carrier, from the career path to the grueling training track that every prospective CO has to survive. Then Mooch and Hozer take you aboard USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) operating off Florida for an up-close look at life and work on a supercarrier. And Chester Hull, author of the coffee table book “Life on the Flight Deck,” breaks down the color-coded jersey system that keeps organized chaos from becoming just chaos on a Nimitz class flight deck. Three episodes that put the Lincoln story in context.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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Mooch in the News…

Mooch joins Julie Mason on the Sirius XM POTUS Politics show to talk about the latest news around the Pentagon and US deployments overseas.

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Around The Fleet

3 Years of Middle East Combat Altering How Navy Supplies, Maintains Fleet, Leaders Say

UK to Gather Defense CEOs for ‘Closed-Door’ Russian Security Briefing

Air Force to Cut Civilian Jobs from China-Focused Research Center

Video Roundup

ENCORE: Vice Admiral Ted "Slapshot" Carter, USN (Ret.) details what it takes to command a U.S. Navy nuclear powered aircraft carrier including a review of his career that led to his selection and the rigorous training track that those who assume command have to go through.

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ENCORE: Mooch and Hozer spend some time aboard the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) operating off the coast of Florida to get an in-depth look at what living and working on one of the U.S. Navy's supercarriers is really like.

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ENCORE: Chester Hull, author of a new coffee table book called "Life on the Flight Deck" joins Mooch at the 2025 NAS Oceana Air Show to talk about what the different flight deck jersey colors mean on the flight deck of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier.

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In the latest livestream, Mooch breaks down the friendly fire incident between a Kuwaiti F/A-18 Super Hornet and a flight of US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles. The pilot fired three AMRAAMs, hitting the Strike Eagles in post-mission mode, low on fuel, diverting to Al Jaber in Kuwait, their defensive systems essentially standing down. All six American aviators ejected successfully, but the aircraft were lost. The Kuwaiti pilot bears no individual fault; he did exactly what his controller told him to do. The failure lives somewhere in the seams of a coalition command and control architecture that, under the pressures of a shooting war, produced exactly the kind of tragic misidentification it was designed to prevent.

On the political front, the war continues to grind in ways that are making Washington uncomfortable. President Trump, Mooch noted, is deeply underwater in approval polls heading into midterms, and his public frustration with the pace of the campaign has begun to show in his rhetoric — including use of the word "annihilate" in reference to Iran, language that critics have labeled reckless at best. Iran's President Peskin has responded in kind, calling Trump a terrorist, asserting Iran's sovereign right to civilian nuclear power, and showing no appetite for negotiation. Mooch contrasted all of this with his own last deployment in 1997–98 aboard George Washington, enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq from a 5th Fleet that still had a functioning headquarters in Manama. That headquarters is gone now, hit by Iranian ballistic missiles early in the war. The paradigm shift in how the United States projects power in the CENTCOM area of operations, he said, is generational. Whether the political will exists to see this through to an acceptable conclusion is a question that no one in Washington seems eager to answer.

Check out the entire Punk Series from Ward Carroll

Congressman Rob Wittman joins Mooch at NAS Oceana to talk through the full list: The F/A-XX schedule, Ford Class construction, operational tempo, deployment lengths, and the mid-career retention crisis, from the perspective of someone on the Hill who has to fund and oversee all of it.

Then Hozer is back with a story that deserves far more attention than it’s getting: a government report accusing the Navy of ignoring medical studies linking cumulative G-force exposure over careers of carrier operations to brain injuries — the same injuries being connected to Super Hornet pilot suicides. Mooch and Hozer dig into who in the Navy owns this problem, and whether the culture of mental health stigma is keeping aviators from coming forward before it’s too late.

The encore is a good one to pair with both stories. Jell-O Aiello — host of the Fighter Pilot Podcast — traces his path from a teenager with a dream to the front seat of an F/A-18 flying off carriers in harm’s way. The kind of story that reminds you exactly who the retention crisis and the TBI problem are happening to.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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From Our Friends…

Our friend David Axe has an interesting piece on the evolving use of unmanned sea vessels for direct action strikes. He warns that, while they can be effective, “slow, easy to spot from the air and prone to getting lost amid heavy radio jamming, USVs are actually pretty easy for a prepared foe to defeat.”

Read More

Around The Fleet

Carrier USS Abraham Lincoln Pulls into Guam for Logistics Stop, Deployment Now at 302 Days

After Hitting Pilot Training Goal, Resolving Shortage Will Take Years, Air Force Official Says

Denmark Says NATO Shares Responsibility for Arctic Security Under Greenland Deal

Video Roundup

Congressman Rob Wittman (R-VA) joins Mooch at the NAS Oceana Airshow to give his take on the major issues facing the U.S. Navy right now including the F/A-XX schedule, Ford Class aircraft carrier construction, operational tempo and deployment lengths, and the mid-career retention crisis.

