– USNI News – The Navy is working on adding a number of anti-surface weapons to an unmanned surface vehicle that so far has been used as a passive platform for mine countermeasures.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s top surface warfare officer has said the military must ease the burden on the service if it’s to fix issues that came to light after a pair of collisions that took the lives of 17 sailors last summer.

– Breaking Defense – Despite collisions this summer that killed 17 sailors and called into question basic seamanship skills, the Navy is undergoing a ‘renaissance’ in high-end warfighting capabilities, the commander of Naval Surface Forces says. New weapons, improved training, and a growing cadre of surface warfare specialists — veritable “Jedis” — are making the fleet more lethal more quickly than he’d expected, Vice Adm. Thomas Rowden told reporters ahead of the Surface Navy Association conference here.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s surface fleet is developing a new class of ship that will replace the cruisers — but it’s not another cruiser.

– Breaking Defense – By the end of March, the Navy will award four to six contracts for “conceptual” designs of a future frigate. That ship that must cost under $950 million, have “Grade A shock hardening” on key systems to survive blasts, and carry at least 16 Vertical Launch System cells to defend itself and nearby vessels.

– War Zone – The images give us our first view of the entire aircraft, as well as a sense of its overall scale.

– Defense News – The fact that USS Mobile Bay at 30 is one of the most advanced ships in the fleet speaks volumes about the care the Navy puts into its ships, but the good times are only going to last for so long. Mobile Bay is rapidly approaching its 35-year service life and it needs work.

– Defense News – After a turbulent 2017, the United States’ surface Navy sails into 2018 with a mountain of challenges but also opportunities to fix long-standing issues and build for the future.

– Defense News – Defense News sat down with the Navy’s top surface warfare officer, Vice Adm. Thomas Rowden, at his Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters in San Diego, California, to discuss the past year and look ahead to 2018.

– Defense News – Both Huntington Ingalls Industries and Bath Iron Works have signed on to build Flight III DDGs — DDG 125 will be the first one, built at Ingalls in Mississippi, followed by DDG 126 at Bath Iron Works — but questions linger about whether entering into a multiyear contract on what is almost a new class of ship invites delays and cost overruns.

– Breaking Defense – In 2017, the Navy and Marine Corps hit the wall, with an string of deadly accidents on the sea and in the air. In 2018, we’ll see whether the overstressed sea services start saying “no” to missions.

– USNI News – Houthi forces have captured a U.S. Navy research unmanned underwater vehicle off the coast of Yemen.

– Defense News – Chris Cavas opines that the U.S. Navy begins the new year in crisis. By its own admission many of its ships and aircraft are in poor condition. Training is not where it should be, its ships can’t maneuver properly around other ships, and Navy leaders for years have complained the service is overstretched, constantly struggling to meet requirements and falling short in any number of areas. It is by no means clear that new ideas and concepts are being implemented to counter ever-growing military rivals.

– National Interest – Want an intellectually inert U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard? Fine: stifle the free interplay of ideas and views on campus, and within the sea.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – When is the United States going to do the killing necessary to beat its terrorist enemies or eliminate them entirely?

– Breaking Defense – the pros and cons of the Navy’s Strategic Readiness Review.

– CIMSEC – A conversation with Bill Harlow, a former intelligence community spokesman, about his work in strategic communications in the armed forces. He talks about the public affairs career track in the military, his experience at all levels of government, and how that experience informs the civilian work he does today.

– ABC – Retired Cmdr. David Fravor spent 18 years as a Navy pilot, but nothing prepared him for what he witnessed during a routine training mission on Nov. 14, 2004. “I can tell you, I think it was not from this world,” Fravor told ABC News. “I’m not crazy, haven’t been drinking. It was — after 18 years of flying, I’ve seen pretty much about everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close.”

– Breaking Defense – Navy Secretary Richard Spencer wants to change the law that’s governed the armed forces since 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, to restore more autonomy to the services.

– Defense News – Achieving a 355-ship Navy is now national policy, but the goal is still a long way off.

– USNI News – The Navy won’t reactivate any Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates in support of operations in U.S. Southern Command, according to an internal service memo obtained by USNI News. Instead, the service will support SOUTHCOM’s anti-trafficking missions with Littoral Combat Ships and Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transports (T-EPF) through a commitment to support the Joint Interagency Task Force South by next year

– San Diego Union Tribune – When the littoral combat ship Coronado sailed into San Diego last week after its maiden deployment to the Far East, controversy followed in its wake.

– War Zone – The disposable unmanned aircraft could then covertly launch electronic electronic attacks, spy on the enemy, and more.

– Breaking Defense – The US surface fleet may not be adequately trained for high-intensity combat, four experienced former skippers and the former deputy secretary of defense warned a US Naval Institute conference here on Monday.

– CIMSEC – The littoral combat ship USS Coronado, upon recent completion of its 14-month Indo-Asia-Pacific stint, marks the conclusion of the U.S. Navy’s third LCS rotational deployment to the region.