Naval News – The US Navy has announced that it is set to deploy a torpedo-tube launch-and-recovery uncrewed underwater vehicle capability onboard an operational submarine for the first time, with the operational deployment set to commence by the end of 2024. The deployment will take place in the European theatre of operations.

CIMSEC – When policymakers, military leaders, and analysts compare the qualities of various navies, they typically think in terms of numbers of ships, submarines, aircraft, and other conventional assets. However, considering the growing threat of sea mines worldwide, the capability to employ and defeat mines forms another core consideration in gauging the balance of naval advantage. Navies must consider how to field affordable and risk-worthy unmanned systems at scale to meet the mine threat.

Naval News – The SM-6 Air Launched Configuration (ALC), known by its official designation as the AIM-174, is the longest range air-to-air missile ever fielded by the U.S. Navy.

Defense News – The pier built by the U.S. military to bring aid to Gaza has been removed due to weather to protect it, and the U.S. is considering not reinstalling it unless the aid begins flowing out into the population again

Defense News -The USS Eisenhower’s latest extended cruise and its replacement once again raises questions about the finite carrier fleet’s ability to respond to a seemingly relentless series of global events that require the uniquely American naval presence of a flattop.

CIMSEC – The intent of DMO should not be to render the CSG irrelevant, but rather to ensure that the CSG is not relied upon as the sole vanguard of sea control in the initial stages of a high-end conflict against a peer competitor. DMO must delay and degrade the decision-making of adversaries while denying them the opportunity to engage first. It is about establishing and maintaining temporary sea control for operational needs and sea denial all other times. The transition away from using the air wing to prosecute sea control means fully embracing the true manifestation of DMO – lethal, distributed surface ships that can combine long-range fires across broad geographic spaces.

CIMSEC – The main mover and doer in the U.S. Navy is the numbered fleet, and the time is now to better enable these fleets for successful maritime combat in the near future.

Naval News – Amid growing concerns of missile inventory size and VLS cell count, the U.S. Navy is set to test a new surface-launched missile interceptor designed to maximize capacity in their Mark 41 VLS cells.

CIMSEC – A fleet’s homeport performs vital functions that sustain naval power, including ship repair, resupply, maintenance, and training. The criticality of homeport infrastructure to naval power makes bases an attractive target. Neutralization of a homeport not only stands to neutralize the warships located at the homeport, but can significantly damage the operational longevity of fleets operating at sea.

The Guardian – A floating pier built by the US military for seaborne humanitarian deliveries to Gaza has proved itself to be fragile in the face of rougher seas than expected, and the future of the whole $230m project is now in question.

USNI News – Aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) is set to depart the Red Sea while a carrier currently on station in the Pacific is planned to head to the Middle East to continue a U.S. presence mission in the region.

USNI News – An American shipyard that builds domestic cargo vessels and training ships for U.S. maritime colleges has agreed to a deal, in which it would be bought by a major South Korean shipbuilder. Pending regulatory approvals, Philly Shipyard is set to be acquired by Hanwha Systems and Hanwha Ocean for $100 million from its Norwegian parent Anker ASA, according to a statement from the Philadelphia yard on Thursday.

AP – The combat markings emblazoned on the F/A-18 fighter jet tell the story: 15 missiles and six drones, painted in black just below the cockpit windshield. As the jet sits on the deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, its markings illuminate the enemy targets that it’s destroyed in recent months and underscore the intensity of the fight to protect commercial shipping from persistent missile and drone attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. But they also hint at the fatigue setting in, as the carrier, its strike group and about 7,000 sailors close in on their ninth month waging the most intense running sea battle since World War II. That raises difficult questions about what comes next as U.S. military and defense leaders wrangle over how they will replicate the carrier’s combat power if the ship returns home to Norfolk, Virginia.

Breaking Defense – Directly citing the ongoing engagements between the US Navy and Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, the Defense Innovation Unit is seeking industry’s help for a “kinetic defeat solution” for medium-sized unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a new solicitation.

Defense News – Defense tech company Anduril Industries said it will build a new production facility in Rhode Island capable of churning out as many as 200 of its Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicles annually.

National Interest – Maritime statecraft is a process of wielding levers of state in a concerted way to fulfill national purposes relating to the sea. It’s an approach to doing things. This process spans vastly more than building and deploying a navy, or a corps of marines, or a coast guard. If we do it right, maritime statecraft will bring together not just the naval services but fellow services that operate from land. In this age of joint sea power the U.S. Army and Air Force are sea services as surely as the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard are.

Naval News – ‘Hellscape’ is the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s future asymmetric battlefield. What does it look like and what does it involve?

Naval News – Images have surfaced showing, for the first time, the U.S. Navy’s Orca Extra Large Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) fitted with a payload section.

Defense News – As the U.S. and its allies and partners in the Pacific face down an increasingly aggressive China, a bi[artisan bill introduced in the Senate aims to strengthen the relationship between the U.S. and key countries in the region in order to better protect supply lines and ensure sustained operations, should a conflict occur.

CIMSEC – The fifty-year dilemma of today’s aircraft carriers and airwings is how to embrace various technological developments in unmanned platforms, long-range weapons, and new methods of processing massive amounts of targeting data. Wartime experience in the Pacific clarifies that getting this right is never assured. Building flexibility and adaptability is paramount for today’s aircraft carriers and airwing.

CIMSEC – The concept of operations proposed is to marry various size unmanned surface, subsurface and aerial unmanned vehicles to perform missions that the U.S. Navy has—and will continue to have—as the Navy-After-Next evolves. Simply put, the Navy can use the evolving large, unmanned surface vehicle as a “truck” to move smaller USVs, UUVs and UAVs into the battle space in the contested littoral and expeditionary environment.

USNI News – Due to Navy design decisions, the service’s next-generation guided-missile frigate might not have the weight margin for required modernization to meet its expected service life, according to a government watchdog report released Wednesday.

BBC – A temporary pier built by the US military to deliver aid to Gaza has been damaged by heavy seas and will take at least a week to be repaired, according to US officials.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s message to industry is coming through: the service is committed to buying and operating small unmanned systems on and under the water. What’s less clear is how the Navy will procure them and with what funding — but one company says it’s moving ahead in developing disruptive systems now and will figure out the business model later.

National Interest – Admiral Lisa Franchetti, America’s chief of naval operations or top uniformed naval officer, recently released her first Navy Professional Reading List. The list is solid on the whole. There are, however, many books one could look at. Here are a few ideas.