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Moochie award winner Captain Kevin "Hozer" Miller rejoins Mooch to discuss a recently released government report that accuses the U.S. Navy of ignoring medical studies that link brain injuries, including those that have been blamed for Super Hornet pilot suicides, to the G-forces accumulated over hundreds of flight hours and years of carrier operations.

Hozer and Mooch discuss who has responsibility within the Navy to tackle the problem and whether or not the stigma of mental health keeps aviators from coming forward when they have a problem.

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ENCORE: Retired U.S. Navy Commander and former fighter pilot Vincent "Jell-O" Aiello, the host of the "Fighter Pilot Podcast," talks about his path from teenager with a dream to the cockpit of an F/A-18 Hornet flying into harm's way off of aircraft carriers sailing over hostile waters.

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Two encores provide the before-and-after. The Houthi episode asks the question that still doesn’t have a clean answer: What does it actually take to stop them, after TLAM strikes on 30 targets in Yemen proved insufficient within a week? And the Gen. Kenneth McKenzie encores with his account of overseeing the Baghdadi raid and the Soleimani strike, and the chain of consequences that ran from those decisions straight into Epic Fury.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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From Our Friends…

In a recent editorial from the Air & Space Forces Magazine, editor Tobias Naegele warns that the 25 years since the 9/11 attacks were "disastrous for our military air and space enterprise. Decades of nonstop military operations exhausted the Air Force, and the cost of ongoing ground operations led the Pentagon to delay and sometimes forgo modernization. The Air Force contracted as adversaries watched, learned, copied, and countered everything it did or could do.”

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Around The Fleet

North Korea Tests Missiles, Attack Drones on Island in Sea of Japan

Despite Fire, Lengthy Deployment, Navy Expects Only Six-Month Maintenance for USS Ford

Air Force Plans Hundreds of Autonomous Fighter and ISR Drones by 2032

Video Roundup

In this special livestream episode, Mooch discusses the latest events surrounding the war with Iran, including Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao's recent statement to The Epoch Times that the Iranians "blew the hell out of Bahrain" where 5th Fleet's headquarters were based before Operation Epic Fury kicked off.

Several experts and former senior ranking officers have also said that America will never regain it's military footprint in the Middle East to what it was pre-February 28.

So what does this mean for the U.S.'s position globally?

And why is Secretary Hegseth forcing 50 of his most senior military leaders to take a polygraph?

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ENCORE: The tensions between the U.S. and Houthis have continued to flare in the Red Sea since the U.S. and United Kingdom conducted strikes on at least 30 Houthi targets in western Yemen using Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles better known as “TLAM” and fixed wing aircraft on Jan. 11. Whatever belief the Pentagon may have had that the strikes would neutralize the Houthi's military capabilities was wiped away in the week that followed as rebel group continued to attack shipping in the region.

What is it going to take to stop the Houthis once and for all?

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ENCORE: Retired U.S. Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, who was in charge of Central Command from 2019 until 2022, details his experiences in dealing with the Iranian threat and his recommendations for ending Operation Epic Fury.

General McKenzie details how he oversaw the raid in Syria that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the armed drone strike that killed Iranian Republican Guard General Qassim Soleimani and what those actions did - both intended and unintended - throughout the Middle East and eventually led to Operation Epic Fury.

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This week’s new episode covers a significant tactical shift in the Iran conflict: CENTCOM has moved from blockades to offense, striking two Iranian government tankers in the first use of the new “tanker for a tanker” policy following IRGC attacks on commercial shipping. The goal is no longer just containment — it’s degrading the radar and missile capabilities Iran needs to threaten the Strait.

Two encores frame the broader drone picture: Hozer breaks down the MQ-25 carrier tanker and whether $181 million per aircraft — nearly twice the cost of an F-35 — is a price the Navy can justify, and Pako Benitez explains how AI is making the next generation of combat drones lethal in the strike role and nearly unbeatable in a dogfight. Read the Navy Times piece on the new CCA specs, then watch these three.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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From Our Friends…

Our good friend Bryan McGrath argues on his Conservative Wahoo Substack that the U.S. Navy is dangerously overstretched, under-resourced, and burning through critical readiness and munitions needed to deter China. He calls for urgent congressional oversight, sharper strategic priorities, and greater accountability from senior Navy leadership before the service’s decline becomes even harder to reverse.

Read Now

Around The Fleet

U.S., Iran Trade Strikes in Strait of Hormuz as Both Battle on Social Media

What options does the Pentagon have to cover its mounting FY26 operational costs?

US Navy unveils new specs for carrier-based Collaborative Combat Aircraft

Video Roundup

U.S. military focus in the ongoing conflict with Iran now appears to be mostly on preventing the IRGC from rebuilding the radar and missile capabilities required to attack commercial shipping attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

In what was the first use of the new “tanker for a tanker” policy, CENTCOM forces followed the IRGC attacks by striking two Iranian government tankers. This offensive strategy is a marked departure from the previous use of blockades as a prevention measure to keep Iranian oil from flowing through the Strait.

