– ABC – Unable to tow the minesweeper USS Guardian off a reef in the Philippines, the Navy has decided that the only way to free the ship without causing further damage to the reef is to cut the ship into pieces.

– Time – Winslow Wheeler critiques Air Sea Battle…

– Defense News – One of the most striking warships ever built is coming together in the little coastal town of Bath, Maine. The major components of the 610-foot-long ZUMWALT (DDG 1000) — a “destroyer” in name only — have been assembled this winter at the General Dynamics shipyard of Bath Iron Works, and the ship’s stark, tumblehome hull and superstructure is now together.

– Virginian Pilot – The Navy is stuck with a number of poorly performing ships it wasn’t permitted to scrap but can’t afford to fix because Congress hasn’t resolved its budget stalemate.

– Wired – The U.S. Navy is betting the future of its submarine force on a secret and revolutionary nuclear drive system that aspires to be more efficient and quieter than anything under the water today.

– National Defense – The trend lines are all going the wrong way. The price tags of Navy ships keep ascending as the number of vessels in the fleet takes a dive.

– Wired – In less than two months, the Navy will send the first of its newest class of fighting ships on its first major deployment overseas. Problem is, according to the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, the Navy will be deploying the USS Freedom before knowing if the so-called Littoral Combat Ship can survive, um, combat. And what the Navy does know about the ship isn’t encouraging: Among other problems, its guns don’t work right.

– Aviation Week – Arguing it is costly and complex to send large numbers of warships to forward operating areas – and that the energy and logistics needed to deploy lower-cost unmanned systems over oceanic distances limits their usefulness – DARPA has come with another idea.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – As Roman military science essayist Flavius Vegetius Renatus said ca. AD 378, qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum : whoever desires peace should prepare for war.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The LCS has weathered some controversial heavy seas in the past—some real, some perceived—but the program is still a major player in the U.S. Navy’s immediate future.

– Virginian Pilot – Capt. Sara Joyner laughed when she realized that as the first female fighter pilot to command a carrier air wing, she would answer to the call sign “Battle Axe.”

– AOL Defense – The United States is at a turning point as it contemplates the way ahead for its defense and security policy in the Pacific. With the decline of the physical number of platforms and assets, our ability to project dominant power out from the West Coast of the United States and Hawaii is increasingly in question.

– Wired – The Navy’s next wave of robots will take on one of the most dangerous missions on the open water: destroying mines.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The bottom line here: Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyers will be the right surface warships to meet the daunting challenges of the 21st century at prices we can afford.

American Conservative – William S. Lind describes what he thinks the US Navy should look like in the future.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – What types of aircraft will be deployed on tomorrow’s flattops?

– US Naval War College Review – A War at Sea strategy.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Future conflicts will be won in a new arena—that of the electromagnetic spectrum and cyberspace. We must merge, then master those realms.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Colonel T. X. Hammes writes that in the highly unlikely event of conflict with China, the United States needs a strategy that plays to its strengths, minimizes the risks of nuclear escalation, and limits physical destruction.

– Aviation Week – This is a story about the Navy’s desire to rebrand and restore the reputation of what is arguably its most important surface-vessel program, which has faced mounting doubts and criticism, especially in the halls of Congress. As part of that effort, Aviation Week was granted exclusive interviews with top Navy officials and unique access to the Freedom, its officers and crew during the first days of November’s certification exercises.

– Wired – The Navy talks about its drone helicopter the way Apple geeks gushed over the first-generation iPhone in 2007. The MQ-8 Fire Scout does it all, from hunting for drugs at sea to spotting insurgents over the battlefields of Afghanistan. But like that early iPhone, the Fire Scout is seriously buggy — so much so that the Defense Department has conceded it will be forced to seriously delay buying all the robocopters it wants.

– AOL Defense – While the Air Force and the Marines stake their future on a great leap forward to the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Navy is taking what one officer called “baby steps” into the future: a careful, incremental upgrade of electronic warfare systems to jam enemy radar instead of just hiding from it.

– Time – Chuck Spinney on the future of the US Navy.

– Time – Winslow Wheeler on the future of the US Navy – Part 3.

– BBC – The US is moving navy ships into position to track a North Korean rocket due to launch later this month.