CIMSEC – The U.S. Navy remains intent on using its high-end platforms for sea denial. To its credit, it is developing the kinds of unmanned systems that are ideally suited for this mission, but only at too slow a pace. To optimize its force structure and accelerate the development of technology, the U.S. Navy should instead commit to a strategy of customized, low-end sea denial coupled with high-end global maritime punishment, and then tailor its doctrine, tactics, and weapons systems to each mission.

Naval News – Under the U.S. Navy’s released shipbuilding plan as apart of the Future Year Defense Program (FYDP), the U.S. Navy’s surface force will receive a major reshuffle in it’s structure, targeted towards fielding continually advanced surface ship based capabilities and increasing industrial output.

The War Zone – The Chief of Naval Operations says giving up on nuclear-powered surface combatants was one of the worst decisions his service has ever made.

CIMSEC – The real challenge remains the development of the next-generation surface combatant—a ship with the size, power, and growth margin to accommodate future weapons and sensors. That search has eluded the Navy for decades. The Future Frigate is not that answer. Achieving it will require a clean-sheet design, sustained discipline, and a willingness to align ambition with technical reality. Until then, the frigate program represents not a destination, but a holding action.

USNI News – The new Trump-class battleship will be powered by a nuclear reactor and is not a successor to the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, the Navy revealed Monday in its annual 30-year shipbuilding blueprint.

Defense News – With the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford en route home from what has become the longest U.S. Navy float since Vietnam, the service is reconsidering how to sustain a wartime fighting force.

Defense News – India is pressing ahead with a $9 billion infrastructure project to bolster its military footprint on the Great Nicobar Island which sits far from the Indian mainland near one of the world’s most critical shipping arteries.

Defense News – American forces fired on and disabled two Iranian-flagged unladen oil tankers on Friday after the ships attempted to cross a U.S. Navy blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

USNI News – It is sometimes difficult to tell where the U.S. and Iran are in their “tit-for-tat” actions in the strait, Chris Newton, a senior analyst with International Crisis Group, told USNI News.

The War Zone – The Super Hornet strafing the ship is the latest instance where the Navy used direct fire to disable Iranian ships trying to run the blockade.

The War Zone – At-sea reloading demonstrated by USNS Montford Point could be key in a future fight in the Pacific and give these ships a new lease on life.

CIMSEC – Professor Reveron has identified a genuine strategic problem and proposed a historically grounded solution. His geographic differentiation is the correct starting point for the analysis the nation needs. The problem is that he skips that analysis and proceeds directly to organizational and industrial solutions — giving us the Four-Ocean Navy Act before the strategy that would justify it.

USNI News – Aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is now operating in the Mediterranean after leaving the Red Sea last week.

The War Zone – Commercial vessels and American warships are coming under Iranian attack around the Strait of Hormuz as a new U.S. maritime protection plan has kicked off.

WordPress – Project Freedom appears to be aimed, at least for now, at evacuating ships stuck in the Persian Gulf since the war with Iran began.

Covert Shores – The U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) has released photos on the official media site DVIDS showing a Ukrainian Magura USV (uncrewed surface vessel) at the Balikatan 2026 exercise in the Philippines in April. The exact model may be the Magura V6 or V7. The photos include the loading of a novel shaped charge warhead which was used in the MARSTRIKE-N live firing component of the exercise.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have extended the lifespan of the lead Wasp-class amphibious assault ship by five years and are considering doing the same for other vessels in the amphibious fleet.

The War Zone – The Navy expects to see the AGM-88G AARGM-ER enter service in September despite not planning to buy any of them in the next fiscal year.

1945 – In the early 2000s, I visited the USS Connecticut in dry dock while she was getting repairs, completely out of the water, and the image is locked in my head forever: it was amazing. As of this writing in April 2026, the United States Navy has exactly one Seawolf-class attack submarine ready to go to war. And that submarine — USS Jimmy Carter — was not built to fight the way the other two were. As one former engineer for Electric Boat out in Groton told me years ago: “We made a mistake we can’t ever fix. We should have built more Seawolf-class submarines. We are paying the price and there is no going back.”

USNI News – The next two big-deck amphibious warships will take about nine years each to build, as the Navy pushes the planned delivery date for the vessels by another year

USNI News – The first unmanned tankers for the U.S. Navy won’t be ready to deploy on aircraft carriers until 2029, according to Navy budget documents.

Naval News – The U.S. Navy practiced at-sea refueling of an unmanned surface vessel (USV) during a recent demonstration ahead of the service’s planned deployment of the sea drones with the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group later this year. 

USNI News – American officials are considering foreign designs and having U.S. warship components built in overseas yards as part of an expansive manufacturing study proposed in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget.

USNI News – U.S. and Iranian forces are both interdicting ships as the two countries grapple with control of the flow of maritime traffic through the region, leaving the shipping industry ‘paralyzed,’ experts say.

Naval News – Confirmed by Fiscal Year 2027 U.S. Navy budget documentation, the Multi-mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE) is to serve as the most numerous Hypersonic strike option available to U.S. Naval Aviation, with a limited service entry date sometime in 2027.