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ENCORE: Moochie award winner Captain Kevin "Hozer" Miller, USN (Retired) rejoins Mooch to discuss the latest updates around the MQ-25 carrier-based drone tanker, including the breaking news that it's going to cost $181 million per aircraft, which makes it almost twice as expensive as an F-35 fifth generation fighter.

Is the price going to be worth it?

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ENCORE: Former F-15E Strike Eagle Weapons System Officer Mike "Pako" Benitez returns to the channel to talk about how artificial intelligence is making the next generation of drones lethal during attack missions and unbeatable in a dogfight.

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The strikes have not come without controversy. Iranian state media reported that a US airstrike struck a wedding in the town of Kuhestak, allegedly killing at least four people and wounding scores more. CENTCOM acknowledged the reports and indicated the military was reviewing them — the kind of careful, measured response that typically precedes either a confirmation with explanation or a flat denial backed by strike data. Civilian casualty allegations in a conflict of this scale are inevitable, and how the Pentagon handles them matters almost as much as what the investigation finds. For now, the campaign continues, and the message from CENTCOM is clear: the IRGC will not be allowed to rebuild what the US has spent months tearing down.

Check out the entire Punk Series from Ward Carroll

Coming in at #3, the USS Abraham Lincoln story — food shortages, water contamination, sailor suicide ideations, and a Navy stretched too thin across too many theaters. At #2, two former VF-32 squadronmates telling their cat shot story publicly for the first time: the night their F-14A spit the shuttle off CV-67 and very nearly didn’t fly. And the #1 most-watched episode of the summer: Commander Dave “Sex” Fravor on the 2004 Nimitz UAP encounter, what two decades of evidence have done to his thinking, and what he believes the government is still hiding. If you missed any of these, now’s the time.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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From Our Friends…

In the September issue of PROCEEDINGS, a Navy captain argues that calling sailors "warfighters" — while necessary — is insufficient, and that the U.S. Navy has always had a broader mandate: defending American security and prosperity in peacetime through diplomacy, maritime security, and economic engagement. Using Commodore Matthew Perry as his historical anchor, Armstrong makes the case that the complete naval professional is more than a combat leader — and that forgetting that has strategic consequences.

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Around The Fleet

Navy Finishes First Barracks Overhaul As Part of Quality of Life Initiatives

F-35 Lifetime Price Tag Dips Beneath $2 trillion Even as Buying Costs Rise

Pentagon’s NATO Review Preparing Troop Options for Hegseth by November 6

Video Roundup

#1: Retired U.S. Navy Commander Dave “Sex” Fravor goes in-depth with Mooch about the UFO encounter he had in 2004 while flying an F/A-18F Super Hornet from USS Nimitz and how that event and the evidence he’s seen since then has shaped his opinion about the existence of aliens and what the government is hiding from the public about them now.

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#2: A couple of former VF-32 squadronmates join Mooch at HOOK '26 in Reno, Nevada to recount the night their F-14A Tomcat spit the shuttle during a catapult shot on the USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67). This is the first time this pilot and RIO have told this story on YouTube and the details of that night are harrowing. More than anything else, the bond between this pilot and RIO is timeless, moving, and inspirational.

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#3: The 37-year-old Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) has become the poster child for the current lack of carrier strike groups, and families of the crew have gone public with their concerns about the sailors’ mental health, safety on deck, a lack of supplies. In this episode Mooch goes in depth about what is actually happening aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and the Navy in general.

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This week’s lineup from HOOK ‘26 in Reno delivers two stories that define naval aviation at its best and worst. Colonel Bahman Forghani — former Iranian Air Force fighter pilot, veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, and a man who led a last-stand defense of Dezful Air Base against an overwhelming armored assault — joins Mooch at HOOK in Reno to recount a military career most people have never heard of and the escape from Iran that saved his family’s lives. He also offers a pointed assessment of where U.S. and Israeli forces should have focused during Epic Fury’s opening phase to have had a better shot at regime change. Then two former VF-32 squadron mates tell their harrowing cat shot story publicly for the first time — the night their F-14 Tomcat spit the shuttle off the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and nearly didn’t fly. The bond between that pilot and RIO is something else.

Meanwhile, the USS George Washington (CVN-73) is being moved from the western Pacific to the North Arabian Sea to relieve USS Abraham Lincoln — and Sal Mercogliano rejoins Mooch to ask the questions that move raises. Lincoln has been in the headlines for food shortages, water contamination, lost mail, and now reports of sailor suicide ideations including one crewmember jumping overboard. What is actually happening aboard the Lincoln, and what does pulling the USS George Washington from the Pacific say about the fleet’s ability to cover multiple theaters at once?

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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From Our Friends…

Mooch friend and frequent guest John “Rain” Waters has an excellent series on his YouTube channel looking into Operation Midnight Hammer. In it, the former Air Force pilot focuses on the daring Wild Weasel mission—a series of flights that paved the way for bombers to reach their targets unmolested.

