– Flight International – Boeing is unveiling an updated version of its F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter concept at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington DC.

– Flight International – Lockheed Martin is taking the wraps off its submission for the US Navy’s prospective unmanned carrier launched surveillance and strike (UCLASS) aircraft at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington DC.

– Washington Times – Life aboard a fast-attack submarine can be rough: Quarters are cramped, operations are hectic and privacy is just a memory, veteran submariners say.
But as the Navy prepares to assign women to fast-attack subs, one of its first female submariners is relishing the challenge of serving in the “dolphin brotherhood.”

– Aviation Week – There must be a typo. That’s the understandable first thought that could pass through anyone’s mind upon seeing the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) new cost estimates for the Navy’s proposed Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), which is meant to combine S- and X-band radars for simultaneous and unmatched air and ballistic missile defense (BMD). The Navy plans to first put the AMDR on its DDG-51 Flight III destroyers. AMDR’s total price tag is now estimated at about $5.8 billion, compared to the $15.2 billion projected by GAO last year.

– Aviation Week – As the rhetoric boils and simmers over North Korea’s increasingly capable ballistic missiles, it might be wise to consider a thought posed recently by Vice Adm. Richard Hunt, the U.S. Navy director of staff, during an interview with Aviation Week. “Preventing conflict is as important as prevailing in conflict,” Hunt says.

– US Naval Institute – When in doubt about grave questions, reach for the classics. What would the likes of Alfred Thayer Mahan or Julian Corbett say about the fate of the big-deck aircraft carrier or nuclear carrier (CVN)? I suspect their ghosts would voice skepticism.

– Defense News – This is definitely a place, not just a patch in the sea.

– NBC – The U.S. Navy is shifting a guided-missile destroyer in the Pacific to waters off the Korean peninsula in the wake of ongoing rhetoric from North Korea, U.S. defense officials said. The USS McCain is capable of intercepting and destroying a missile, should North Korea decide to fire one off, the officials said.

– Aviation Week – Tom Donilon, the nation’s security adviser, recently provided a short list of what will be important – from a military perspective – for a successful U.S. focus shift to Asia and the Pacific and it’s critical to note what he included as well as what he did not.

– AP – Workers in the southwestern Philippines have removed the last major part of the U.S. Navy minesweeper USS Guardian from a protected coral reef where it ran aground in January, and the damage will be assessed to determine the fine Washington will pay.

– The Diplomat – Two detailed arguments on the end of the aircraft carrier emerged earlier this month.

– Wired – During a year of budget cuts that has the U.S. military freaking out, the Navy is improbably signaling it’ll take major steps forward on developing laser cannons.

– New York Times – The Navy on Monday officially disciplined the admiral who had commanded a carrier strike group until being abruptly removed from the position last fall while the vessels patrolled the North Arabian Sea.

– Wired – The U.S. Navy’s huge, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers — capital ships that have long dominated military planning and budgeting — are slowly becoming obsolete, weighed down by escalating costs, inefficiency and vulnerability to the latest enemy weapons. But if the supercarrier is sinking, what could rise to take its place? Smaller, cheaper flattops; modified tanker ships; and missile-hauling submarines are three cheaper, more efficient and arguably more resilient options.

– US Navy – DARPA Expands Anti-Ship LRASM to Surface Launches – DARPA’s Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) program to develop a stealthy next-generation weapon for the US Navy is gaining heft.

– Aviation Week – If there is one significant difference in the management of the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program compared to a year ago it is this: the service brass has become noticeably more transparent about the hiccups slowing LCS progress.

– Flight International – The US Navy is very interested in exploring the possibility of adding conformal fuel tanks onto the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, sources says. Test flights are scheduled for later this year.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Undersea warfare encompasses a wide array of moving parts. What the Navy needs now is a broader strategy to cover it where none currently exists.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Though not for lack of effort, the Navy’s organizational identity is shadowy at best. Here’s how its culture could readily be imbued with more spirit.

– Center for New American Security – In At What Cost a Carrier?, career naval flight officer Captain Henry J. Hendrix (Ph.D.), argues that the aircraft carrier — the centerpiece of American naval operations for over 70 years — is in danger of becoming too vulnerable to be relevant in future conflicts. Captain Hendrix examines the life-cycle costs and utility of the aircraft carrier and recommends a new approach for American naval operations.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – From CV-6 to CVN-80, the developments of and improvements to aircraft-carrier design form a continuum from the early days of naval aviation to the horizon of tomorrow.

– Associated Press – The U.S. Navy’s hottest new ship and the centerpiece of its renewed focus on Asia isn’t its largest vessel, or its most technologically advanced. But it has advantages that its bigger siblings lack.

– Associated Press – The California Coastal Commission on Friday rejected a U.S. Navy explosives and sonar training program off the Southern California coast that critics said could harm endangered blue whales and other sea life.

– Aviation Week – Now DARPA wants to enable small ships such as the 2,800-ton Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship to launch and recover Predator-class medium-altitude, long-endurance UAVs. The Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node (TERN) program seeks to demonstrate a MALE UAV, and associated automated launch and recovery system, that can carry a 600lb payload 600-900nm from its host vessel.

– National Defense – John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, had more tough words for the Pentagon’s civilian and military bureaucracies during a Feb. 26 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower and projection forces subcommittee.