Breaking Defense – Upgrading the P-8’s offensive capabilities could add confusion to any Chinese planning, but the Pentagon has struggled to integrate LRASM onto other aircraft.

USNI Proceedings – To execute flexible deterrence and limited war, options must range from diplomacy to military power—necessitating command of the seas.

USNI News – The next U.S. nuclear attack submarine must require less maintenance, be fast, quiet and packed with torpedoes.

War on the Rocks – The Latin adage “si vis pacem, para bellum” states that if you want peace, prepare for war. But doing that successfully is much easier if you know when the war might occur.

Breaking Defense – The fact the Navy can extend some of its submarine fleet’s life by several years is likely due in part to the time some of those boats have sat in docks awaiting maintenance.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy is satisfied with the solution to its littoral combat ship combining gear woes, having accepted delivery of the first ship to receive the new system.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy hopes it can more quickly deploy hypersonic weapons on submarines by leveraging testing by the U.S. Army and onboard a Navy destroyer, as well as prioritizing funding for an underwater launch test facility.

CIMSEC – To thwart a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the US must slow walk their request chit.

War on the Rocks – The Littoral Combat Ship program has one saving grace — it offers some important lessons about the American defense industrial base.

BBC – A metallurgist in the US state of Washington has pleaded guilty to fraud after she spent decades faking the results of strength tests on steel that was being used to make Navy submarines.

(Thanks to Alain)

USNI News – A second suspected missile target in the shape of a U.S. aircraft carrier has been spotted in a rural Chinese desert.

Naval News – For purely hypothetical and speculative analysis discussion purposes, Naval News will explore the possibility of other armed and functional roles for the Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) according to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps current and future desires, challenges, and to counter peer nations’ threats. 

Breaking Defense – The US Navy answers questions about its roadmap for employing electric and battery power for lasers, radars, and propulsion over the next two decades.

War on the Rocks – The Hollywood blockbuster “Top Gun” starring Tom Cruise was a potent recruiting advertisement for aviators. One of its most memorable scenes was of a chorus of pilots at the bar of an Officer’s Club singing “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” to a bemused Kelly McGillis…It is time to extend that “loving feeling” to submarine warfare — including, and perhaps especially, to the submarine forces of U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region. 

USNI News – The Navy is taking its sole ship assigned to U.S. Africa Command to places the service hasn’t been in almost a decade – including a key chokepoint that’s become a major opioid drug trafficking route.

War Zone – A veteran submarine hunter explains how the proliferation of ever more capable diesel-electric submarines is a major problem for the U.S. Navy.

War on the Rocks – The final assessment of the USS Bonhomme Richard fire reveals that the U.S. Navy is hobbled by questionable training, a shortage of personnel, and a general unpreparedness to fight and prevail in a war. If they are to play a meaningful role in a cross-strait conflict, U.S. ships must be able to fight in range of Chinese missiles. The Bonhomme Richard disaster, a fire in the port of San Diego, might not seem relevant here, but it is: It demonstrates the Navy’s egregious damage-control inadequacies. If these are left unaddressed, the Navy will face a serious erosion of its combat power after only a handful of Chinese missile barrages.

USNI News – Investigators have determined USS Connecticut (SSN-22) hit an uncharted seamount that grounded the nuclear attack submarine on the underwater feature in the South China Sea Navy

US Navy – The following is the Navy Aviation Vision 2030-2035 released this week by the Navy.

USNI Proceedings – A periscope can be a fine stand-in for a sextant.

The Hill – James Holmes says the US Navy must fix its problems — and burnish its good name for seamanship and tactical acumen.

Naval News – Aircraft carriers are at the vanguard of China’s incredible naval expansion A new, larger super-carrier is being built near Shanghai. Analysis of radar satellite imagery shows that it is as large as China’s new bases allow.

Nikkei Asia – White House and admirals can’t agree on how to deter China.

CIMSEC – In parts one and two of this series of articles I discussed the factors that would influence the content of a new maritime strategy. In this article I will discuss the process of strategy, focused on the Navy’s case.

Defense News – When the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard caught fire last summer while undergoing maintenance and then burned for nearly a week, those inside and outside the fleet wondered how such a peacetime loss of a warship could ever happen. But according to a Big Navy review of ship fires released last week, the threat of such a catastrophe has smoldered inside the sea service’s public and private shipyards for years.