– Defense News – Following two more serious engineering incidents involving separate littoral combat ships, the commander of US naval surface forces ordered an engineering stand down on all LCS crews and directed all LCS sailors to be retrained in engineering procedures.

– National Interest – Such a vast area of responsibility also means that the U.S. Navy has to be able to prevail against an equally vast array of threats. From the low-tech speedboats and mines of the Iranian Navy to the high-tech antiship ballistic missiles of the People’s Republic of China, the Navy must be prepared to deal with them all. Here’s a roundup of five of the greatest threats.

– USNI News – The problem is that the way the US Navy fights is inefficiently and ineffectively supported by the way the Navy thinks about fighting, and the way the Navy thinks about fighting is inadequately supported by how it acquires the platforms, sensors, weapons and networks that enable it.

– Stars and Stripes – A year ago, Navy and Marine Corps leaders gave a dire warning to Congress: Budget cuts have hurt nondeployed units and could cost lives during a major conflict. The losses happened, but not in combat. Pilots died training at home. Since May, four F/A-18 Hornet or F/A-18E/F Super Hornet crashes involving nondeployed units killed two pilots and destroyed five planes. The crashes are the latest in a sharp increase in military aviation accidents overall for nondeployed squadrons, which have absorbed the bulk of budget cuts through reduced training and delayed maintenance at home so the best aircraft and personnel can be used on the front lines.

– Reuters – The Pentagon is well aware of the danger Iran’s swarms pose, however, and is devising new weapons to counter them, including small, precision-guided rockets and even lasers.

– USNI News – The Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer is kicking off an independent review into the Navy’s Gerald Ford-class next-generation carrier program citing questions of performance of key systems aboard.

– DefenseNews – In yet another incident in what is turning out to be a bad year for the US Navy’s littoral combat ship program, the LCS Coronado is reported to have suffered a propulsion problem in the mid-Pacific and has turned back to return to Hawaii. The latest issue, this time with an Independence-class LCS variant, follows a series of problems striking ships of the Freedom class.

– USNI News – The Littoral Combat Ship USS Freedom (LCS-1) is sidelined in San Diego, Calif. for repairs after Navy inspectors found extensive damage in one of its two main propulsion diesel engines.

– New York Times – An airman with the unit is being considered for the Medal of Honor after new video analysis suggested that he fought alone bravely in a 2002 battle on an Afghan peak.

– USNI News – Striking the balance between a tanker and a surveillance aircraft is an area of concern for Navy aviation planners and industry as they craft what will be the service’s first operational, carrier unmanned aerial vehicle.

– USNI News – The Navy is considering expanding the number of SeaRAM installations on its ships beyond a quartet of ballistic missile defense ships based in Spain and Littoral Combat Ships.

– Breaking Defense – So easy, a journalist can do it. That could be the slogan for the Navy’s new Magic Carpet software, which simplifies the most stressful task in aviation: landing on deck of an aircraft carrier.

– USNI News – Ten days into a two-week fleet battle experiment on this aircraft carrier off the California coast, the Navy is getting a good look at how the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor can fit into flight and deck operations of its carrier fleet. So far, the outlook is promising.

– USNI News – “We have to stop thinking of adversary maritime forces as ‘threats’ and instead what they really are: ‘targets’ for our increasingly lethal, distributed surface, amphibious, and submarine forces,” Dr. William Bundy, director of the Gravely Group at the Naval War College, asserted during a recent interview…

– The Guardian – Proposal to bring an additional 5,000 marines to territory already 28% occupied by US military stirs frustrations – but many support the idea in a ‘fragile’ economy.

– USNI News – The Pentagon’s office tasked with tweaking existing and developing military technology for new uses is pushing development of ammo meant for the electromagnetic railgun for use in existing naval guns and artillery pieces. The initiative will recast existing weapons as potential air defense platforms through a change in ammunition.

– Bloomberg – The U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier isn’t ready for warfare.
The $12.9 billion USS Gerald R. Ford — the most expensive warship ever built — may struggle to launch and recover aircraft, mount a defense and move munitions, according to the Pentagon’s top weapons tester.

– Reuters – The U.S. Navy plans to send a ship to New Zealand in November, Prime Minister John Key said on Thursday, formally ending a standoff over the Pacific nation’s anti-nuclear policy that dates back more than 30 years.

– Defense News – The US Navy is stretching the lives of some of its submarines, if only by a year or two.

– Defense News – Even as the finishing touches are being put on the US Navy’s new aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, its new-technology aircraft landing system has emerged as the most worrisome element of several new technologies that are key to the first-of-class, $13 billion ship’s design.

– Breaking Defense – Got subs? The Navy sounds increasingly confident it can squeeze an extra submarine into its construction plans. The additional Virginia-class attack sub, to be funded in the 2021 budget, would enter service just as the attack submarine force shrinks to historic lows while Chinese and Russian fleets grow in both numbers and sophistication.