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Around The Fleet

USS Abraham Lincoln Leaves the Middle East After Almost 7 Months

Drone Companies, Admin Leaders Meet for First White House ‘Drone Dominance’ Meeting

The US Navy has Battled Operational Tempo Ordeals for Years. The Iran War Exposed the Flaws

Video Roundup

Colonel Bahman Forghani, a former Iranian Air Force fighter pilot who led a heroic stand of Dezful Air Base against an overwhelming force of enemy tanks during the Iran-Iraq War, joins Mooch at the Tailhook Convention to discuss his amazing military flying career and how he escaped the Ayatollah’s regime just in time to save his life along with the rest of his family.

Col. Forghani also offers his take on where American and Israeli forces should’ve focused during the initial phase of Epic Fury to have a better chance of regime change along with the other desired outcomes.

DCS footage courtesy of @grimreapers

For more on this topic, check out “Immortals of the Sky” available wherever books are sold.

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A couple of former VF-32 squadronmates join Mooch at HOOK '26 in Reno, Nevada to recount the night their F-14A Tomcat spit the shuttle during a catapult shot on the USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67).

Ultimately the investigation uncovered that the hook-up man hadn’t ensured the launch bar was properly seated even though it was lowered into the shuttle. When the cat fired the launch bar broke and snapped back into the nose strut. The F-14 failed to gain the speed necessary for flight off the end of the catapult.

This is the first time this pilot and RIO have told this story on YouTube and the details of that night are harrowing. More than anything else, the bond between this pilot and RIO is timeless, moving, and inspirational.

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In a special livestream episode, Sal “Famous” Mercogliano, host of the “What’s Going on With Shipping?” YouTube channel, rejoins Mooch to discuss the Navy’s recent decision to move the USS George Washington (CVN 73) from the western Pacific to the North Arabian Sea to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), a sister carrier that has been in the headlines lately due to reports of poor living conditions and sailor suicide ideations, including one jumping overboard.

What’s really going on aboard LINCOLN, and what does this move say about the fleet’s ability to cover multiple theaters at once?

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The context matters: when the U.S. had 15 carrier strike groups, standard deployments ran six months. With 11 today and a constant global demand signal, they’ve stretched to 9-11 months — and that’s before a shooting war accelerates the wear. An encore with retired Navy Cmdr. Bryan McGrath examines one concrete consequence: how the USNS Big Horn collision left Lincoln without a source of replacement aviation fuel, and how Navy planners allowed that single point of failure to exist in the first place.

The latest gouge is that the USS George Washington (CVN-73) is headed to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln. We’ll continue to provide information on this evolving situation.

Keep an eye here and on YouTube for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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From Our Friends…

The team at the US Naval Institute talks Navy budget, shipbuilding and the toll Operation Epic Fury is taking on the sea service in their must-listen Proceedings Podcast.

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Around The Fleet

New White House Memo Calls for Foreign-Built Warships, Return to Steam Catapults on Ford Carriers

DARPA Seeks ‘Unconstrained, Radical’ Concepts for Next-Gen Hypersonic Cruise Missile

Senator Presses Navy for Answers on USS Abraham Lincoln Deployment

Video Roundup

For years we’ve covered how U.S. Navy carrier strike group deployments have been steadily getting longer as a function of a decrease in the number of ships against a constant demand signal of operational commitments across the globe. We talked about this in detail in the retention episode we did a few weeks ago.

Back in my day when we had 15 carrier strike groups the normal deployment length was six months. Two decades later we’re down to 11 carrier strike groups and the normal deployment length has grown to 9-11 months.

Add an extended shooting war and in short order the fleet winds up facing challenges, some foreseen and some not.

The 37-year-old Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) has become the poster child for the confluence of all of these factors, and families of the crew have gone public with their concerns about the sailors’ mental health, safety on deck, a lack of supplies, food shortages, water contamination and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages en route to the ship to be lost in transit for months.

Lincoln’s quality of life issues first made the rounds last April when this image was posted to social media showing a mess tray with a thin slice of mystery meat, a lump of something kinda resembling refried beans, and carrots representing the typical meal on the carrier at that time.

That image was quickly dismissed by Secretary Hegseth as “fake news.”
Now four months later, the swell of rumors about poor conditions on the carrier picked up by the press is reaching average Americans and lawmakers are demanding answers from the Pentagon.

Now four months later, the swell of rumors about poor conditions on the carrier picked up by the press is reaching average Americans and lawmakers are demanding answers from the Pentagon.

In this episode Mooch goes in depth about what is actually happening aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and the Navy in general.

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ENCORE: The USNS Big Horn's collision in the waters around the Arabian Peninsula left the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) without a source of replacement aviation fuel for the aircraft on the flight deck. How did Navy planners allow this kind of single point failure?

Retired Navy Commander Bryan McGrath rejoins the channel to discuss the details of how this happened and what the Navy is doing about it.

