The War Zone – Being able to deploy LUCAS kamikaze drones from Navy ships drastically opens the aperture as to where swarms of these aircraft can emanate from.

Defense Opinion – Once again, the undersea domain is growing contested, as it was during the Cold War. Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) promise to enhance the combat reach and responsiveness of existing U.S. nuclear submarines. They remain, however, a complementary capability, and not a substitute for the irreplaceable advantages of manned nuclear submarines. The U.S. Navy should pursue the concept of teaming manned units — like attack submarines — with unmanned units as the best method to maximize combat potential.

USNI News – Two new reports on the V-22 Osprey, following a series of fatal mishaps that killed 20 people from 2022 to 2024, show years of problems, ranging from faulty parts to poorly understood maintenance procedures and a lack of communication across the services, that led to safety and reliability across the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

The War Zone – The U.S. Navy says it is aiming to have the first of a new class of frigates based on an existing American design “in the water” by 2028. The U.S. Coast Guard’s Legend class National Security Cutter is reportedly the basis for the design in question. This all follows a decision to cancel the Constellation class frigate, a program marred by major delays and cost growth, which has now further exposed a highly concerning gap in the service’s future force structure plans.

Breaking Defense – Navy Secretary John Phelan recently told attendees at a private dinner that the new frigate would be a modified National Security Cutter.

The Guardian – US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, whose government called the seizure “an act of international piracy”.

Interesting Engineering – US nuclear-powered submarines that may carry nuclear weapons could dock at Australian ports without the knowledge of the Australian public or even its government, defense officials told a Senate hearing, reigniting debate over the country’s obligations under nuclear nonproliferation treaties and the long-term risks of the AUKUS security pact.

(Thanks to Alain)

War on the Rocks – I focus on three types of corrective action Pentagon leadership should take immediately. This cancellation risks atrophying critical shipbuilding capacity in Wisconsin. It risks sending a negative signal to shipbuilders and capital. And like any risky march deep into the enemy’s territory, with supply lines severed and necessity driving the advance, this maneuver must strike a strategic blow — it must be worth the risk. The Navy now should move with speed and precision to use the Constellation-class cancellation as such a blow in the greater 2025 campaign of acquisition reform.

Center for Maritime Strategy – Naval and amphibious forces now face a new threat in the form of suicide drones and cruise missiles from traditional adversaries and insurgent groups. Autonomous drones are increasingly becoming an integral part of naval forces, flying reconnaissance, anti-submarine and anti-surface missions. But as current conflicts drive the rapid evolution of warfare, ships and troops are being targeted by unmanned weapons. New mission roles will undoubtably be assigned to naval drones to counter these threats in the air and on the sea. As low-cost drones and cruise missiles saturate defenses, the Navy needs equally low-cost sea-based counters. A new class of ships dedicated to operating drones at sea could provide a cost-effective approach to protecting friendly forces. The answer may look less like an aircraft carrier or destroyer, and more like a converted oilfield support ship.

Breaking Defense – The Navy and Marine Corps have chosen a ship design by the Dutch company Damen as the basis for a number of new vessels to be part of the Medium Landing Ship program, senior leaders announced today.

Breaking Defense – “This is going to be devastating for [Fincantieri’s] workforce. They invested heavily buying the yard in 2009 and invested a lot to win the frigate class competition,” one analyst told Breaking Defense.

Breaking Defense – If the US is to stand a chance against China, the time is now to move out on the Navy’s future next-gen fighter, explains Rebecca Grant of the Lexington Institute.

National Interest – James Holmes writes that the purpose of the aircraft carrier’s visit to the waters near Venezuela is still unclear—but it makes for a powerful warning to Caracas about what might follow.

Defence Blog – The Strategic Capabilities Office released a solicitation for the Rapid Affordable Producible Torpedo, a single-use heavyweight weapon designed for fast production and low cost. The project aims to create a torpedo priced at $500,000 or less, far below the Navy’s current Mk 48 Mod 7 cost listed as $4.2 million.

(Thanks to Alain)

Breaking Defense – Navy Secretary John Phelan today said the service will terminate the last four ships in the Constellation-class frigate program, keeping only the two vessels already under construction.

CIMSEC – …I am very concerned about how junior officers are looking at our profession. What I hear them saying on the Yokosuka waterfront is that most of their time and effort is not spent working on “naval things” – shiphandling, tactics, leadership – but on an ever-growing cancer of administrative requirements. Every inspection and assist visit seems to have a longer and longer “checklist” of micro-things (all equally important, of course) that must be just so, or else an area is unsat or “ineffective.” Reporting requirements and the care and feeding of staff databases grow inexorably…

The War Zone – USNS Salvor is on the scene in the tense South China Sea to recover both aircraft that crashed on the same night while flying from the Nimitz.

CIMSEC – The U.S. defense industrial base has limited capacity to rapidly increase production in the event of large-scale conflict against a peer competitor, and global commitments further widen these gaps. 

CIMSEC – The leaders of the surface force must launch an effort to systematically protect time for tactics by aggressively pruning other requirements, or else these new efforts will fall short.

War on the Rocks – Can America deter China if its warships are stuck in port? Probably not. And the problem is made worse by chronic shipbuilding delays. This means the U.S. Navy is forced to rely more heavily on its legacy fleet, which requires more maintenance. And neither the Navy’s domestic shipyards nor its overseas facilities can meet current demand. Without immediate action, the Navy risks missing force design and operational readiness goals in critical regions like the Indo-Pacific.

Aware of the risk, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently announced plans to expand maintenance, repair, and overhaul activities in South Korean shipyards. From a purely economic point of view, South Korea has exactly what the United States lacks: the infrastructure, industrial capacity, and skilled labor to help sustain its navy’s ships. But more than that, partnering with South Korea makes good strategic sense, strengthening a key alliance that offers forward support for operations in the Western Pacific.

US Naval War College Review – Mine warfare is a persistent threat to naval operations and ocean commerce, and yet it remains a persistent area of underinvestment by the U.S. Navy. The recent history of the Navy’s improvisational approach to emergent mine threats suggests how the Navy might succeed by “preparing to be unprepared” before it faces mines again.

US Naval War College Review – Since World War II, fleet air defense has been organized around the principle of engaging threats as far out from the fleet as possible, motivated by early failures to engage the kamikaze threat. This approach remains as vital as ever and progressively more challenging in the face of the contemporary threats posed by cruise missiles and—increasingly—by drone warfare.

Breaking Defense – “The interesting part of this is it’s not just a kind of fleeting presidential idea, but this is, in fact, something that does kind of resonate with what the Navy’s finding it probably needs to do with the fleet through its own work,” one analyst said.

The War Zone – Two days after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to the Caribbean, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford has not moved significantly from a position just west of Morocco in North Africa, the Navy confirmed to us Thursday. The flattop and elements of its strike group were ordered by President Donald Trump to join the ongoing enhanced counter-narcotics mission in the region, but it is unclear if plans have changed.