War on the Rocks – Across two centuries, the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have balanced the distinct missions of preparing for war while simultaneously managing the global responsibilities of peace. While some might wish away half of that historic pair of missions, the reality is that the nation needs sea services that can do both.

CIMSEC – A culture of constant learning according to the practicing naval tacticians’ own analysis of necessity of deeper research, learning, and exploration of the aspects of warfare will naturally lead to a stronger understanding and application of tactics as a whole in the Navy. 

CIMSEC – The CO sets the standard. He or she must make it clear that the first priority is combat readiness. Every CO must choose the level of “creative drama” with which they are comfortable, and how they project this priority to the crew. 

USNI News –  Five of the Navy’s oldest submarines are candidates for a three-year life extension.

CIMSEC – To rapidly assess and implement tactical adaptation based on combat lessons, the Navy must prioritize staffing its warfighting development centers in wartime, even if it means leaving some shipboard billets unfilled. Failure to rapidly capture, disseminate, and assess lessons from early combat will result in costly losses to our surface force before we can adjust to the character of the current war.

War Zone – USS Rhode Island’s public port call in Gibraltar follows the even more unusual Navy disclosure about the USS West Virginia in the Arabia Sea.

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.