– USNI News – As the Navy and Marine Corps work through a high-end warfighting exercise in the Pacific, which features a traditional three-ship amphibious ready group (ARG) operating with a guided-missile destroyer as a peek into future operations, a similar ship pairing is performing real-world missions in the Mediterranean today.

– Defense News – For over a year, the US Navy and its shipbuilders have been anxious to get the new aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) to sea and begin engineering trials of the first-of-class design. A number of publicly-announced target dates have come and gone, but the ship is still firmly moored at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. Now, however, a key factor in preventing the ship from casting off lines and getting underway is coming into view. A serious voltage regulator problem on the carrier’s four main turbine generators (MTGs) has prevented engineers from running the motors up to full power, and only now has the problem been identified and a fix decided upon.

– USNI News – The Navy took risk in many of its destroyer fleet’s mission sets during a period of uncontested operations at sea, and U.S. Fleet Forces Command has now been tasked with regaining sea control and all-domain access.

– Defense News – After more than twelve years insisting the unique crewing and modularity schemes for the Littoral Combat Ship will work, US Navy leaders are changing those plans as part of a larger shakeup of the long-troubled program.

– Breaking Defense – After a series of embarrassing breakdowns, the Navy is overhauling how it operates its controversial Littoral Combat Ships. It’s not only big news for the Navy but a cautionary tale for would-be innovators.

– Breaking Defense – After two years of embarrassing breakdowns in both variants of the embattled Navy Littoral Combat Ship, there are worrying signs that a reliability problem is built into the design. At issue: the unhappy combination of an unusually small crew struggling with a uniquely complex propulsion system, one that yokes gas turbines and diesel engines together.

– 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.