– USNI Proceedings – A small force of U.S. Navy patrol ships has sailed the waters of the Arabian Gulf for the last 15 years, guarding key maritime infrastructure, conducting escort operations, exercising with international partners, supporting special operations forces, and keeping an eye on regional military moves. The ten Cyclone -class patrol coastals (PC) are some of the Navy’s busiest warships and likely would be the first to see action if Iran becomes openly belligerent. Refitting the Cyclone -class might buy the Navy some time but ultimately the Cyclones inevitably are wearing and need to be replaced.

– USNI Proceedings – The term “lethality” can be associated with any number of things in the Navy. Oftentimes it will be associated with a weapon system, such as those found on a naval aircraft, surface combatants, or submarines. But how often are our personnel associated with lethality?

– Popular Science – Railguns are another way the PLAN hopes to get an edge in 21st-century naval warfare.

– USNI Proceedings – Excessive time spent away from ships is doing a disservice to surface warfare commanding officers.

– Defense News – The Nuclear Posture Review, formally unveiled Friday, recommends adding a low-yield warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, as well as the addition of a nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missile to America’s arsenal.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy’s has been forced to resort to awkward, inefficient, even dysfunctional expedients to cope with Congress’s chronic inability to pass a proper spending bill on time, the Chief of Naval Operations said here this morning.

– Defense News – The Navy and Missile Defense Agency is investigating what caused a failed intermediate range ballistic missile target intercept over Hawaii. But despite the failure, experts say that in the long run the SM-3 IIA has no choice but to succeed.

– CIMSEC – Medicine is a continuously evolving field, constantly learning from previous experience and improving. This is all the more true in the wartime trauma environment where resources are limited, conditions are austere, and time is either too short or too long. Our brothers and sisters ashore learned through Viet Nam and the early days of Iraq and Afghanistan that combat injuries will become combat fatalities unless personnel on the scene can stabilize the wounded for treatment by a higher echelon of care. As we consider a return to great power conflict and war at sea, our maritime forces should avail themselves of these lessons in order to prevent unnecessary losses of life in future combat.

– National Interest – James Holmes on what does the latest Navy Strategic Readiness Review say about the state of the U.S. Navy?

– Breaking Defense – The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office will test-fire a radical new missile defense system in less than a year. The Hyper Velocity Projectile, a supersonic artillery round, is fired from ordinary cannon at 5,600 miles per hour and can kill incoming threats for a mere $86,000 a shot.

– War Zone – Since 2015, the US Navy has been finalizing requirements for a weapon to make sure its jets can break into increasingly heavily defended areas.

– Breaking Defense – In essence, the Navy is propounding a cavalry role for the LCS, where the vessel would take the fight to the enemy in hit-and-run attacks while trying to evade detection. However, this proposed Concept of Operations for the Littoral Combat Ship is problematic as it fails to consider the vessel’s suitability for such missions.

– Breaking Defense – What good is a little ship in a big war on a big ocean? It can hide behind islands and in shallow waters, sniping at the enemy fleet — much like the PT boats of World War II or skirmishers in a Napoleonic army. That’s the US Navy’s newest argument for its much-criticized Littoral Combat Ship, and they have evidence to back it up from the latest LCS deployment to the Pacific.

– War Zone – Inside what some would consider the most important vessels in the entire U.S. Navy and the nerve centers of the fleet.

– USNI Proceedings – To chart a course going forward, it is necessary that we understand what went before and how it all went wrong so we can avoid the mistakes that have led us to this place. It is not enough to remedy issues such as the lack of quality sleep available to those who serve in ships, or elapsed and waived certifications, or faulty training in seamanship and navigation. It is not enough to decide that we need to begin transmitting on the automatic identification systems (AIS), or that we should rationalize all of the bridge radars and ship control systems in the fleet, or that we should usurp a captain’s prerogative to write his or her own standing orders. This approach is tantamount to treating the symptoms of an illness instead of addressing the underlying causes. The surface warfare community must determine the answer to the following question: What is the malady that lies behind the symptoms?

– CIMSEC – If we are going to successfully engage adversaries relying on A2/AD strategies, our Navy needs bold and innovative solutions that can successfully counter their attrition focus.

– Breaking Defense – As the overstressed surface fleet struggles to rebuild its readiness for great power war, it’s adding a whole new type of training exercise called SWATT. Modeled on the Top Gun program for naval aviators — Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training involves mock sea battles of increasing complexity against other surface ships, submarines, and aircraft.

– War on the Rocks – The 2017 National Security Strategy is a statement of Trump administration priorities, and its central tenets can be directly traced to statements made by Donald Trump on the campaign trail, albeit now framed in more genteel terms. National security experts are busily analyzing the strategy to discern its insights, pivots, oversights, inconsistencies, and priorities. This essay, however, concerns itself solely with the strategy’s implications for American seapower.

– USNI Proceedings – The TacAir Navy has a pilot retention problem. Money isn’t the only reason, but it’s a contributor.

– Breaking Defense – The Littoral Combat Ship is finally about to get the capabilities envisioned for it at the start, 15 years ago.

– Defense News – It’s been more than a year since the Navy decided to cancel procurement of an expensive new ammunition for its Zumwalt-class destroyers, but the service is still pondering how to best replace the munition.

– CIMSEC – Professor John Kuehn’s new book, America’s First General Staff: A Short History of the Rise and Fall of the General Board of the U.S. Navy, 1900-1950, is a detailed and fascinating look at how the U.S. Navy’s General Board began at the turn of the 20th century and evolved into what would become the core of U.S. naval planning and strategy.

– War Zone – The Navy talks big surface fleet dreams but it is going to take some serious planning and tough decision making to realize those dreams.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy will test a new laser weapon aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious ship Portland as early as this fall.

– Defense News – Two lawmakers who oversee defense policy took aim at a years-long walk-back of U.S. Navy transparency, calling on the Navy to declassify ship inspection results and end an information chill spurred by U.S. Navy and Defense Department memos over the past year.