– USNI News – Rapid growth in the capability and quality of guided missiles — mostly Chinese in origin — is causing the U.S. Navy to rethink the number of surface ships it needs to effectively fight a high-end war.

– USNI News – The Navy successfully tested autonomous aerial refueling for the first time with its Northrop Grumman X-47B test unmanned aerial vehicle on Wednesday, marking the end of the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Air Vehicle demonstrator (UCAS-D) program.

– USNI News – The build up of U.S. naval presence in the vicinity of Yemen is the result of the deteriorating security situation inside the country and to “preserve options” to maintain maritime security in the region.

– USNI News – Post-delivery testing on USS America (LHA-6) went far more smoothly than on previous big-decks, and the Navy and Ingalls Shipbuilding are trying to leverage this success as they move forward with the next two amphibious assault ships.

– Associated Press – In a stepped-up response to Iranian backing of Shia rebels in Yemen, the Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is heading toward the waters off Yemen to beef up security and join other American ships that are prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons to the Houthi rebels.

– Breaking Defense – Amidst unabated budget gloom, Navy and Marine leaders aren’t looking for salvation in big new programs. They’re “repurposing and reusing existing capabilities” to get the maximum out of existing hardware for minimum cost. It’s a vision of the future in which a junior Marine Corps officer might call for fire support from a ship-launched Tomahawk missile using a Samsung tablet.

– Washington Post – The U.S. Navy has seven combat ships in the waters around Yemen as the Saudi-led bombing campaign there continues, but U.S. troops are not participating in a Saudi naval blockade in the region.

– The Diplomat – The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence offers a wealth of new information on the PLA Navy.

– Defense One – Faster datalinks will allow the Navy’s EA-18 Growler to pinpoint insurgents with weapons-quality accuracy.

– War is Boring – Fat Leonard’s hookers and cash seduced the U.S. Seventh Fleet … and soaked taxpayers for millions

– FoxtrotAlpha – If you want to know just about every ship and sub in the U.S. Navy’s fleet, this graphic is your guide.

– Foxtrot Alpha – The Navy’s USS America, the first of her class, was controversially optimized to handle the F-35, leaving out the multi-purpose well deck traditionally found on ‘Gator Navy’ flattops. Now, just months after her commissioning, she already needs 40 weeks of upgrades just to handle the very aircraft she was designed for.

– USNI News – The Carl Vinson carrier strike group (CSG) has left U.S. Central Command and has passed its strike missions over Iraq and Syria to a new CSG centered on USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-73).

– BBC – The US Navy is developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, that can be launched from a cannon and “swarm” in a co-ordinated attack.

– USNI News – The Navy’s new frigate will go through the requirements-generation and testing processes as a flight upgrade rather than a new-start program, helping save time and money and allowing the program office to focus on what will be different from the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to the frigate upgrade.

– USNI News – The Navy is further extending the life of Landing Craft Air Cushions (LCACs) that have already gone through their Service Life Extension Programs (SLEPs), with the oldest craft set for retirement this year and the replacement not ready for its first delivery until 2017.

– Defense News – The US Navy is now building towards a fleet goal of 308 ships, according to the latest 30-year shipbuilding plan — a small evolution from the previously-cited 306-ship target. The two ships added to the fleet total are a 12th LPD 17-class amphibious transport dock and a third Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB).

– USNI News – The second Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) has proven so much more reliable than the first that the Navy has been able to experiment with a new expeditionary maintenance model to extend the reach of the ship.

– USNI News – The Program Executive Office for Littoral Combat Ships (PEO LCS) is working with both its shipbuilders to determine how to bring the current LCS designs into a more lethal and survivable frigate design, while it works with other Navy offices to finalize the frigate requirements.

– USNI News – The Program Executive Officer for Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) hopes to send a version of the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission package out to sea before officially reaching initial operational capability, as earlier testing showed “phenomenal” capability compared to current systems.

– Breaking Defense – Clearing sea mines is so murderously hard that the best defense is to sink the ships or shoot down the planes carrying them before they can be put in the water. But politics, surprise, or fear of escalation might keep the US military from stopping the minelayers “left of splash.” That means somebody had better be ready to go after the deadly explosives in their natural habitat. The great leap forward today is that “somebody” is increasingly likely to be a robot.

– Phase Zero – Everyone saw the USS Annapolis come home last year. It returned, poignantly, on Sept. 11, and there was a seriousness amid the usual dockside fanfare—sailors meeting newborn children for the first time, a school band playing “Anchors Aweigh.” But there was no mention of the boat’s secret missions.

– Real Clear Defense – Fisticuffs broke out in the Naval War College’s legendary Mahan Reading Room last Wednesday. The cause: an argument over whether history shows that aircraft carriers are survivable in combat. Base police responded. The combatants were taken to Newport Hospital for treatment of wounds and kept overnight for observation.

– Politico – While the old adage, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” is aptly applied to many of life’s problems, when it comes to modern weapons systems, sometimes it just doesn’t adequately capture the context of what is needed to safeguard our national security. A case in point today is the funding level for the Tomahawk weapons system

– National Interest – With the proliferation of A2/AD capabilities, a forward presence is becoming a liability.