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ENCORE: An in-depth look at the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps assets that comprise the Amphibious Ready Group deployed in the waters that deployed for the Israel-Hamas conflict.

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Mooch has been tracking this story for some time, and the through line is straightforward even if the causes are not: the Navy went to war with 11 carrier strike groups when it used to have 15, and that math eventually catches up.

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What was once a standard six-month deployment has crept to nine, 10, 11 months, with the USS Lincoln’s deployment going well past that. The loss of 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain to Iranian ballistic missiles and drones early in the conflict compounded every logistical problem downstream. With no forward hub, food shipments, mail, and ship store supplies backed up for months. An image of a meager meal tray circulated on social media in April and was quickly dismissed as “fake news” by SecDef Hegseth. Four months later, the stories refuse to go away.

The most disturbing reports involve sailors’ mental health. Multiple crew members have reportedly threatened to jump overboard, and one actually did — spending an hour in the water before being rescued and flown to the naval station in Djibouti. Families attending a recent town hall raised concerns about habitability, water contamination, food quality, and a mail system so broken that care packages have gone missing for months. As if the deployment uncertainty weren’t enough, Lincoln is also scheduled to homeport in Bremerton, Washington after it returns, giving families a narrow 58-day window to move.

Congress is now formally asking the questions that should have been asked long ago. Lawmakers have put six specific demands to the Pentagon: what was the planned deployment length, what conditions were known to leadership and when, what corrective actions have been taken, what metrics the Navy is using to measure fatigue and mental health, whether current carrier demand structurally exceeds what the fleet can sustainably generate, and what specific military objective in the Iran campaign still requires Lincoln’s presence.

Check out the entire Punk Series from Ward Carroll

Two encores add essential context. We return to our conversation with Sal Mercogliano where he walks us through the tactical and commercial implications of Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz — what it means for naval operations and the global shipping lanes running through it. And retired Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, former CENTCOM commander, lays out his recommendations for ending Operation Epic Fury and traces the thread from the Baghdadi raid and Soleimani strike to the war we’re in now.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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Team Mooch Out

From Our Friends…

Former F-15E Strike Eagle WSO Mike “Pako” Benitez has a gem of a post over at his site The Merge. In it, he explains how the aviator style of sunglasses actually evolved, and why they became so popular after a certain Army general waded ashore.

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Around The Fleet

Acting Secretary of the Navy’s ‘Warrior Ethos’ ALNAV

Pentagon Wants ‘Expanding Options’ for Nuclear Weapons, Officials Say

How North Korean Forces are Bolstering Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Video Roundup

During a cabinet meeting at Camp David earlier this month, Trump demanded to know why he had been misled about shortages of precision long-range missiles and air-defense interceptors that now affect his military options against Iran. What emerges from this exchange is not just palace intrigue, it is a cautionary tale about hard math of modern war.

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ENCORE: Sal Mercogliano, host of the "What's Going on With Shipping" YouTube channel, rejoins Mooch to review the latest details around the ongoing American/Israeli war with Iran with a focus on the tactical and commerce implications of the Iranian Navy mining the Strait of Hormuz.

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ENCORE: Retired U.S. Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, who was in charge of Central Command from 2019 until 2022, details his experiences in dealing with the Iranian threat and his recommendations for ending Operation Epic Fury.

General McKenzie details how he oversaw the raid in Syria that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the armed drone strike that killed Iranian Republican Guard General Qassim Soleimani and what those actions did - both intended and unintended - throughout the Middle East and eventually led to Operation Epic Fury.

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Also this week, three-time Moochie winner Justin Bronk is back to trace how the air war over Ukraine has evolved from conventional fighter engagements into a conflict dominated by drones and ballistic missiles — and whether those lessons are migrating to other theaters. And Greg Jaffe’s New York Times deep dive into how Admiral Daryl Caudle landed the CNO job raises hard questions about what happens when the Pentagon’s senior promotion process gets bypassed in favor of loyalty tests and anti-woke litmus screens. Hegseth’s pattern of firings and list-scrubbing is now well documented; whether it’s producing a more lethal force or hollowing out the bench is the debate worth having.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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Team Mooch Out

From Our Friends…

Our friends at the Air & Space Forces association take a close look at how unmanned aerial vehicles are disrupting current operations. Money quote: “What we are witnessing in Iran and Ukraine is the sudden democratization of precision attack.”

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Around The Fleet

F-35B Crashes Near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar

F-47 Program Producing Test Aircraft, on Schedule for 2028 Flight

Multinational RIMPAC Exercise Played ‘Primary Laboratory’ for Cutting Edge Tech

Video Roundup

In this episode Mooch is rejoined by "Famous" Sal Mercogliano, host of the What's Going on With Shipping? YouTube channel and "Rain" Waters, host of the Afterburn Defense YouTube channel and podcast to discuss the latest no-notice ceasefire declared by President Trump and what it means in terms of the overall geopolitical situation and possible end to the war with Iran.

