– Aviation Week – It’s often said that the past is prologue and U.S Navy Secretary Ray Mabus recently highlighted that sentiment when he visited Singapore to help trumpet the arrival there of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom and the importance of the U.S. Pacific pivot.

– Aviation Week – The Freedom never had to endure a hurricane on the way to Singapore, but the ship certainly has gone through a tempestuous set of trials and tribulations. During transit, the ship suffered a series of power outages, and once in Singapore the Freedom was sidelined by a coolant leak that also apparently cut short the ship’s initial extended underway.

– Foreign Policy – How to keep America in the game when our enemies are trying to shut us out.

– Breaking Defense – An aircraft carrier is nothing without aircraft, and a Navy aircraft is worth little without a carrier. It’s ships and planes in synergy that revolutionized war at sea in the 1930s and with new systems now entering service – the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter and the Ford-class carrier – they can do it again. On April 30, we sat down with Rear Admiral Bill Moran, the Director of Air Warfare on the Navy staff (OPNAV N98) and co-author of a recent article on future carriers, to discuss the transition to the Ford and JSF. While the new carrier can still perform its traditional role as the centerpiece of a mobile island of concentrated naval force, Moran said, the Ford class, the evolving air wing, and an array of other new capabilities will allow the carrier to play a much more flexible and distributed role.

– National Defense – As the U.S. military turns its attention to the Pacific, Navy Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) teams are already undergoing a transition back to their maritime roots, said Rear Adm. Sean Pybus, commander of Navy Special Warfare.

– Reuters – If it works, the X-47B and follow-on drones, which are devised to be armed with bombs and missiles, could nearly quadruple the striking range of the United States’ 10 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers – reversing a recent decline in the giant ships’ ability to do battle against a determined, high-tech foe…Namely, China.

– Breaking Defense – Just nine months after hosting the biggest multinational mine-warfare exercises “ever” to be held in and around the Persian Gulf, the Navy’s 5th Fleet and its foreign partners outdid themselves with a second, even larger wargame. More than 20 nations participated in September’s International Mine Counter-Measures Exercise 2012, collaborating against fictional ecoterrorists whose capabilities were suspiciously similar to the real-world arsenal of Iran. This month, 41 nations and some private-sector companies participated in IMCMEX 2013, which despite the name expanded beyond minesweeping to practice protecting civilian oil tankers, oil rigs, ports, and even desalinization plants as well.

– Wired – America’s ship-launched X-47B killer drone prototype took off for the first time from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush sailing near the Maryland coast on Tuesday morning — the first step in proving that a high-performance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is compatible with the Navy’s fleet of 10 gigantic nuclear-powered flattops. But that doesn’t mean the sailing branch will definitely be purchasing similar jet-powered drones for frontline use. According to Bob Work, until recently the Navy undersecretary and a big supporter of armed UAVs, the sea service must choose between X-47B-style ‘bots and a simpler, propeller-driven drone similar to the Air Force’s Predator.

– Breaking Defense – Unmanned aircraft are relatively easy to fly. Landing one without crashing is hard. Getting one to take off from the narrow, pitching deck of an aircraft carrier is harder still. Landing on a carrier? That’s hard enough to give human pilots nervous breakdowns. Soon, it will be the final test of the Navy’s prototype carrier-based drone, the X-47B.

– Wired – At 11:19 a.m. today, for the first time in history, a plane without a pilot in it executed one of the most complex missions in aviation: launching off an aircraft carrier at sea. Only the Navy can’t yet land that drone aboard the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush, an even harder but necessary maneuver if large drones are really going to operate off carriers.

– Aviation Week – The U.S. Navy gets set this month to essentially – if unofficially – christen its “Pacific pivot” with a coming-out party of sorts for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom at the Imdex Maritime Defense Show in Singapore.

– Time – The U.S. Navy routinely says it needs more ships. One way it makes that need more dire is by retiring existing vessels well before their planned lifespan is over. Think of it as fleethanasia.

