– USNI News – The Navy is continuing to wrestle with landing deck issues aboard its amphibious ships, tied to flight operations with the F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and MV-22 Osprey.

– USNI News – USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) has been tapped by the Navy to be the service’s next forward deployed carrier in Japan and move USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) to Naval Station San Diego. Reagan will replace USS George Washington (CVN-73) ahead of the Washington’s three-year long refueling at the Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) Newport News Shipyard in Newport News, Va.

– War is Boring – Stealthier than you might think.

– Defense News – The office of the secretary of defense (OSD) has directed the US Navy to limit its overall buy of littoral combat ships to a total of 32 ships, foregoing 20 more of the small, fast and controversial warships, Pentagon sources have confirmed.

– Global Security Newswire – The United States next year is slated to begin reducing launch tubes on each of its Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, a new independent report states. The elimination of four operational launch tubes on each of the 14 submarines that make up the Navy’s Ohio submarine fleet will be the first substantial reduction in U.S. strategic weapon delivery capability since the 2011 New START accord went into effect.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy, is, hands down, the service in the best shape for 2014. Every act of belligerent idiocy from Beijing – and there’ve been a lot of them lately – makes the Navy budget an easier sell. In stark contrast to the Army, the Navy has the central role in the new Pacific-focused strategy, a high-tech threat justifying high-cost programs, a highly visible role in peacetime engagement around the world, and, perhaps most crucial, a clear set of missions.

– Breaking Defense – The Littoral Combat Ship has come under light fire from Congress because they worry especially about findings by operational testers that the ships cannot survive a firefight. Norman Friedman, a consultant at Gryphon Technologies with more than 30 military books to his name, argues in the following piece that critics need to consider that “change is at the core” of the LCS design, marking a welcome change in naval design. He believes LCS marks “the most fundamental change in warship design” in decades. Friedman compares the just-launched LCS ship USS Little Rock with the history of its predecessor, a light cruiser built near the end of World War II, mothballed a few years later and later rebuilt as a guided missile cruiser at considerable cost.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – For future naval activity that involves closer proximity to potential adversaries’ coastlines—and thus a requirement for more maneuverable ships—the Navy should consider flotilla operations.

– Aviation Week – There’s something special and hopeful about steaming into a tropical port on the bridge of a Navy warship that’s just finished a trek across the Pacific as the year’s drawing to a close. It’s a time of reflection of the deployment that’s been and hope for the potential that lies ahead. Green island hills hovering above a postcard Honolulu cityscape and a blue sea – all add to the dreamy scene. It’s easy to ignore the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. And as the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom steamed into Pearl Harbor and docked, it was easy to focus on all of the positives of the ship’s maiden Western Pacific deployment – and forget about the roiling seas still threatening the LCS program.

– USNI News – The U.S Navy’s unmanned carrier launched airborne surveillance and strike (UCLASS) program has evolved to call for a jet that is much larger and much more capable than what was envisioned just six months ago.

– Georgetown University Institutional Repository – A *fascinating* analysis from Jonathan Solomon of how lessons learned in the Cold War by the US Navy in how to defeat the Soviet Ocean Surveillance System and air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles can be applied today against the Chinese Ocean Surveillance System and their anti-ship ballistic missiles. 137 pages long, but well worth the read. Happy Holidays!

– Aviation Week – Cmdr. Patrick Thien, the commanding officer of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom, bristles at the thought that he would take it easy on his ship’s engines and generators.

– The Diplomat – Past fears that carriers were vulnerable to new technologies weren’t proven right… nor were they proven wrong.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Now is the time for supporters of American sea power to promote the U.S. Navy’s unique strategic role in national security. Will the next Theodore Roosevelt please step forward?

– AP – The U.S. Navy plans to increase sonar testing over the next five years, even as research it funded reveals worrying signs that the loud underwater noise could disturb whales and dolphins.

– Virginian Pilot – Navy testing and training could kill dozens of dolphins, whales and other sea mammals and injure thousands more over the next five years, according to the service’s own analysis. But while environmental groups say those estimates only scratch the surface of the impact that sonar and explosives can have on sea life, the Navy believes that most of those injuries would be temporary, that the numbers will likely be lower and that the long-term effects on the species will be negligible.

– Air Force – DOD is beefing up operations at Andersen Air Force Base and throughout the Marianas.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Ohio -class replacement program should be canceled; it is a costly anachronism in a changed global nuclear landscape.

– Aviation Week – The US Navy’s aviation simulation master plan for 2020 calls for progressively boosting the fidelity of individual simulators among Navy aircraft as well as the connectivity between simulators located anywhere. Rather than eliminate live aircraft training, the simulator plan is designed to cautiously and progressively increase the amount of cost-saving virtual training while maintaining enough in-aircraft practice to ensure safety.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Detractors consider the Air-Sea Battle concept to be an overarching strategy that excludes land forces. That is simply not the case, and here’s why.

– Aviation Week – There may be a new sheriff in LCS Town, but I wouldn’t expect much to change with the program.

– USNI News – The Pentagon is preparing a ship-borne facility to neutralize of Syrian chemical weapons at sea. MV Cape Ray (T-AKR-9679) — a ship in the U.S. Maritime Administration’s (MARAD)Ready Reserve Force — will be leased by the Navy through U.S. Military Sea Lift Command to field a chemical weapon disposal package.

– Aviation Week – The Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), which already has garnered attention for its operational promise, is now getting rave reviews for, shall we say, its programmatic prowess.

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy has demonstrated the launch of a small unmanned aircraft from submarine for the first time, the service announced in a statement on Dec. 5. The successful test could herald the arrival of potentially revolutionary new intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities for the Navy’ submarine force and special warfare communities.

– War on the Rocks – An insightful summary of the state of the US Navy today.