– BBC – Weak leadership, poor judgment and a lack of “warfighting toughness” led to the capture of 10 US sailors by Iran in the Gulf in January, the US Navy says.

– National Defense – The U.S. Navy, which has already developed a 30-kilowatt laser that has been used operationally, will soon test a new directed energy weapon that is five times more powerful.

– Breaking Defense – The upgraded frigate variant of the Littoral Combat Ship isn’t much of an improvement over the controversial original, the Government Accountability Office says, because the Navy was too focused on keeping costs down and production lines humming.

– USNI News – USS Coronado (LCS-4) departs its San Diego homeport today for an extended maiden deployment in the western Pacific, making it the first of the aluminum, triple-hulled Littoral Combat Ships to make an operational cruise.

– USNI Blog – My article continues the argument originally made by Vice Admiral Cebrowski and Captain Wayne Hughes in their path setting article on the Streetfighter concept. However, successful combat in the littoral environment will have to be a team sport. Fortunately, we have the US Navy and Marine Corps team who can execute this mission, if enabled to develop new capabilities and doctrine to employ them.

– War on the Rocks – We need to harden the surface force in order to make our adversaries spend more of their tax dollars in trying to overcome it — or better yet — decide that such expenditures aren’t worth the opportunity cost. This is, of course, the essence of conventional deterrence.

– USNI News – The Navy has plans to boost its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler capabilities in the coming years to match an evolving threat, but plane manufacturer Boeing is still pushing for conformal fuel tanks, an advanced cockpit system and a new engine that the company says would add even more range and warfighting capability.

USNI News – The Navy could consider using a different system to catch incoming aircraft on its next generation of Gerald R. Ford-class (CVN-78) of aircraft carriers after the costs for the General Atomics-built Advanced Arresting Gear have more than doubled

– USNI News – There has been a lively debate in recent years over whether the appurtenance of American military might—the supercarrier—will be rendered irrelevant, even obsolescent, by the burgeoning anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems of the likes of China and Russia should war ever break out between them and Washington. This state of affairs is not helped by a glaring capability shortfall the U.S. Navy faces currently and in the foreseeable future: the lack of a carrier-based deep-strike aircraft due to the relatively short “legs” of its mainstay Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet attack fighter as well as the upcoming Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

– CIMSEC – In an anti-access/area-denial environment, would the carrier be given carte blanche to project its airpower? Would its survivability be seriously questioned by the submarine and other anti-ship systems?

– Defense One – The Chief of Naval Operations explains why he’s working to expand and strengthen the fleet’s network of partners.

– National Interest – The Navy is preparing to fire long-range precision guns and missiles from its lethal, stealthy new destroyer — in anticipation of its ultimate deployment on the open seas, service and industry officials explained. The new Destroyer, called DDG 1000 or the future USS Zumwalt, is a 610-foot land and surface warfare attack ship designed with a stealthy, wave-piercing “tumblehome” hull. On Friday May 20, the new ship was formally delivered to the Navy at Bath Iron Works in Portland, Maine.

– USNI News – One of the most conspicuous ships in the Navy is among the least understood.

– Christian Science Monitor – Capt. James Kirk took command of the USS Zumwalt on Friday, as the Navy’s state-of-the-art ship moves closer to full operation.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy wants to start building the upgraded “frigate” version of its controversial Littoral Combat Ship a year earlier, the frigate program manager said. The fixed-price, winner-take-all competition will “tentatively” happen in 2018 instead of 2019.

– USNI News – Acting on a request from the searchers looking for the missing EgyptAir flight that crashed early Thursday local time, the Navy has sent a maritime surveillance aircraft to look for the missing aircraft.

– USNI News – The Navy is creating an offensive anti-surface network that will tie targeting information from satellites, aircraft, ships, submarines and the weapons themselves to form a lethal “kill web” designed to keep pace with the expanding lethal power of potential adversaries.

– USNI News – The Navy has selected the unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturer AeroVironment to supply miniature UAVs for the service’s fleet of attack and guided missile submarines and unmanned underwater vehicles.

– Defense News – Whatever the reasons, today’s Navy leadership needs to take a lesson from 1945 and get it in gear. Assess the situation regarding repairing the USS Fort Worth, consider the alternatives and make a decision. Ineffective management has just delivered a real blow to the LCS program just as it was starting to roll.

– USNI Blog – In this piece, however, we concentrate on the dangerous environment close to a coastline that the full range of our sensors and weapons cannot be exploited. The threat of sudden, short range attack is a constant concern. We wish to describe an effective mesh network to fight in combat environments like San Carlos Water in the Falklands War, the coast of Israel in the 1973 War, and other waters that led to sudden surprise attacks on ships at relatively short range, like the missile attacks on USS Stark (FFG-31), HMS Sheffield, the British supply ship Atlantic Conveyer, the many missile attacks in the Gulf “Tanker War” of 1982-1989, and most recently against the Israeli missile ship, INS Hanit, off the Lebanon coast.

– USNI News – As the Navy shifts from a two-variant frigate acquisition plan to a competition between the two Littoral Combat Ship builders, getting USS Coronado (LCS-4) out on its first deployment ahead of the frigate downselect will go a long way in validating the ship’s advertised capabilities. The first two Lockheed Martin Freedom-variant LCSs, USS Freedom (LCS-1) and USS Fort Worth (LCS-3), have both deployed for a total of about 28 months of forward-deployed experience. Coronado, though, will be the first Austal USA-built Independence-variant LCS to deploy overseas.

– USNI News – The Navy endorsed the decision by Defense Secretary Ash Carter to extend the Harry S Truman Carrier Strike Group deployment to the Middle East by 30 days, a Navy spokesman said, but the service is still committed to avoiding extended deployments and keeping to the new Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP) construct.