– Navy Times – The technology glitches plaguing the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, lead ship of the Navy’s next generation of flattops, are getting fixed, officials told lawmakers during a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill.

– USNI News – The Navy’s next in-depth look at force structure, due sometime in 2019, is unlikely to alter plans for building a 355-ship fleet, according to the service’s top leaders.

– C4ISRNet – A new module will outfit the Navy’s Virginia-class submarines with a series of useful tubes waiting to be filled with possibility. New missiles and possibly torpedoes will likely form the bulk of new payloads for the Virginia Payload Module (VPM), but one of the possibilities is as an exit point for vertically berthed underwater uncrewed vehicles, a home and launching point for robots waiting to scout the surrounding sea.

– Defense News – In the wake of two tragic collisions that claimed the lives of 17 sailors in 2017, a troubling question arose: What if the U.S. Navy has forgotten how to drive its ships? After the accidents, reviews found shortfalls in training, manning and deployment schedules for forward-deployed Navy ships.

– National Interest – It is time to really match means to ends against specific threats.

– USNI News – The chief of naval operations and the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group leadership said their first deployment under the dynamic force employment (DFE) model sharpened their proficiency in high-end warfare more than expected.

– USNI News – The Navy has stood up a program office within its Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) to address the conventional prompt global strike mission the Pentagon has handed to the sea service.

– War on the Rocks – American strategists stand to gain a great deal by turning to the model offered by Fisher: seeking sea denial in core regions and maritime preponderance at the periphery. This is the optimal course of action for a maritime power facing a dual-track threat environment.

– NBC – Norfolk Naval Shipyard now faces its greatest existential threat: rising seas and extreme weather driven by climate change.

– Breaking Defense – From militarized atolls in the South China Sea to a growing Chinese navy looking increasingly aggressive, the head of the Indo-Pacom command lays out his needs and concerns.

– USNI News – Existing radars don’t provide the almost-split-second warning needed to keep Guam, carrier strike groups in the Pacific and Kadena Air Base in Okinawa from being held hostage to a future hypersonic attack.

– Defense News – After several years of increasing spending and virtually unprecedented shipbuilding budgets, the U.S. Navy’s party could be coming to a screeching halt in the 2020 budget

– USNI News – The undersea warfare community wants to boost attack sub lethality by providing new payloads for the Virginia-class SSNs, especially ones that can be leveraged through the Virginia Payload Module missile tubes that will be added to new-construction boats beginning this year.

– CIMSEC – The Navy is not the only branch of the military facing significant challenges born from a long focus on the low-end fight. The United States, as a maritime nation, and the world, as dependent on maritime order, now find themselves at greater risk by an American fleet deficient in sea control.

– USNI News – The amphibious force may get a massive capability overhaul, if a plan by the Expeditionary Warfare Directorate to increase lethality and survivability of amphibious ships is accepted by Navy and Marine Corps leadership.

– Defense News – The U.S. Army is pushing Congress to act on a looming sealift shortfall that will create “unacceptable risk in force projection” within the next five years if the Navy doesn’t act quickly.

– National Interest – Ship types have displaced one another other from the cores of fleets across the decades and centuries. Maybe it’s time to unseat the ship itself.

– War Zone – The service is also eying a new sub-launched ballistic missile to replace Trident and could end up expanding its nuclear deterrent capabilities.

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy submarine force is creating an aggressor squadron as one initiative to ensure all subs are combat-ready as the service trains to take on China and Russia.

– Russia Matters – This week, NATO forces are engaged in the largest military exercise the alliance has organized since the end of the Cold War and the first major Western exercise in decades to take place in the Arctic region. To be held in Norway through Nov. 23, the Trident Juncture exercise is designed to improve NATO’s ability to defend member states and to strengthen the alliance’s credibility as a deterrent force against potential aggression.

– National Interest – No one covets sentry duty. British tars found naval raiders and privateers of old an unworthy but also stubborn foe. U.S. mariners may be repeating their mistake. If so, the first year of the next war could be 1942 all over again. That’s a trauma no one should want to relive.

– CIMSEC – This series will consider the Bad Day Scenario, how the Navy could respond to such a challenge today, and what steps it could take to be better postured to respond in the future.

– USNI News – The Navy’s mine warfare community is putting together a comprehensive plan to lay out the investments required for a successful transition from legacy mine countermeasures systems to more advanced capabilities.

– CIMSEC – Four common types of major surface combatants exist today: cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and corvettes. Each title has historical roots and a variety of practical and political implications. This essay explores how these classifications came to represent modern ship types, how nations abuse them to suit their needs, and how they facilitate or hamper exploration of alternative fleet designs.

– Defense News – The U.S. is woefully short of ships and even the Navy’s target goal of 355 ships is well short of what the country needs to prepare for two simultaneous major conflicts and maintain its rotational presence requirements with excess capacity for surge operations and combat casualties. That is the major finding of a new study from the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, an organization prominent in the Trump era because of its knack for influencing administration policy.