– USNI News – A Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser will enter the Black Sea on Friday “to promote peace and stability in the region,” the Navy announced on Thursday.

– USNI News – Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s recent direction to the Navy to develop proposals for a “capable and lethal small surface combatant, generally consistent with the capabilities of a frigate” could have a major affect on several Navy programs.

– BBC – The US Navy is to provide custom e-readers, dubbed the Navy eReader Device (NeRD), to some of its sailors.

– USNI News – The frigate assigned to operations in the Black Sea as part of a U.S. show of support to allies in the region has left, leaving no U.S. surface ships in the region

– USNI News – Thirty years after its first deployment, the basic components of the Aegis system on cruisers and destroyers have remained largely the same — the SPY-1 radar and the contents of vertical launch systems — but the threats have gotten faster and deadlier.

– Defense News – It’s the biggest naval exercise in the world, and it happens only every other year. Nearly every kind of US warship will take part. But notably absent — again — will be the newest type of US warship, the littoral combat ship.

– Navy Times – Many ships are sailing on cruises far beyond the once-standard six or seven months, and Navy leaders are eager to make these long and often unpredictable deployments the exception. They’ve developed a plan to lock in eight-month deployments, but a mounting body of testimony from Navy officials suggests that the plan may soon be another victim of budget battles — and sailors will end up paying the price. At the center of the dilemma is the aircraft carrier George Washington, which will be retired early unless lawmakers lift heavy sequestration spending cuts set to take effect in 2016. With no sign they will and uncertainties about when the first of the new supercarrier class will be ready to deploy, experts say nine-to-10-month deployments could be common for fleet sailors.

– DefenseTech – The Pentagon wants to set up a network of seafloor-bedded “nodes” that would include anything from supplies to weaponry to be called to the surface for military action when needed.

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy will need to use a combination of stealth and electronic warfare capabilities to defeat advanced anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) threats in the future, chief of naval operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said on April 16 at the U.S. Naval Institute annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy must maintain the current surface force while it procures the future one.

– USNI News – U.S. Navy frigate USS Taylor (FFG-50) has returned to the Black Sea for the second time in as many months.

– Aviation Week – This month has been a U.S. Navy futurist’s dream. The Navy not only detailed major milestones for its electromagnetic railgun and the Laser Weapon System (LaWS), but christened its most technologically advanced – as well as controversial – destroyer in the fleet: the DDG-1000 Zumwalt.

– Virginian Pilot – The aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower was finally in sight. The pilot of the F/A-18 Super Hornet hurriedly flipped switches and pushed levers. The aviator in the backseat leaned forward, straining to see the flight deck floating in the distance. The jet’s right engine had locked up, its landing gear had jammed, and the main fuel tank was almost empty. At nearly 350 mph, the Super Hornet hurtled over the warm waters of the North Arabian Sea last April. The pilot had made some tough decisions that day; several hadn’t gone his way. Now he was out of options. He had one chance to land. A look at an F/A-18 Super Hornet crash investigation.

– War is Boring – After 70 years of experimentation, U.S. Navy wants more ships as floating outposts.

– US Naval War College Review – On the advantages of small surface combatants…

– USNI News – A pair of Navy MH-60 Seahawk helicopters have been assigned to aid in rescue effort following the Wednesday sinking of a South Korean ferry. The Seahawks will operate from big deck amphibious warship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6)

– Aviation Week – Huntington-Ingalls’ concept for a BMD supership deserves attention, even if there’s no money for it

– USNI News – USNI News contributor Cmdr. Daniel Dolan, interviewed the commander of Zumwalt (DDG-1000), Capt. James Kirk, on 31 March. The ship—first in a class of three next-generation destroyers—is among the most expensive surface ships the U.S. Navy is building. The ship features a slew of new systems and the smallest crew yet for a ship her size. Dolan asked Kirk about the ship’s handling, the hull, some of the history of her namesake, and brought questions from members of the Naval War College staff ahead of the ship’s christening on Saturday at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine.

– USNI News – The Navy has traded Raytheon’s Griffin IIB missile for Lockheed Martin’s Longbow Hellfire AGM-114L for the surface-to-surface missile for early increments and testing for the surface warfare (SuW) mission package for the Littoral Combat Ship.

– Defense News – The military could speed up deployment of a land-based missile defense shield in Europe to hem in a resurgent Russia, the Navy 3-star in charge of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said in early April. Vice Adm. James Syring said it was possible to speed up the deployment of the second Aegis Ashore installation, planned for Poland in 2018, but such a move would require some help from Congress.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Unmanned maritime systems will decisively alter the future of warfare, and the naval profession must adapt to the military and cultural changes under way.

– Virginian Pilot – A generation ago, the Navy promised to get better at finding and destroying sea mines. The proclamation came months after the first Gulf War, when Iraq’s use of more than 1,000 underwater bombs overwhelmed the Navy’s fleet of anti-mine ships and helicopters. Two U.S. warships were rocked by explosions, and the Pentagon was forced to abort plans for an amphibious assault on Kuwait, leaving some 30,000 Marines stuck at sea. More than 20 years after that embarrassment, the sea service is still working to make good on its pledge to fully address a centuries-old threat that some analysts have called the Navy’s Achilles’ heel.

– War is Boring – U.S. Navy’s top officer previews future battle fleet … and budgetary risk

– BBC – American Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has said the US will send two ballistic missile defence destroyers to Japan.

– War is Boring – Army aviators in Kuwait spent much of 2013 training for an unusual mission—flying from Navy ships. This new mission is a major shift for the ground combat branch in the Middle East … and elsewhere.