– CIMSEC – The Navy’s tactical ignorance is built into its arsenal. Currently some of the Navy’s most important weapons development programs are not just evolutionary, but revolutionary in the possibilities they open up. This is not due to innovation, but instead many of these noteworthy and foundational capabilities are finally arriving decades after the technologies were first proven, many close to half a century ago. Many of these most crucial weapons are already in the hands of great power competitors such as Russia and China who have had decades of opportunity to train and refine tactics with them.

– Defense News – Congress sent a message this year that it wants the Navy to build amphibious ships, and it’s going to put up the money to do it.

– War Zone – Being able to lay entire minefields with pinpoint accuracy from high altitude, over 40 miles away, and on a single pass is a total game changer.

– CIMSEC – Nobody’s arguing that inspections aren’t important. Heaven only knows what the beam of a flashlight might find under the bunk of a warship during a zone inspection. But there must be some way to reduce the 80 or so inspections a combat unit is subjected to every 18 months and use some of that time for the study of tactics.

– War on the Rocks – Unlike the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (also known as the Naval Reactors program) today there is no Navy organization accountable for overseeing a practical application of any AI-enabled combat system that is ready be pushed to the fleet in the near future. Useful military AI is proven in concept. What if the Navy treated operationalizing AI enabled combat systems the way it once treated operationalizing nuclear power?

– USNI News – The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (CSG) returned to the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations for the second time this year after spending a month visiting its homeport of Norfolk.

– Defense News – Congress loves buying littoral combat ships, but when it comes to the packages of sensors and systems that make the ships useful, lawmakers have been less enthusiastic.

– CIMSEC – The U.S. Navy is suffering from self-inflicted strategic dysfunction across the breadth of its enterprise.Part One looks at U.S. Navy combat training and draws a comparison with Chinese Navy training.

– Defense News – The U.S. surface Navy is moving rapidly toward buying a new large surface ship that will replace the aging cruisers, a ship that Navy leaders and experts say will need to be spacious to accommodate future upgrades and weapon systems.

– Navy Times – Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Tremel made history last year when he became the first American aviator in nearly 20 years to shoot down an enemy plane.

– CIMSEC – Whatever character naval warfare takes on in the future sea control will always be the key to success. Being so essential one should understand its principles in order to gain sea control, but history abounds with cases where nations succeeded or failed. Some of those who initially failed were able to readjust their doctrines in time (and consequently their capabilities) to gain sea control and win.

– CIMSEC – The great mercantilist trading companies of the age of sail are long gone, but the idea that a heavily armed merchant ship might again more fully participate in naval warfare has new credence.

– War Zone – Zumwalt class destroyers consistently shed capabilities as costs ballooned. Now the Navy is bolting components directly to their stealthy deckhouses.

– Breaking Defense – As the Navy sorties 30 ships from Norfolk and surrounding bases, a few ships will be heading back in short order to assist in the cleanup. The amphibious ships USS Kearsarge and USS Arlington, along with hospital ship USNS Comfort, have all loaded up on supplies and have put out to sea.

– CIMSEC – Lofty tactics and operations will perform sub-optimally and be disrupted through electronic attack unless the Navy builds a solid foundation in electromagnetic freedom of action.

– CIMSEC – The most important challenges faced by the U.S. Navy in achieving sea power are not technological, but human.

– CIMSEC – This article explores sea control at the tactical level of war in an age defined by precision-guided munitions and post-industrial production.

– CIMSEC – Sea Control operations require a delicate balance of protecting the hunters and releasing the hounds.

– War Zone – After nearly two decades of trying to advance its advanced semi-autonomous unmanned combat air vehicle dreams, Boeing finally gets its shot.

– USNI – In the May 2018 U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Navy Captain Dale Rielage published a “future history,” written as a first-hand account of a defeated Pacific Fleet Commander in the 2025 timeframe. Titled “How We Lost the Great Pacific War,” Rielage’s article was superb—thought-provoking, well-researched, and forcefully argued. The alternative future history below is intended to provide a more optimistic view, and another potential path.

– National Interest – They’re cheap. You can build a lot of them. And Beijing won’t have an easy time responding. And our allies will be pleased. What could be wrong with that?

– CIMSEC – The age of battleships laying broadsides into beaches may have been over when the USS Iowa was decommissioned, but the increasing threat of anti-ship missiles and A2/AD may draw a curtain on the modern surface combatant doing likewise. For a contested ship-to-shore movement to be successful at the shore overmatch is required at the landing zone both in terms of quantity of troops and firepower. Unable to conjure enough firepower out on the beach due to obvious constraints, extensive supporting firepower must come from the air and the sea.

– USNI News – Navy Picks Boeing to Build MQ-25A Stingray Carrier-Based Drone.

– USNI News – The Navy’s next large surface combatant will have all the space, weight and power margins the sea service could need now and into the future to accommodate new weapons in development – but the director of surface warfare said the Navy would not accelerate weapons development to get them ready in time to outfit the new ships.

– USNI News – The boundaries of the Navy’s reestablished U.S. 2nd Fleet extends well past the old submarine stomping grounds of the Cold War and into waters north of Scandinavia and the Arctic Circle, near the submarine headquarters of Russia’s Northern Fleet.