The War Zone – Two F/A-18E/F Super Hornets fired the quartet of AGM-158C missiles, a reflection of how these weapons would be employed in actual combat.

The War Zone – Adding dozens of small, long-range drones to Navy ships would drastically enhance strike, ISR, networking, and defensive capabilities.

War on the Rocks – “We have to build and sustain submarines in the next 15 to 17-plus years the same way we did in the ’80s with an industrial base that’s one-third the size.” On a recent trip to Lake Charles, Louisiana, the executive director of program executive office strategic submarines laid out the stark challenge facing the U.S. industrial base.

War on the Rocks – The United States is faced with mounting, but not insurmountable, challenges in the Indo-Pacific. If security throughout the region is to be maintained, then the United States should pay greater heed to the asymmetric capabilities of its armed forces. Integrated Undersea Surveillance Systems, autonomous vehicles, and mine warfare not only offer the best return on investment but would also align the security interests of the United States and Australia. This opens avenues for increased cooperation under AUKUS pillar two that would be foolish to pass up. Deterrence through denial will play to the strengths of America’s regional allies and mitigate the numerical advantage of Chinese forces.

USNI News – The Navy should “go back to the front end,” thinking about the people needed for building, crewing and maintaining vessels, not just potential threats, a senior naval analyst advised Thursday.

USNI News – The lead ship in a new class of guided-missile frigates for the U.S. Navy may be up to three years late. Constellation (FFG-62), under construction at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin, may not deliver to the fleet until 2029, three years later than the original 2026 delivery goal, according to a service shipbuilding review.

The War Zone – The global operational reach of the U.S. Navy’s MQ-4C Triton fleet has expanded again with the arrival of one of the drones, which are optimized for long-duration overwater missions, at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy. From Sigonella, Tritons will be able to provide valuable additional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance coverage over and around parts of Europe, especially for keeping tabs on activity in the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, as well as North Africa and the Middle East. At the same time, this all follows the Navy’s decision to significantly scale back its plans for the MQ-4C.

The War Zone – The Navy wants high-power microwave systems to help ships conserve other weapons, specially ones capable of downing ballistic missiles.

War on the Rocks – The list of America’s maritime vulnerabilities is long. The time available to address them is short. The United States should urgently act to develop and execute a national maritime strategy, one that prioritizes speed and effectiveness — and one that recognizes the value of cooperation with key allies.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy sent lawmakers a $2.2 billion wish list for fiscal 2025, which includes several items that would fill in gaps that arose this year due to high-tempo operations in the Red Sea and Congress not yet passing a supplemental spending bill.

National Interest – James Holmes reflects on the USS New Jersey, an iconic Iowa-class dreadnought now serving as a museum ship, is making headlines as it undergoes a significant maintenance phase, including repainting and hull repairs, at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Hudson Institute – The DoD will need to be creative and adaptable to gain an advantage and deter conflict in a post-dominance era. Hedge forces could reduce the potential losses to US forces and increase the risk for aggressors like China during an attempted invasion of Taiwan. As a result, the DoD could retain more troop formations, amphibious vessels, and aircraft that are less important to stopping a Taiwan invasion but are essential to other operations.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin have developed and fielded software updates for destroyers shooting down Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea, thanks to a team of technical experts that mined data from all the shootdown events since October.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy sets a fleet goal of 381 ships, up from 373, in a new long-range shipbuilding plan.

War on the Rocks – Looking back at the “Tanker War,” the Iran-Iraq war at sea, is interesting to provide lessons for current operations in the Red Sea but also for how to think about contingencies in other parts of the world.

USNI News – The latest 30-year shipbuilding plan narrows the range of options the Navy will consider for its future force and provides more details on the service’s plan to decommission 19 ships from the fleet. The Navy’s Long-Range Shipbuilding Plan sketches out two paths to get to a larger fleet – one bounded by flat budgets and a second one that seeks to build the ships the Navy needs to reach its goal of 381 ships the service says it needs to meet its obligation to the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy.

National Interest – James Holmes writes that last week the Biden Pentagon submitted its budget request for fiscal year 2025. If executed as written, the request would shrink the U.S. armed forces at a time when grave dangers—and thus the demands on the armed forces—are surging around maritime Eurasia.

USNI News – Two weeks after President Joe Biden ordered the Pentagon to build a pier to ferry humanitarian aid to the war-torn residents of Gaza, the steel chunks that will make up the promised lifeline have been coming together in Newport News, Va.

BBC – It’s not just merchant ships being targeted by the Houthis in the Red Sea. The US carrier strike group trying to protect them has also been under constant threat too.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy is pushing back the start of construction on its next-generation attack submarine by nearly a decade, citing tight budgets and a need to fund current and near-term operations.

Defense News – There is no more valued attribute, as famed naval tactician Wayne Hughes declared, than “the number of ships … a fleet can have.” But ships must be sustained — something the naval officer Alfred Thayer Mahan recognized nearly a century earlier when he wrote: “Fuel stands first in importance of the resources necessary to a fleet.”

USNI News – More pieces of the extensive Pentagon effort to build a pier and establish a sea route for humanitarian aid to Gaza departed from the East Coast this week. 

National Interest – In short, Secretary Del Toro has taken on an unenviable task: persuading Asian business leaders to invest in the U.S. shipbuilding complex to take on China at a time when domestic political headwinds are fierce. Profit, risk, time. Let’s wish him well.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy will postpone most of its planned development and purchases of large unmanned systems and next-generation ships and planes in fiscal 2025, citing spending caps.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s fiscal 2025 budget request includes money for one Virginia-class attack submarine instead of the planned two, but still represents “a prioritization and very significant investment in undersea warfare capabilities,” the service’s undersecretary said Friday, arguing this is not contradictory.