– BBC – The US Navy has launched a squadron combining unmanned drones as well as manned aircraft, amid a national debate over the role of drones in warfare.

– AOL Defense – Navy Secretary Ray Mabus talked up the controversial Littoral Combat Ship days before departing for Asia to visit the first LCS, USS Freedom, which recently arrived in Singapore (sporting a sniffy camo paint job). Freedom has been bedeviled by cost overruns, delays, and manufacturing defects, with a new problem, seawater contamination in lubricant fluid, arising on its trans-Pacific trip. But the bigger picture Mabus said, is how this new class of small and nimble ship will cooperate with foreign partners to keep the peace in the volatile South China Sea and the strategic Strait of Malacca.

– Aviation Week – Some lawmakers would like nothing better than to see U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus unplugged – but the nation’s top naval leader will have none of that. He’s pushing for his energy-altering programs with a doggedness that would even tire out the Energizer Bunny.

– AOL Defense – What homemade roadside bombs could do to Army and Marine ground vehicles was the ugly surprise of the last decade. What sophisticated long-range missiles could do to Navy aircraft carriers could be the ugly surprise of the next.

– Aviation Week – For years now, the discussion revolving around the U.S. Navy’s vaunted proposed air-and-missile-defense radar (AMDR) – as it related to the Navy’s even-more vaunted, and proven, Aegis combat system – has been how much better and even different AMDR would be than the existing ship shield. But now, Navy officials are saying, folks should be looking at that AMDR-Aegis relationship in a whole new light. They are not competing systems at all – AMDR is an evolution of Aegis.

– Virginian Pilot – Tens of thousands of sailors in Hampton Roads would deploy more often – but also, defense officials say, on a more predictable schedule – under a plan the Navy hopes to launch by the end of next year.

– Reuters – The computer network on the US Navy’s newest class of coastal warships showed vulnerabilities in cybersecurity tests, but the issues were not severe enough to prevent deployment.

– Aviation Week – For all of the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth over the impacts of sequestration and continuing resolutions, it is interesting to point out that the Navy shipbuilding plan, especially for the immediate future, remains pretty intact.

– Aviation Week – The MV-22 Osprey is preparing to take a major step in the program’s quest to garner more customers outside the U.S. Marine Corps and the Air Force special operations community. The aircraft is onboard the deck of the carrier USS Harry S. Truman in preparation for trials to validate whether it is suitable to be considered as a replacement for aging C-2 Greyhounds.

– Washington Post – The F-35 has features that make pilots drool. It is shaped to avoid detection by enemy radar. It can accelerate to supersonic speeds. One model can take off and land vertically. Onboard electronic sensors and computers provide a 360-degree view of the battlefield on flat-panel screens, allowing pilots to quickly identify targets and threats. But its greatest strength has nothing to do with those attributes. The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin, the giant contractor hired to design and build the plane, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, have constructed what amounts to a budgetary force field around the nearly $400 billion program.

– BBC – A US Navy ship has arrived in Singapore as part of US plans to increase its military presence in the region.

– Defense News – Yet, water-going robots bring unforeseen challenges — technological ones, to be sure, but also legal, regulatory and ethical tangles. Drones that fly or crawl on the ground are controlled by radio waves, but it is difficult — often impossible — to communicate with underwater vehicles. The answer, it seems, is autonomy — robots that are not remotely piloted, but that operate on their own. “There are legal implications,” especially if the drones are armed, said Card, the director of naval intelligence and the chief of information dominance. “We are going to really have to think our way through this.”

– US Navy – Gulf Deployment for US Navy’s Laser Weapon – The US Navy is going to deploy a high-power laser ship self-defense system to the Gulf of Arabia early next year. The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) prototype will installed on the amphibious transport dock USS Ponce and, in addition to undergoing tests in theater, will provide an operational capability against any hostile fast-attack craft or unmanned aircraft.