– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy’s submarine chief lays out the four coordinated ‘Ps’ that form the collective plan to maintain the nation’s strong toehold in the undersea domain.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Critics say the Navy’s newest 30-year shipbuilding plan is likely to overrun its budget and won’t deliver enough ships. Here are some alternatives that can enhance the Navy’s capabilities, save money, and win lawmakers’ approval in today’s fiscal squeeze.

– Aviation Week – The LCS is currently a hard sell to the US Congress.

– Washington Times – A U.S. intelligence-gathering ship was harassed by a Chinese security ship last month in an incident that analysts say indicates Beijing is stepping up aggressive maritime encounters toward the U.S. Navy in the Asia-Pacific. A Chinese website, Sinocism, posted photographs of what it described as a “fierce confrontation” between the USNS Impeccable, an electronic spy ship, and a China Maritime Surveillance ship.

– DefenseTech – Navy planners have anticipated the recent historic steps forward the Navy has taken toward outfitting the decks of their carriers with fleets of unmanned drones by designing future and current carriers to support the technological advances these aircraft will present.

– DOD Buzz – The U.S. Navy is surging through the early stages of development to build a new class of replenishment oilers able to replace the aging current fleet starting in 2020.

– Medium – Somewhere out there, someone has built something that has the Navy absolutely freaked.

– Aviation Week – By now the recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) findings on a certain U.S. Navy small-ship program are pretty well known. Costs and concerns about survivability keep rising and confidence keeps waning in the ship’s capability to fill national defense needs. Oh, lord, you may be thinking – not another piece about the GAO and the Littoral Combat Ship. But not so fast. The GAO report in question is the Jan. 3, 1979, statement to Congress on “The Navy’s FFG-7 Class Frigate Shipbuilding Program, and Other Ship Program Issues.” That’s right – we’re talking about the FFG-7s here, the now-noble Oliver Hazard Perry guided missile frigate-class ships slated to become the backbone of the Navy’s sea control in the mid-1980s and whose missions, or some of them, the LCS vessels are supposed to assume.

– Aviation Week – The U.S. Navy expects to award contracts soon for a longer-range version of the AIM-9X Sidewinder, known as Block III. Not only will it be a major change to the AIM-9X—retaining only the seeker, optical target detector (laser fuze) and data link of the Block II weapon—but its development is starting before the Block II has finished operational tests…With these developments, the U.S. Navy is following the lead of other air arms—notably, the Royal Air Force—in investing in non-RF sensors and weapons that work far outside the within-visual-range envelope. One key technology is better processing that has greatly improved the performance of IRST.

– Breaking Defense – In intellectual terms, Air-Sea Battle is the biggest of the military’s big ideas for its post-Afghanistan future. But what is it, really? It’s a constantly evolving concept for high-tech, high-intensity conflict that touches on everything from cyberwar to nuclear escalation to the rise of China. In practical terms, however, the beating heart of AirSea Battle is eleven overworked officers working in windowless Pentagon meeting rooms, and the issues they can’t get to are at least as important as the ones they can.

– Aviation Week – If the U.S. Navy can untangle some of the rather significant acquisition, operational, logistical and programmatic knots still tying up its Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) efforts there are plenty ready to court the vessel for missions – providing the LCS works as advertised.