– BBC – It is an overcast day, and the skies are brooding over the Virginia coast, where two great grey US Navy ships are in dock.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – While naval strike capacity has grown since the Cold War, it’s come at a cost to the amphibious capabilities vital to U.S. power projection.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – An interview with Sean J. Stackley – The Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development & Acquisition.

– Aviation Week – You would have to cast a net far, wide and deep to find anyone of U.S. Navy rank who doubts sequestration will happen. Instead of dealing with “what-if” scenarios, the brass is talking more about “this will happen when … “ And the first big thing that will happen is that the Navy will find itself in quite a quandary.

– Washington Times – The Navy plans to shut down four of its active aircraft carriers in one of the worst-case scenarios presented to Congress by the service since the debate on budget cuts heated up this winter.

– Wired – The Navy is dealing with the military’s impending budget fiasco by putting its premier hardware — aircraft carriers — on the firing line. It’s unexpected, but it might actually be a smart move — if Congress cancels the deepest budget cuts. But if Congress keeps the cuts, then the Navy’s readiness to handle the security threats of the next several years will seriously decline — in many ways because of how the Navy buys stuff.

– Aviation Week – U.S. Navy Undersecretary Robert Work created some waves with the recent posting of his draft U.S. Naval War College white paper, “The Littoral Combat Ship: How We Got Here, and Why.”

– Aviation Week – Bill Sweetman critiques a study from the American Enterprise Institute.

– National Defense – Few Navy ships have been as doggedly assailed by naysayers as the Littoral Combat Ship, laments Navy Undersecretary Robert O. Work…Work, who has for years been one of the Navy’s most ardent defenders of LCS, contends in a new white paper that although critics are entitled to their opinions, they continue to miss the point about LCS.

– Military Times – The past year has been a banner one for the U.S. Navy in at least one unhappy category — major mishaps. The number of major mishaps involving aircraft carriers, ships and submarines was higher than in recent years, and the unbudgeted repair bill is just one more factor squeezing fleet maintenance accounts in the middle of the service’s fiscal crisis.

– Virginian Pilot – With less than 48 hours to spare, defense officials decided Wednesday to axe the cruise of the USS Harry S. Truman – the first in an expected wave of defense cuts tied to a federal budget squeeze.

– Virginian Pilot – The Pentagon halted the upcoming deployment of a Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Wednesday two days before it was set to ship out – the strongest indication yet that looming budget cuts are forcing the military to change the way it operates. The Harry S. Truman had cleared all its training and certifications and was gearing up for deployment Friday. But the Navy, faced with a budget crisis that could mean more than $8 billion in cuts this year alone, asked Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to cancel a requirement that the United States keep two carriers in the Persian Gulf, Pentagon officials said. Panetta acquiesced and, in a sharp turnaround for a ship the size of a small city, about 5,000 sailors learned Wednesday afternoon that the deployment had been cancelled.

– Washington Times – The U.S. Navy, operating with too few carriers, now has a forward-deployment dilemma. Keeping two carriers deployed to the Middle East with only nine deployable strike carriers is not sustainable, even with their deployment time increasing by 50 percent. This is having debilitating consequences for fleet readiness. An immediate relaxation from the two-carrier commitment would provide much-needed forward deployment flexibility. This can be accomplished by utilizing operational alternatives, including modified U.S. Air Force Air Expeditionary Forces, along with U.S. Marine Corps Air Wing, to provide the required close air support mission in Afghanistan.

– 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.