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. 

American Affairs Journal – The priority of American national security policymakers today must be the revitalization of the nation’s defense industrial base. We have let it atrophy for far too long. But even within that priority, special emphasis must be placed upon the submarine industrial base, both new con­struc­tion and repair capacity. Because of the severity of the Chinese threat to American national interests in the Pacific, and the specific role of sub­marines in both deterring that threat and responding if deterrence breaks down, addressing shortfalls in submarine production and repair must be at the head of the line. Or our navy faces being sunk at the pier.

Center for Maritime Security – Last week, a bipartisan, bicameral group of Congress members released a document outlining their vision for a U.S. National Maritime Strategy to “reverse the decline of American maritime power and our susceptibility to coercion from strategic competitors on the world’s oceans.” Their effort is a welcome first step and an important signal of bipartisan Congressional backing for a major effort to revitalize America’s maritime industry and maritime national security; however, much more work remains to be done by both the legislative and executive branches.

Defense News – Since President Joe Biden announced during his State of the Union address that the U.S. military would build a humanitarian aid pier on the Gaza Strip, and that “no U.S. boots will be on the ground” in Gaza, Keith Robbins and other retired military logistics officers have been watching. And on Thursday, after weeks of preparation, security planning and weather delays, the Pentagon announced that a trident pier had been stabbed into the Gaza beach.

BBC – A floating pier designed to increase the amount of aid getting into Gaza will be operational “within days”, US officials say.

Defense News – A defense policy bill released this week by the House Armed Services Committee expresses concerns over the Navy’s aging cruisers, the cost and capability of a planned amphibious ship, development of capability to rearm vessels at sea, and more.

The War Zone – The flight limit means the Navy’s CMV-22Bs cannot perform their critical transport mission for carriers on deployment.

Defense News – Why the US Air Force and Navy created contrasting spending plans to prepare for conflict with China.

Defense News – On the surface, it might not make sense to give three to Australia, but there’s a logic to the deal