The War Zone – Saronic, the company that makes the first sea drones ever to be used as kinetic weapons by American forces, announced it will build a big new shipyard in Brownsville, Texas where they plan to construct an array of crewed and uncrewed ships as big as 850 feet. It is a big step for a company whose largest vessel is a 180-foot drone boat called Marauder.

The War Zone – What looks to be the largest at-sea replenishment ship anywhere in the world is taking shape at a Chinese shipyard.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s expensive effort to install hypersonic missiles on three Zumwalt-class destroyers is two years behind schedule, according to government auditors.

Breaking Defense – Why can’t the world’s most powerful military secure the Strait against a country that has no navy?

US Navy – As part of the ongoing Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2026 naval exercises, a Splash Industries Typhoon Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) successfully landed in the well deck of the Wasp-class Landing Helicopter Dock USS Essex (LHD-2), marking the first instance of a USV performing an underway replenishment for a larger, crewed vessel.

The War Zone – More than 20 U.S. Navy warships, including two carrier strike groups and an amphibious ready group, are underway in the Middle East.

USNI News – The U.S. will resume its blockade of Iranian ports, coasts and ships, according to a Monday announcement from U.S. Central Command, signaling an end to the 60-day ceasefire between Iran and Washington.

USNI News – Three Saronic Corsair unmanned surface craft were used in a Sunday attack on an Iranian port, U.S. Central Command announced on social media.

Naval News – The US Navy (USN) is seeking “seabed superiority” in both offensive and defensive operations around the ocean floor as part of enhancing asymmetric advantage in underwater warfare, the USN’s Commander, Submarine Force (COMSUBFOR) told the annual Combined Naval Event 2026 (CNE26) conference.

CIMSEC – In the last two weeks, CIMSEC featured writing submitted to our Call for Articles on maritime conflict with Iran. Authors covered a wide range of topics, including strategic differences between allies, new paradigms in warfare, and underappreciated yet decisive dimensions of the conflict. The maritime domain has prominently featured in this conflict and exerted a major influence over the terms of war termination. The broader impacts of the war still remain to be seen, but could include a wider degradation of freedom of the seas and lesser readiness for great power conflicts. This war deserves the most careful examination from navies and maritime forces to better understand how the changing character of warfare and global connectivity is evolving the security maritime domain.

The War Zone – The flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3, which is currently operating in the Middle East, has not made a port call since December 2025.

Defense News – When hidden deep in the vastness of the ocean, America’s ballistic missile subs are practically invulnerable. But berthed in port — or sailing on the surface while transiting to and from port — these powerful yet fragile boats can be sitting ducks for drones, mines and even anti-tank rockets.

War on the Rocks – To sustain future maritime operations, the U.S military will need to run supplies through an environment that spans thousands of miles of open ocean, denied ports, contested straits, and archipelagic chokepoints against adversaries that have spent decades studying how to target American logistics. That problem does not require one identical vessel for every mission. It does require a more common family of watercraft for the manned ships that carry cargo and vehicles inside a theater, built for scale, interoperability, and wartime replacement. Getting this right is arguably the most important acquisitionproblem the joint force faces in the next decade.

Clios Musings – This post is the text that accompanies a slide presentation on a naval mine blockade strategy briefing entitled “Close Iran, Open Hormuz.” The briefing is by Bradford Dismukes, Capt., USNR (ret.), with Bruce F. Powers, SES-4 (ret.) and Peter M. Swartz, Capt., USN (ret.). It is currently being presented to interested people and institutions concerned with national and naval strategy. Its immediate purpose is discussion and critique with the aim of improving it. It is also hoped that this briefing will help make the existence of the naval mine blockade strategy option known to the nation’s senior leadership which, by all evidence in the public domain, has never been made aware of it.

USNI News – The U.S. Navy plans to homeport up to nine McClung-class medium landing ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to support the Marine Corps’ area denial and sensing operations across the Pacific.

Stars and Stripes – The Navy is investigating a recent generator malfunction aboard the ballistic missile submarine USS Nebraska that sickened dozens of sailors.

(Thanks to Alain)

The War Zone – It’s truly the end of an era for naval aviation as the C-2’s carrier onboard delivery role has now been turned over to the CMV-22 Osprey.

Breaking Defense – The Trump administration is pushing for a fifth public shipyard to support a growing fleet, the head of the Office of Management and Budget said Wednesday.

War on the Rocks – The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine is the next generation of American nuclear deterrence. Twelve of these boats will replace the aging Ohio-class fleet, entering service over the 2030s and 2040s, each carrying 16 Trident IIs and driven by a ghost-quiet electric motor that renders them acoustically invisible to any adversary. What makes all of that possible — the propulsion, the stealth, the strike precision — depends almost entirely on rare earths refined in China. This is perhaps the Navy’s most consequential and least discussed vulnerability.

USNI News – The service has pumped billions into additive manufacturing and new job training programs to make up for steep declines in the submarine industrial base.

Naval News – Commercial orders for the Military Sealift Command (MSC), the backbone of global U.S. Navy operations, can rapidly close the U.S. Navy’s logistics shortage concerns in the Pacific.

Portugal Resident – The United States is investing in new infrastructure at Portugal’s Azores military air base, Lajes, on Terceira Island, just as the Pentagon has announced it is reducing the U.S. military footprint elsewhere in Europe.

USNI News – The United States has lifted the naval blockade against Iranian ports and coastlines.

Naval News – The U.S Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training and Evaluation Unit One (EODTEU1) will evaluate a new form of mine-clearing capability after identifying a series of new requirements in the Indo-Pacific—particularly for the service’s doctrine of distributed maritime operations, according to new documents published by EODTEU1.