– San Diego Union Tribune – The Navy announced a new study that aims to document the travel patterns and the feeding and diving habits of whales off Southern California. The study comes as environmental groups continue to fight the U.S. military and the National Marine Fisheries Service over a recently renewed 5-year permit that allows the Navy to use sonar and explosive charges and do other maritime training that affects marine mammals.

– Virginian Pilot – The U.S. Navy’s fast-attack nuclear submarines are usually supposed to stay out of sight, but when the Hawaii docked here late last week, the apparent idea was to make a very visible impression. Big, dark, looming in the harbor waters, the Virginia-class nuclear sub showed up to reassure the uneasy Japanese that American power is still on their side, and still a force to be reckoned with.

– Military.com – The Navy is evaluating designs, costs and specifications for a new class of amphibious assault ships designed to replace the current fleet of cargo-carrying LSD 41/49 dock landing ships, service officials said.

– USNI News – The striking power and stealth of the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) concept was reduced to protect the role of the service’s next-generation of manned fighters.

– USNI News – The U.S. guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf (CG-72) has left the Black Sea and two more NATO ships are inbound. Vella Gulf has rotated in and out of the Black Sea in the past few months as part of NATO’s presence mission following the Russian seizure of Crimea region of Ukraine.

– Wall Street Journal – Many have evoked the film “Top Gun” in describing a recent confrontation between a Chinese J-11 fighter and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane off of Hainan island in the South China Sea. Based on U.S. accounts of the encounter, that movie parallel is apt – with the very important distinction that Hainan is not Hollywood.

– War is Boring – Submersibles help sneak commandos ashore.

– Navy Times – The strange saga of the latest cruise of the USS Cowpens…

– USNI News – U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters flying from the deck of USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) have flown 30 air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) terrorists since Aug. 8. but more sorties are geared toward surveillance.

– US Navy – Naval Constraints in a Joint Environment – The Navy’s experience shines light on the management and performance issues arising from a single-source information-systems provider.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – All the components seem to be in place to make ‘payloads over platforms’ a reality for the Navy.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The U.S. Navy has no overall requirements process for designing a Fleet, and it needs one—desperately.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Despite price-tag increases, the new Ford -class carriers won’t be a boondoggle, but a boon—because ultimately, bigger = more bang for the buck.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – As the world becomes more complex and the oceans less secure, we are compelled to strengthen the bonds of international maritime cooperation.

– USNI Proceedings – A vessel based on the national security cutter could offer significant benefits to the Navy.

– USNI Proceedings – US Navy – Seeing the Maritime Forest for the Trees

– US Navy – Sustaining Our Amphibious Capability – Scrap the 30-year shipbuilding plan. The U.S. Navy must adopt a realistic, cost-effective blueprint to ensure a viable ship-to-shore movement capacity in the future.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Failing to bolster the U.S. Navy in the face of 21st-century maritime threats could prove disastrous to the international order.

– Military.com – The Navy recently conducted several ground and airborne tests of stealth-enhancing upgrades to the F/A-18 Super Hornet in an effort to improve the fighter aircraft’s ability to elude radar detection.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – A common hull design adaptable to multiple missions would make tomorrow’s Navy flexible, versatile, and affordable.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – From its roots in the 1960s to Operation Burnt Frost in 2008 to today, here is an inside view of a weapon system’s storied legacy.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Unmanned platforms are being touted as offensive weapons, but they could play good defense, too.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – As history has proven time and again, the question isn’t ‘How can we afford to build aircraft carriers’ but ‘How can we not afford to build them?’

– USNI News – The Navy seems to have shifted its concept for the Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) for a third time in as many years part of the most confusing and misunderstood aviation acquisition programs in the last decade.

– US Naval War College Review – While important differences exist, the first decade of the twenty-first century paralleled the 1970s for the Department of Defense and the US Navy…Revisiting the creation of the 1980s Maritime Strategy suggests opportunities for dealing with the antiaccess/area-denial challenges presented by China and others today.