The War Zone – Commercial vessels and American warships are coming under Iranian attack around the Strait of Hormuz as a new U.S. maritime protection plan has kicked off.

WordPress – Project Freedom appears to be aimed, at least for now, at evacuating ships stuck in the Persian Gulf since the war with Iran began.

Covert Shores – The U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) has released photos on the official media site DVIDS showing a Ukrainian Magura USV (uncrewed surface vessel) at the Balikatan 2026 exercise in the Philippines in April. The exact model may be the Magura V6 or V7. The photos include the loading of a novel shaped charge warhead which was used in the MARSTRIKE-N live firing component of the exercise.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have extended the lifespan of the lead Wasp-class amphibious assault ship by five years and are considering doing the same for other vessels in the amphibious fleet.

The War Zone – The Navy expects to see the AGM-88G AARGM-ER enter service in September despite not planning to buy any of them in the next fiscal year.

1945 – In the early 2000s, I visited the USS Connecticut in dry dock while she was getting repairs, completely out of the water, and the image is locked in my head forever: it was amazing. As of this writing in April 2026, the United States Navy has exactly one Seawolf-class attack submarine ready to go to war. And that submarine — USS Jimmy Carter — was not built to fight the way the other two were. As one former engineer for Electric Boat out in Groton told me years ago: “We made a mistake we can’t ever fix. We should have built more Seawolf-class submarines. We are paying the price and there is no going back.”

USNI News – The next two big-deck amphibious warships will take about nine years each to build, as the Navy pushes the planned delivery date for the vessels by another year

USNI News – The first unmanned tankers for the U.S. Navy won’t be ready to deploy on aircraft carriers until 2029, according to Navy budget documents.

Naval News – The U.S. Navy practiced at-sea refueling of an unmanned surface vessel (USV) during a recent demonstration ahead of the service’s planned deployment of the sea drones with the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group later this year. 

USNI News – American officials are considering foreign designs and having U.S. warship components built in overseas yards as part of an expansive manufacturing study proposed in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget.

USNI News – U.S. and Iranian forces are both interdicting ships as the two countries grapple with control of the flow of maritime traffic through the region, leaving the shipping industry ‘paralyzed,’ experts say.

Naval News – Confirmed by Fiscal Year 2027 U.S. Navy budget documentation, the Multi-mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE) is to serve as the most numerous Hypersonic strike option available to U.S. Naval Aviation, with a limited service entry date sometime in 2027.

The War Zone – The Navy is pushing more counter-drone hard-kill capabilities to its fleet as it comes to terms with the growing threat of one-way attack drones.

The War Zone – The Navy created a commercial “tanker treadmill” to top off its oilers out at sea, offering lessons that could have larger impacts on operations in the future.

The War Zone – U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the Navy to attack any Iranian boats mining the Strait of Hormuz.

USNI News – East Coast carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) is now operating in the Middle East after a sailing around the southern tip of Africa, U.S. Central Command announced on Thursday. Bush’s entrance into CENTCOM marks the first time three carriers have been in the Middle East since the height of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

USNI News – The U.S. Navy tested a new guided munition capable of striking naval targets or deploying sea mines from aircraft hundreds of miles away, service officials revealed Monday.

Naval News – Stated in the U.S. Navy’s budget documentation for Fiscal Year 2027, the Navy is putting the AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile Extended Range (AARGM-ER) air launched anti-radiation missile program on a strategic pause, resulting in drastically reduced funding levels.

The War Zone – We are getting a clearer idea of how the Navy thinks it can use these ships, which have an estimated cost of $17B per vessel.

USNI News – While the war in Iran has siphoned assets from the Pacific and is using “finite levels” of munitions, it is also providing valuable lessons that will ultimately strengthen regional defense, Indo-Pacific Commander Adm. Samuel Paparo said Tuesday.

Breaking Defense – As the Navy looks at maritime warfare in the Gulf, the Black Sea, and potentially the West Pacific, its leaders are increasingly convinced the future fleet requires a wide range of unmanned systems, each specialized for a different region and mission.

Breaking Defense – Anduril is teaming up with UK-based Kraken Technology Group to make small unmanned surface vessels (USVs) for the US Navy at a time when the service is increasingly focused on unmanned tech.

Naval News – The U.S. Navy is moving forward with PAC-3 MSE integration on the service’s surface fleet in a move to rapidly expand interceptor inventories, pushing forward a capability that Lockheed Martin has been developing for nearly a decade, according to its top missile defense executives.

USNI News – The U.S. Navy is looking to field thousands of unmanned surface vessels to the Indo-Pacific by 2030, according to the service’s drone boat development group.

USNI News – The Navy wants to buy the first Trump-class battleship in next year’s budget submission, a schedule that would allow the service to make the purchase before President Donald Trump leaves office.