– USNI News – The three-ship Essex Amphibious Ready Group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit left San Diego, Calif., on Tuesday with little fanfare for an expected Western Pacific and Middle East deployment.

– Defense News – The new head of U.S. Pacific Fleet is walking back from a throw-back command structure championed by his predecessor that had the San Diego-based head of U.S. 3rd Fleet take tactical control of ships in the Asia Pacific region, a role usually taken over by the Japan-based U.S. 7th Fleet once ships sail west of Hawaii.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is steadily rolling out a new phase of work-ups for carrier strike group and amphibious ready group deployments aimed at boosting its surface warfare skills.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy has crammed as much electronics as it can into its new DDG-51 Flight III destroyers now beginning construction, Rear Adm. William Galinis said this morning. That drives the service towards a new Large Surface Combatant that can comfortably accommodate the same high-powered radars, as well as future weapons such as lasers, on either a modified DDG-51 hull or an entirely new design.

– USNI News – Command ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) and guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG-78) entered the Black Sea over the weekend, crossing through the Bosporus Strait into the Black Sea in support of the Sea Breeze 2018 exercise.

– CIMSEC – Where have tactics gone in the modern surface Navy? Whatever the cause, the loss of tactics – and the subsequent appearance of hundreds of publications which masquerade as tactics – is a problem that reaches the very heart of our profession. Tactics must be resurrected.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is rapidly moving toward procuring the first hull in its new class of frigate in 2020, but a new report is raising questions about whether the Navy has done detailed analysis about what it needs out of the ship before barging ahead.

– USNI News – The Navy continues to expand its uses for the Expeditionary Fast Transport class of ships, as USNS Carson City (T-EPF-7) last month conducted the first high-latitude operations and the first mine countermeasures mission for the ship class.

– USNI News – NATO partners are teaming up for a high-end anti-submarine warfare exercise that will test the ability of surface ships and ASW aircraft to find attack boats in deep water.

– CNN – The Pentagon kicked off the world’s largest naval war games last week, the biennial, month-long Rim of the Pacific exercises, known as RIMPAC, bringing together 46 ships and submarines, 200 aircraft and 25,000 troops from 25 nations.

– USNI News – The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) has left the Mediterranean Sea and is now operating in the Atlantic Ocean.

– USNI News – The Navy’s Future Surface Combatant will likely include both an unmanned and an optionally unmanned surface vessel as part of a growing family of systems, as the Navy works through how manned/unmanned teaming can provide the biggest benefits at various phases of warfare.

– Breaking Defense – General Atomics says it is launching new, heavier planes from its EMALS carrier launcher. The launches are taking place on land, and won’t be attempted on board the $13 billion Ford for some time, however.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is convinced that the next generation of ships will need to integrate lasers, electromagnetic rail guns and other power-hungry weapons and sensors to take on peer competitors in the coming decades. However, integrating futuristic technologies onto existing platforms, even on some of the newer ships with plenty of excess power capacity, will still be an incredibly difficult engineering challenge, experts say.

– Defense News – Twelve years since the 2006 crisis on the Korean peninsula, the BMD threat has multiplied just as the Pentagon predicted it would but other threats have also cropped up. The threat from a resurgent Russia and rising China – which is cranking out ships like it’s preparing for war – have put enormous pressure on the now-aging fleet and standing requirements for BMD patrols have put increasing strain on its surface ships.

– National Interest – Rebranding the Pacific Command represents an effort to recast how military folk assigned to the command regard their theater and how to manage it.

– Defense News – The Navy’s front-line combatants ― cruisers and destroyers ― are incredibly expensive to upgrade, in part because one must cut open the ship and remove fixtures that were intended to be permanent when they were installed.

– Popular Mechanics – The submarine, never built, would have been smaller than other subs and a mothership to drones.

– Breaking Defense – Instead of growing from 284 ships now to 355 in 2052-2055, the timeframe officials cited in the past, the Navy could reach its goal in 2032-2035, said Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, chief of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s top officer wants to end standing ballistic missile defense patrols and transfer the mission to shore-based assets.

– CIMSEC – Great power competition has clearly returned. But nontraditional issues have retained their relevance, with great powers using them as strategic facilitators in their quest to gain marginal advantages. In this international environment, the sea has retained its unbroken importance. The overwhelming majority of humankind’s physical trade is still transported on maritime highways, while the geography of contemporary global flashpoints, and the ambitions of great powers and nonstate actors, makes the sea central to international competition.

– War on the Rocks – The U.S. Navy is investing real money to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into the force, requesting $62.5 million in the FY19 Defense Department budget for AI and rapid prototyping.

– USNI News – Amphibious warship USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) crossed into the Persian Gulf this week, returning a U.S. Navy capital ship to the region for the first time since late March.

– CIMSEC – The challenge facing the United States is building a 21st century navy, operating in 19th century-styled great power competition, and upholding a 20th century world order while urrently led by an administration which seems to challenge the foundation of that very order.

– CIMSEC – The recently released U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS) have major implications for maritime security.