– 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.

– USNI News – A look at the carrier air wing today.

– USNI News – Consumed with long-running irregular warfare challenges, the Pentagon took its eye off the ball with respect to maritime warfare, particularly against hostile warships…
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of mine warfare, which has languished in a technological backwater for four decades, starved of resources and relegated to the junior varsity bench. However, a PACOM is directing a joint effort to combine legacy mines with precision guidance and standoff capabilities, introducing the Quickstrike-J and the Quickstrike-ER.

– Defense News – Randy Forbes, who represents a portion of the Tidewater region that includes the US Navy’s largest naval base and shipbuilding giant Huntington Ingalls, has long branched out to express concerns about defense issues far beyond his home ground. The nearly-released mark of the Seapower subcommittee’s 2017 naval budget reflects Forbes’ desire to increase naval spending into Reagan-era territory. By adding more than $2 billion to the Obama administration’s request, Forbes would raise shipbuilding levels to $20 billion a year and beyond – numbers not seen since the 1980s.

– Breaking Defense – Sea Hunter‘s size and cost open an intriguing new niche in naval operations. Imagine swarms of small, inexpensive, and above all expendable unmanned craft scouting ahead of or escorting traditional task forces. If the roboats get blown up, it costs no lives and relatively little treasure. If the roboats survive, their sensors provide invaluable intelligence to the fleet, and intelligence can win wars.

– Defense News – A small but often influential study group reporting directly to the US Navy’s chief of naval operations (CNO) is to be disbanded, the current CNO directed last week.

– Navy Times – The U.S. military’s top commander in the Pacific is arguing behind closed doors for a more confrontational approach to counter and reverse China’s strategic gains in the South China Sea, appeals that have met resistance from the White House at nearly every turn.

– New York Times – The Navy cruiser was in disputed waters off the Spratly Islands when the threat warning sounded over the ship’s intercom: “Away the Snoopie team. … Away the Snoopie team.”

– Defense News – This was the third night out for the Zumwalt on her second series of builder’s sea trials, the first “alpha” trials having been carried out in early December. The ship, which will eventually go to sea with a crew of 147, was carrying 388 souls, one of the highest numbers Zumwalt likely will ever carry during a planned service life of about 40 years.

– USNI News – U.S. attack and guided missile submarine are set to field miniature unmanned aerial vehicles that will act as the eyes and ears not only for the boats below water but also help special operations forces and strike aircraft target weapons.

– USNI News – The Navy released a Submarine Unified Build Strategy (SUBS) for concurrent Ohio Replacement ballistic missile submarine and Virginia Class attack submarine production through at least 2023, with the plan calling for Newport News Shipbuilding taking on additional responsibilities with the Virginia class to help General Dynamics Electric Boat more efficiently deliver the new class of boomers.

– USNI News – The submarine community is focused on maintaining access and boosting acoustic superiority after operating in relatively permissive environments for several years.

– Christian Science Monitor – The $21.4 million in upgrades are designed to equip the station with reconnaissance planes that will patrol the North Atlantic for Russian submarines.

– USNI News – The future attack submarine fleet will have a longer reach, deliver a range of kinetic and nonkinetic effects and be better able to share information without compromising stealth.

– USNI News – As the Navy prepares to field its Littoral Combat Ship in numbers as well as transition the acquisition system from block buys of LCSs into the new frigate program, both the fleet and two shipbuilders are working to plot a path forward.

– Breaking Defense – More gas. Less stealth. Maybe weapons. New name. Same money. Tighter schedule. That, in a dozen words, is how the Navy is evolving its program for carrier-launched drones.