– USNI News – The Navy is revamping the Zumwalt-class destroyer’s requirements and will morph it into a focused surface strike platform.

– Defense News – Despite the performance of the venerable ALQ-99 — the legacy standoff jamming pod mounted to the Navy’s EA-18G Growler aerial electronic attack platform — the nature of the threats today are such that the pod needed a substantial upgrade. The upgrade is so significant, the Navy is awarding the contract in three “bands” that will lead to multiple pods under the “Next-Gen Jammer” (NGJ) development program.

– War Zone – A C-2 pilot describes how the workhorse Greyhound we know today was a very finicky and neglected aircraft years ago.

– Breaking Defense – Even as the Navy solicits designs for its future frigate, it is ardently defending its current Littoral Combat Ship.

– National Interest – What madman would propose adding diesel submarines to the U.S. Navy’s all-nuclear silent service? There are a few…

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy is planning to enhance naval engagement with nations across South and Southeast Asia next year.

– USNI News – The Navy’s Undersea Rescue Command received the call and for the first time in a dozen years members were quickly loading equipment onto planes readying for a real-life rescue mission in Argentina.

– War Zone – Amid recent concurrency blunders, the service will purchase just four of the unmanned aircraft up front.

– Naval History – To maximize the growth of strategic thought in the present-day Navy, the service should turn to practices that proved successful between the two world wars.

– Breaking Defense – Sure, American industry can build the 355-ship fleet both Trump and the admirals want, three former Navy Secretaries said today.

– War on the Rocks – How should the U.S. military respond to China’s A2/AD capabilities? A new strategy proposes the United States would abandon efforts to command maritime East Asia outright and, instead, focus on helping the countries around the East and South China Seas deny China sea and air control in the region.

– Defense News – A move gaining traction in the upper echelons of the Navy to bring back mothballed Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates would cost billions, cut into modernization accounts for other ships and add little to the Navy’s capabilities.

– Defense News – For the first time in a decade, three Navy carrier strike groups will conduct a joint exercise in the western Pacific as President Donald Trump wraps up a multi-country Asia visit this week.

– Defense News – Just a third of the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornets were fully mission-capable and ready to “fight tonight” as of October, the head of Naval Air Forces told Congress on Friday.

– Breaking Defense – The good news? The US submarine fleet is meeting day-to-day demands around the world, without having to do the extra-long deployments that have ground down surface ships and sailors. The bad news? A massive maintenance backlog that could idle 15 submarines for months – costing an estimated seven to 15 years of time at sea – means fewer subs would be ready to reinforce forward-deployed forces in a crisis.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Planning for the long-term implications of climate change today is as important as planning for a major Pacific conflict was in the last century. To address climate change, the Department of Defense (DoD) and Pacific Command (PaCom) in particular need a 21st-century War Plan Orange.

– USNI News – The Navy Strategic Systems Program and the Department of Defense this week tested a conventional prompt strike capability that could one day be fielded from guided-missile submarines.

– Breaking Defense – When the Navy publishes its Request For Proposals to design a new frigate, probably today, there should be no surprises for industry. That’s by, well, design. In stark contrast to the predecessor program, the Littoral Combat Ship, where the Navy changed key specs midway through construction at great expense, the frigate is a test case for a new approach to building ships that seeks to squeeze out uncertainty early.

– National Interest – It will surprise no one to learn that Chinese military commentators, who watch U.S. Navy operations with utmost attention, have formed some preliminary conclusions regarding the meaning of the recent US Navy accidents for the larger geopolitical struggle in the Asia-Pacific.

– Breaking Defense – Lookouts were looking in the wrong direction on the USS Fitzgerald. The bridge crew – including the commander – didn’t know how the helm worked on the USS McCain. The collisions that killed 17 sailors this summer were “preventable” lapses in basic seamanship, the Chief of Naval Operations admitted today, as he ordered a host of measures to prevent a repeat.

– Defense News – In one of the most remarkable U.S. Navy documents in recent memory, the service is admitting to widespread failures and training shortfalls at the core of its most basic function: safely operating ships at sea.

– USNI News – Two of the world’s most sophisticated warships collided with merchant ships this year in preventable incidents that killed 17 American sailors. While those inside and out of the Navy are demanding answers to what caused the failures, the root causes are many and the fixes are far from easy.

– Defense News – Two accidents that claimed the lives of 17 sailors and wounded dozens more resulted from complete breakdowns in standard Navy procedures and poor decision-making by officers and sailors on the bridge of the two warships.

– Breaking Defense – A massive maintenance backlog has idled 15 nuclear-powered attack submarines for a total of 177 months, and the Navy’s plan to mitigate the problem is jeopardized by budget gridlock.

– CIMSEC – A conversation covering the basics about MAWS, how MAWS students are impacting Fleet planning, and how future capabilities will affect operational planning.