Defense News – If you’re confused about the size of the future U.S. Navy fleet, you’re not alone.

Defense News – Over the past three years, the service has tightened its budget and changed its requirements, making the future look far less rosy for Ingalls Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.

USNI Proceedings – The U.S. Navy’s “secret weapon” at Midway was a culture of learning and adaptation.

Breaking Defense – The Navy’s pitch to Congress to embrace unmanned technology is changing, analysts say, to one that embraces the ‘evolutionary’ rather than the ‘revolutionary.’

Defense News – The U.S. Navy has tried to convince Congress to let it decommission the cruiser fleet by making cost-based arguments. It’s tried readiness-based arguments, too, noting the drain on the ship repair industry. Now, the Navy is trying a new angle: the safety of the men and women onboard.

Breaking Defense – UISS will be a key mine countermeasures asset for the Navy moving forward, but it experienced significant issues during testing last fall, according to new details initially hidden from public view.

Navy Times – The stealthy and pricey fast-attack submarine Connecticut sustained damage to its forward main ballast tanks and sonar sphere when it grounded in the Indo-Pacific last fall, and the sonar dome needs to be replaced.

(Thanks to Alain)

1945 – James Holmes writes that a cheery huzzah! goes out to Representative Elaine Luria and Representative Jack Bergman for championing the cause of plainspoken language at the Pentagon.

Defense News – The upcoming budget request could include investments in maritime domain awareness close to home, with improved sensors to detect Russian naval threats to the homeland.

USNI News – Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the massive Red Hill Fuel Depot shuttered and abandoned, a reversal from the Pentagon’s attempt to appeal a Hawaii order to close the World War II-era compound, the Pentagon announced on Monday.

Defense News – The workload for Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command is growing as the U.S. Navy branches out to small ports and new operating environments around the globe, according to the command’s top leader.

Defense News – With the conflict in Ukraine not far away, fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman are conducting airborne patrols with NATO allied air forces in U.S. 6th Fleet.

Naval News – The US Air Force Research Laboratory has released a video of the QUICKSINK concept, which proposes an unique way to sink enemy vessels by employing a seeker-fitted Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM).

The Hill – James Holmes writes that it feels like May 1940 again — and that’s a good thing in one sense.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy sees the 2020s as presenting the “peak risk” for China making a move against Taiwan, driving the service’s effort to prioritize readiness over fleet size, the vice chief of naval operations told lawmakers Thursday.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy didn’t sit tight when it reached a Pentagon goal to make 80% of its F/A-18E-F Super Hornets mission-capable. It raised the bar.

Breaking Defense – The Forge, a Navy software factory, has lofty goals and bureaucracy to beat, but plans to bring its work to an operational destroyer this year. 

BBC – The US Navy has said it has retrieved a stealth fighter jet from the depths of the South China Sea where it sank after a “mishap” in January.

Naval Today – The US Navy decommissioned Cyclone-class coastal patrol ship USS Firebolt (PC 10) at a ceremony held at Naval Support Activity Bahrain on 23 February.

(Thanks to Alain)

Defense News – The U.S. Navy has a carefully balanced plan to dig out of a fighter shortfall and stave off another in the 2030s — but several pieces must come together exactly as planned.

National Interest – James Holmes says the force that gets in its reps in peacetime primes itself for success.

USNI News – Three Russian guided-missile cruisers have been arrayed across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to counter three NATO carrier strike groups, causing concern in the Pentagon.

USNI Proceedings – The Navy must offer the pay, training, and advancement opportunities necessary to retain its operators.

USNI News – The U.S. Navy needs a fleet of more than 500 ships to meet its commitments to the soon-to-be released National Defense Strategy, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said on Friday. 

Breaking Defense – The Navy’s Unmanned Task Force has been pursuing seven classified “spirals” aimed at taking specific technologies from industry vendors and putting them through a series of problem sets to determine their value to the future fleet, according to the chief of naval operations.