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Three-time Moochie award winner Professor Justin Bronk, Senior Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, rejoins Mooch to discuss how the air war over Ukraine has evolved from conventional aircraft to short- and long-range drones and ballistic missiles since the invasion in February of 2022.

Will these tactics influence warfare elsewhere across the globe in the future?

Read Justin's essay on this topic here.

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In this episode Mooch talks to longtime friend and media colleague New York Times military reporter Greg Jaffe who wrote about how Adm. Daryl Caudle reached out to then-Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth with an offer to help him prepare for his congressional testimony. The offer wasn't taken up, but Caudle was pitched to Hegseth's staff as a "warfighter who wanted to remove woke barriers."

Hegseth had made no secret about his desire to fire, among others, the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Frachetti, and once he was confirmed he did just that. The Navy forwarded three names as possible CNO replacements, but the list didn't include Caudle. That didn't dissuade Secretary Hegseth and he picked him anyway based on the fact Tim Palatore, his "special advisor," had convinced him Caudle was the best admiral to carry out the anti-woke agenda.

Jaffe documents other firings and removal from promotion lists Hegseth has done based on the perception of being woke or not fully supporting the Pentagon's new warrior ethos agenda.

Is this shunting of the peer review process what's needed to get the military back to core competency or a reckless waste of senior officer talent and contributions?

Read Greg's story on this subject here (subscription required).

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Jaffe explains how the Times came to the story. They'd been reporting on Hegseth pulling officers off promotion lists — removals that were falling disproportionately on female and Black one- and two-star officers. The Caudle piece became the flip side of that question: if these people were being removed, who was rising, and why? What emerged was a portrait of an officer who found ways to signal alignment with Hegseth's priorities at key moments in his career. But Jaffe is careful to note that Caudle is also genuinely qualified — the story isn't about an unqualified political appointee. It's about how, in the current environment, experience appears to be necessary but not sufficient. What tips the scale is optics.

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The optics problem cuts in both directions. Officers who gave speeches at Black History Month events, appeared on panels about women in the Navy, or served as visible mentors to minority officers — activities the Navy itself asked them to do, through official Navy-sanctioned programs — now have those activities counted against them under the Hegseth standard. Jaffe frames it bluntly: you were following your chain of command’s guidance, and then the chain of command changed, and your compliance with the previous guidance became disqualifying. More than half of the officers pulled from promotion lists fit the minority or female profile that correlates with having participated in those programs, the story explains.

The figure operating in the background of much of this is Tim Parlatore, a reservist and Hegseth special adviser whose stated remit was reforming the military justice system but whose actual role appears to extend well into vetting promotion lists. Mooch asks whether Parlatore is effectively the “admiral whisperer” — the informal gatekeeper advising Hegseth on who’s in and who’s out. Jaffe doesn’t dispute the framing. The Pentagon didn’t comment when the Times asked about Parlatore’s specific role in the Caudle promotion process. It’s a quiet but consequential position for someone whose formal authority is considerably narrower than what the reporting suggests he actually does.

Check out the entire Punk Series from Ward Carroll

Two encores provide the full arc of this recurring fight. The first traces Trump’s EMALS obsession from his 2017 visit to CVN-78 through the USS Wasp poll and the Thanksgiving phone call with USS Ronald Reagan CO Capt. Pat Hannifan — and then assesses the four new Ford technologies (EMALS, AAG, the new island, and the new reactors) on their merits. The second encore covers Trump’s order to the Navy aboard USS George Washington at Yokosuka to return to steam catapults, whether that’s operationally feasible, and the two aircraft that crashed off USS Nimitz within thirty minutes of each other due to bad fuel.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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Mooch in The News

Mooch talks to Julie Mason on Sirius XM’s POTUS Politics podcast about the latest events with Operation Epic Fury.

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Around The Fleet

U.S. Navy Orders Low-cost Missiles to Expand Fleet, Allied Long-Range Maritime Strike Capabilities

Farnborough Recap: CCA Race Heats Up, Plus Munitions on Display

US Navy Moving Forward on West Coast Dock for Aircraft Carriers

Video Roundup

At the Pennsylvania Defense Innovation Summit on July 15, President Trump went off-script for the third time to attack the Ford Class carrier program — hitting EMALS, the island design, and the advanced weapons elevators, taking aim at Huntington-Ingalls Industries, and declaring no future carriers would be built with electromagnetic catapults. He also threatened to fire SecDef Pete Hegseth if they were — and wasn’t entirely joking.

EMALS is clearly something Trump won’t let go. But what are the realities of Ford Class construction, and what does the U.S. Navy actually need going forward? Mooch explores all of it in this special livestream.

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ENCORE: Trump’s EMALS fixation started in 2017 when a Ford crew member complained about the catapults during a presidential visit — and he ran with it, polling the crew of USS Wasp (an amphib, not a carrier) and calling for a return to steam. It appeared to end when USS Ronald Reagan CO Capt. Pat Hannifan told Trump on a Thanksgiving call that he preferred digital cats because of the burden of “chasing steam around the ship.” The President said he liked that answer.

