– USNI News – Fighting ballistic missiles, stealthy targets, swarmed surface and supersonic threats are high on the Pentagon’s wish list for its future electromagnetic rail gun.

– Defense News – host of new technologies and systems will begin to enter service when the new aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is delivered in the first half of 2016, and for over a decade it’s been a good question whether all the new whiz-bang technology will be ready in time.

– USNI News – The Navy’s forward deployed Littoral Combat Ship USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) has joined in the search for the missing Air Asia Flight QZ8501.

– Breaking Defense – Smooth sailing is not in the Navy’s forecast for the next year.The service faces big decisions on major programs, and we can expect clashes between Navy plans, congressional politics and budgetary realities on three of the biggest: the upgunned Littoral Combat Ship, the UCLASS armed drone, and the jewel in the Navy’s crown, the nuclear aircraft carrier.

– USNI News – The forward deployed U.S. destroyer that was buzzed by Russian fighters in April has returned to the Black Sea, according to photographs of the ship crossing through the Bosphorus.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The U.S. Navy has an order for a small surface combatant to fill, and it should look to the Danish navy for inspiration.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy must replenish its inventory with smaller and more numerous combatants—such as a frigate helicopter dock.

– National Interest – Air-Sea Battle is described as a limited objective concept by the Department of Defense. Some critics have argued that Air-Sea Battle must be more than a limited objective concept, possibly a war plan or a strategy. Others have argued that it is less than a concept and is just a meaningless set of buzzwords. From a military planner’s perspective, Air-Sea Battle is a piece of art – operational art that describes the “broad actions the force must take to achieve the desired military end state.”

– National Interest – What would a U.S. Navy dream surface combatant look like?

– Defense One – In the decade ahead, unmanned underwater vehicles, or UUVs, may have the same sort of disruptive effects on militaries as their flying counterparts. More than 12 countries are at work on undersea robots, which some militaries, including the United States, use to check for mines, map the sea floor and collect weather data. There’s no reason they couldn’t be used to defend battleships from small boats or even carry out attacks on enemy divers. But what will they look like?

– Defense One – The Navy is beginning to increase the tempo of its drumbeat calling for additional shipbuilding money to pay for the long planned replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. The ship is not unexpected, which is why the plea for more money is surprising– or at least it should be. How has the sea service arrived at this strategic juncture without enough money already inside of its budget to pay for one of its most critical assets?

– Foxtrot Alpha – The Littoral Combat Ship saga has been just another reminder of the Pentagon’s chaotic and illogical procurement strategy. Now, after studying alternatives to the over-sized jet boat after deciding that it was a indeed a flawed concept, the DoD has come up with the laughable decision to build a more complicated and expensive but still highly vulnerable version of the troubled ship.

– USNI News – Navy operators said the service’s next small surface combatant (SSC) top priorities should be fighting other surface ships at longer ranges and hunting and killing submarines — not fighting fighters, striking land targets at long range or conducting ballistic missile defense (BMD), service leaders outlined last week when they briefed the follow-on to the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to reporters.

– The Diplomat – Lasers won’t solve all the problems facing naval weaponeers, but they’ll help address quite a few of them.

– National Interest – America’s Navy faces a daunting future environment. Focusing on sea control might be the best way to evolve.

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy is has declared an experimental laser weapon on its Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) in the Persian Gulf an operational asset and U.S. Central Command has given permission for the commander of the ship to defend itself with the weapon.

– Virginian Pilot – Project Silent Nemo is under way this week at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, where a team of civilian engineers and military officers are testing the capabilities of a 5-foot, 100-pound experimental robot that’s designed to look and swim like a bluefin tuna.

– USNI News – The Navy will beef up the weapons, armor and sensors on its two existing classes of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in an answer to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s call for a tougher Small Surface Combatant (SSC).

– FoxTrot Alpha – What does the Navy do when it needs to know for sure that a new weapon system or electronic countermeasure works, not just under stringent lab-like settings or at a land based range, but in its intended operating environment? They put it to sea on a giant remote controlled Destroyer and throw live missiles at it.

– Foxtrot Alpha – America’s primary anti-ship missile, the Harpoon, has been in service now for close to 40 years and the Navy has been very reluctant to evolve when it comes to its anti-ship capabilities. Times are changing, with China’s Navy on the rise and Russia flexing its muscle, the Cold War staple just won’t do. Enter Lockheed’s ninja-like Long Range Anti-Ship Missile to save the day.

– Nikkei Asian Review – Defense policymakers in Japan and the U.S. are privately voicing concern about the total absence of U.S. aircraft carriers from East Asian waters for four months next year.

– War is Boring – USS George H.W. Bush has been busy

– Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments – Within the next year, the Navy must take advantage of an uncommon opportunity to set the course for the future surface fleet or fall further behind competitors who will increasingly be able to deny U.S. forces access to their region. In this study, CSBA Senior Fellow Bryan Clark articulates the operational concept of “offensive sea control” as the new central idea to guide evolution of the U.S. surface force. This idea would refocus large and small surface combatant configuration, payloads and employment on sustaining the surface force’s ability to take and hold areas of ocean by destroying threats to access such as aircraft, ships and submarines rather than simply defending against their missiles and torpedoes.

– Breaking Defense – Someone shoots a cruise missile at you. How far away would you like to stop it: over 200 miles out or less than 35? If you answered “over 200,” congratulations, you’re thinking like the US Navy, which has spent billions of dollars over decades to develop ever more sophisticated anti-missile defenses. According to Bryan Clark, until 12 months ago a top advisor to the nation’s top admiral, you and the Navy are wrong.

– Information Dissemination – 5 part series by Jon Solomon on the future of the large deck carrier.