CIMSEC – Since 1845, the SWO community has reduced variance within its ranks and imbued a clearer identity in its officer corps through more robust, formalized training. To take this to the next level, the SWO community must standardize SWO qualification such that it incorporates the very best of what we already know about what SWOs need as warfighters and leverages the most experienced officers as assessors.

Hudson Institute – To enhance the proficiency of its force and unleash the creative potential of its sailors, the Navy should establish a virtuous cycle of operational learning. This will require organizational changes to generate opportunities and strengthen the relationship between warfighting concept development, experimentation, and training or exercise curricula. This paper reviews Navy strategy, identifies challenges in contemporary training, discusses key elements of a learning organization, and proposes approaches the Navy could adopt.

War Zone – It is extremely rare for the US military to reveal the whereabouts of nuclear ballistic missile submarines while they are on patrol.

1945 – James Holmes asks if DDG(X) has a cost issue.

USNI News – A pairing of a guided-missile destroyer and a supply ship in San Diego Bay last week was the Navy’s latest test to learn how to resupply its warships with missiles during a high-end conflict.

USNI News – This summer’s experimentation with the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA-7) explored how an America-class big-deck amphibious warship can better work in concert with a carrier strike group, the commander of U.S. 7th Fleet said Friday.

Hudson Institute – U.S. naval aviation risks sliding into irrelevance unless Navy and Marine Corps leaders embrace organizational and investment changes that would enable more effective operational concepts against peer adversaries. To support the approaches, naval air forces will need greater reach, adaptability, and capacity, which this study proposes to address by changing the composition of carrier air wings and repurposing aircraft based ashore or on surface combatants and amphibious ships.

Breaking Defense – If the US Navy is going to keep proliferating unmanned surface vessels throughout its fleet, then a key operating principle will be making them worthless to any adversary who might tamper with or steal the technology, according to a senior officer overseeing experimentation efforts.

USNI News – The United States and its allies want a force of 100 unmanned surface vessels patrolling waters from the Red Sea into the Persian Gulf by next summer, the commander of U.S. 5th Fleet said on Tuesday.

CIMSEC – A long-term solution is needed to restore fixed-wing ASW capability, and fiscal reality demands this solution be flexible and affordable. Rather than build a new dedicated ASW aircraft, it may be better to instead develop a series of ASW pods and a more flexible aircraft suitable for both ground attack and ASW since either type of store can be carried on the pylons with equal ease.

USNI News – After years of delays, the Navy’s first-in-class aircraft carrier is underway on a two-month operational stress test of the carrier’s new systems and air wing as the ship and its crew prepare for an extended deployment early next year.

CIMSEC – It is now more apparent than ever that the information warfare community has not been, on balance, a good bargain for all four restricted line communities. This outcome is not surprising for several reasons, but none more so than this: Despite what senior Navy leaders may have said about information warfare over the past decade or so, what they have done and continue to do reveals that they do not believe information warfare is a warfighting domain on par with the traditional warfighting communities.

Pro Publica – After the USS Bonhomme Richard fire, investigators found missing fire hoses, a broken sprinkler system and other systemic failures. The Navy is still accusing a sailor of arson, against the advice of a military judge.

CIMSEC – To really serve as an effective steady-state influencer deeply involved in great power competition, the U.S. naval services need to invoke the roadmap laid out in the Triservice Maritime Strategy to create more than mission commanders. The services need to create a cohort of geostrategists.

Breaking Defense – The problem, which arose in late December 2020, has largely subsided for the operational fleet, according to a recently deployed commodore.

USNI News – A military judge today acquitted a young sailor accused by the Navy of setting a 2020 fire that ultimately destroyed an amphibious warship as it neared completion of a major modernization and overhaul.

CIMSEC – The process to build a naval capital town is incredibly difficult and requires decades of patience. The main issue for Groton has been funding. The end of the Cold War made a downturn in defense spending inevitable, with significant impacts on the submarine shipbuilding industry and the communities that support the industry. Reversing declining trends in labor over the past three decades will be an uphill battle for naval capital towns like Groton. 

USNI Proceedings – The intellect of naval leaders, including their education and mental agility, is vital to wartime readiness.

Breaking Defense – Twice in the last month, Iran has attempted to abduct US unmanned surface vessels produced by Saildrone. But the company’s CEO says he was unfazed by the events, instead calling the experience “valuable” and stressing the need for any organization operating unmanned ships to be anticipate hostile interference.

USNI News – A program to develop an unmanned, 80-ton minelaying submarine is three years late and $242 million over budget.

War Zone – The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC) is set to receive its newest ship, the thirteenth in a series of high-speed EPF expeditionary transports providing logistics services around the globe. But Number 13 is special – not only is it the first EPF fitted with autonomous navigation and operating systems, but it is possibly the world’s largest ship capable of unmanned operation. Yet as of now, neither the Navy nor MSC has any plans to use the unmanned capability when the USNS Apalachicola (T-EPF 13) enters the fleet. Rather, MSC intends to send the vessel to the western Pacific to serve as a logistics ship with the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

War Zone – Air Force’s new Quick Sink weapon uses a low-cost seeker that turns Joint Direct Attack Munition bombs into all-weather anti-ship weapons.

War on the Rocks – U.S. commanders in the Indo-Pacific will have to fight with the forces and weapons policymakers provide them. Recent wargames, like their predecessors, demonstrate the United States needs a better plan for defeating an attack on Taiwan. This means forces and concepts that match U.S. competitive advantages against China’s weaknesses while minimizing the number of forces U.S. commanders will have to position within range of China’s firepower. Fortunately, a better matchup exists, one that focuses the U.S. bomber force against China’s navy and other maritime assets. China cannot take Taiwan, the Senkakus, or other territories in the region if its maritime power is destroyed. The U.S. bomber force could be a mortal threat to China’s maritime power if U.S. policymakers and military planners begin to properly prioritize it. By making China’s maritime assets the main target for the U.S. bomber force, then arming it accordingly, Washington would be well positioned to win a counter-maritime campaign in the western Pacific.

Naval News – Naval News reached out to ShinMaywa Industries, Ltd. in Japan to inquire on if the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) might be interested in their US-2 seaplane. A representative from ShinMaywa’s Sales and Marketing Department replied. Naval News also reached out to USSOCOM for additional C-130J MAC status and comment.

War on the Rocks – A new Navy program envisions a electronic warfare and intelligence suite that will work with any platform big enough to carry it.