But the controversy never really went away, because the problems with CVN-78 are real and documented. In this encore, Ward assesses all four of the Ford’s new technologies — EMALS, AAG, the new island, and the new reactors — and asks the question that actually matters: will the effort be worth it?

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ENCORE: During an hour-long speech to the crew of the USS George Washington (CVN 73) docked at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan, President Trump told the U.S. Navy leaders present, including a four-star admiral, that he was ordering them to stop building aircraft carriers with electromagnetic catapults currently in use on Ford class and to return to steam catapults used by Nimitz class.

In this livestream episode Mooch discusses if this is feasible and what it could mean to the future of the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier inventory, already under stress because of the issues behind the construction of the Ford class.

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Then there’s the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump told Fox and Friends he wants the U.S. to become the “Guardian Angel” of the strait and charge Arab nations a fee for the protection. That announcement appeared to catch Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth and Vice President Vance off guard — all three had told reporters in recent weeks that charging transit fees would violate international law. Mooch unpacks what Trump actually said, what it would mean in practice, and how the administration reconciles the policy gap. An encore with RUSI’s Darya Dolzikova on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the MOU rounds out the week.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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Team Mooch Out

From Our Friends…

Our good friend from the US Naval Institute Bill Hamblett hosts a podcast that we invite all of our friends to add to their weekly rotation. In this episode, Bill talks with Capt. Robert Niewoehner, U.S. Navy (Retired), and Jefferson D. Grubb, head of the Operations Research Division at the Naval Safety Command, to examine lessons from recent F-35 mishaps, the evolution of naval aviation safety, and how institutional learning can help build a safer, stronger fleet.

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Around The Fleet

Oiler USNS Kanawha receives Presidential Unit Citation for unprecedented Middle East deployment

Anduril reveals Thunder, a ‘loyal wingman’ drone for helicopters

2 US troops killed, 1 missing after Iranian missile, drone attack in Jordan

Video Roundup

The Blue Angels have received unwanted publicity after one of the demonstration team's pilots flew low and fast over the shoreline at Pensacola Beach on July 15, 2026. The team was performing their annual "Breakfast with the Blues" arrival routine ahead of their annual "Beach Week" air show. The Super Hornet's engine exhaust sent beach chairs, coolers, and tents flying and both terrified and thrilled the large crowd on the sand.

Mooch and Hozer discuss what might have gone wrong, what will happen to the pilot in question, and whether leaders at the Pentagon and White House will intervene as they have in other incidents in recent months.

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President Trump said during a phone call on Fox and Friends that he wanted the U.S. to become the "Guardian Angel of the Strait of Hormuz" and charge Arab states a fee for the service. That pronouncement certainly caught several of Trump’s cabinet members by surprise, specifically Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth and Vice President Vance who had all claimed to reporters in recent weeks that charging fees to transit the Strait of Hormuz was a violation of international law.

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ENCORE: Darya Dolzikova, Senior Research Fellow with the Royal United Service Institute’s Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Program, joins Mooch to discuss the latest developments around Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, specifically how they might be affected by the most recent Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran. Will the terms started by the MOU wind up being more effective than the JCPOA was before President Trump pulled out of the deal during his first term?

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Hozer puts the incident in proper context. What happened was that the Blue Angels, in the course of their performance, unintentionally went “feet dry” — crossed over land when they shouldn’t have — and at the power settings they were carrying, the jetwash was strong enough to turn beach gear into projectiles. That’s not what the Blue Angels intend with their performances, and it’s genuinely different from, say, a slow Apache flyover at low altitude where the crowd motivation is the whole point and the risk profile is manageable. The chain of command’s decision to suspend the team wasn’t arbitrary. The core concern is simple: at that altitude, over that crowd density, with zero margin for error, an engine failure leaves the pilot nowhere to go and the people on the beach with no warning. That’s why the safety envelope exists.

Hozer doesn’t dispute that the Blue Angels are elite, that the pass was spectacular, or that moments like that are exactly what makes air shows culturally powerful. But as he frames it, the same logic applies here as it did with any of the recent low-altitude flyovers — when you’re operating military aircraft at low altitude over dense civilian crowds outside a controlled training environment, the calculus changes. The chain of command isn’t wrong to enforce that line.

Check out the entire Punk Series from Ward Carroll

On a lighter note: Mooch got early access to Heatblur Simulation’s F-14 B Upgrade module expansion for DCS — a by-invitation preview — and runs it through its paces to answer the question every Tomcat sim pilot wants answered: is it worth adding to your inventory if you already have the A/B module? An encore on Case I carrier pattern procedures rounds out the week for anyone flying the F-14 in DCS and looking to do it the way it was actually done.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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Team Mooch Out

From Our Friends…

Our friend Mike “Pako” Benitez from The Merge sits down with Kara Kramer of Vantor to discuss one of the most important challenges facing modern autonomous systems: operating when GPS is jammed, spoofed, or completely unavailable.

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Around The Fleet

Hormuz Sees Traffic Bump Despite Ongoing Iranian Attacks

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Video Roundup

In a recently published essay in PROCEEDINGS magazine, the Naval Institute's signature periodical, Lieutenant Commander Brian Hall, a Top Gun instructor, explains how the Super Hornet community is hemorrhaging experienced mid-career carrier pilots and how U.S. Navy leadership is attempting to mitigate the impact in a way that will ultimately hurt the Pentagon's ability to fight wars in the future.

Mooch is rejoined by USAF Lt. Col. John "Rain" Waters for an in-depth discussion of the topic, arguably the most pressing issue facing the U.S. military today.

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In a by-invitation-only preview, Mooch puts Heatblur Simulation's F-14 module expansion - the B Upgrade - through it's paces and assesses whether DCS fliers who already have the A/B module should add it to their inventories.

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ENCORE: Mooch walks through the procedures and techniques for operating the F-14B around the Case I pattern at the aircraft carrier in DCS, leveraging his real-world experience to provide insights and shortcuts for digital aviators.

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The core problem isn’t recruiting. Recruiting numbers have actually turned around. The problem is retention — keeping the people who already know what they’re doing.

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Rain puts the retention rate somewhere around 30 to 40 percent, and the consequence is structural: the tactics and weapons systems the US military employed during Epic Fury cannot be executed by someone on day-one of their career. It takes a decade to build a pilot, a crew chief, an intelligence officer who can actually perform at that level. When those people leave, they don’t get replaced by the new recruits. They leave a gap that compounds with every passing year of high op tempo.

The primary driver pushing experienced people out the door is OPTEMPO — the time away from home — and the balance has been completely broken. Rain walks through what he calls the dissatisfiers: relentless deployment cycles that leave no breathing room, the career calculus that no longer pencils out for people with families and options. At Fallon — the Navy’s strike warfare center, the gold standard for tactical training — instructors are seeing mistakes they didn’t used to see. Qual minimums that once required 750 hours have been walked down to 500 to keep the pipeline moving. That’s not a policy tweak; that’s the floor dropping on what the country considers an acceptable level of combat readiness, and the people at the sharp end know it.

Compounding everything is the equipment shortfall. When an air wing comes home from deployment, whatever fully mission-capable jets they’ve got left have to be handed off to the squadron that’s about to go out — because there aren’t enough up jets to go around the wing. The “spring football” period, when a returning airwing is supposed to spend its first quarter back doing the esoteric, high-end 1v1 training that rebuilds tactical edge, doesn’t happen anymore. The jets aren’t there. The experienced people to teach it are thinning out. And the cycle of deployment and recovery that should be regenerating combat capability is instead just burning through what’s left. That’s the other shoe — and by Mooch and Rain’s read, it hasn’t finished dropping yet.

Check out the entire Punk Series from Ward Carroll

Two encores fill in the context. we revisit Aviation Week’s Steve Trimble report from Lviv on how the Ukrainian military is adapting to Russia’s growing drone threat, the incremental ground pressure it’s enabling along the eastern front, and what Ukraine’s countermeasures actually look like on the ground. Then Bronk’s earlier analysis of the Ukrainian strike that destroyed a significant portion of Russia’s bomber fleet on the ramp — plus the reported F-16 shootdown of a Russian Su-35 — gives the full picture of a conflict where the drone and air war keep rewriting the rules.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, keep us posted on your suggestions and tips in the comments.

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Team Mooch Out

From Our Friends…

The US Naval Institute has posted a specially-curated volume of artifacts from the Naval History and Heritage Command to commemorate the Navy’s 250th anniversary. The collection includes historic ships, aircraft, and weapons, as well as examples of technological advancements, and the personal effects of heroes, including Medals of Honor. You will see history brought to life through art that depicts historic events from the era before photography, and more.

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Around The Fleet

USS Nimitz: An Aircraft Carrier’s Final Journey

Iran was the Most Successful Failure in US Airpower History

US Navy seeks to boost production of new anti-radar missile

Video Roundup

Three-time Moochie Award winning Justin Bronk, Senior Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, rejoins Mooch to discuss the deal finalized between Ukraine and Sweden for Gripen fighters equipped with Meteor long-range missiles and how they could shift the balance of the war against Russia.

Justin also talks about the most recent Ukrainian drone strikes against deep targets including Moscow and what they could say about a potential end to the war.

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ENCORE: Aviation Week writer Steve Trimble joins Mooch to talk about his trip to Lviv to investigate how the Ukrainian military is reacting to Russia's improvements in the number and quality of attack drones that have resulted in incremental ground gains along the eastern front.

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ENCORE: Two-time Moochie award winner Prof. Justin Bronk analyzes earlier Ukrainian drone strikes deep into Russia that took out a significant percentage of the Russian bomber fleet while it was parked on the ramp. He also discusses the claim that a Ukrainian Air Force F-16 shot down a Russian Air Force SU-35.

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