Defense News – When the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard caught fire last summer while undergoing maintenance and then burned for nearly a week, those inside and outside the fleet wondered how such a peacetime loss of a warship could ever happen. But according to a Big Navy review of ship fires released last week, the threat of such a catastrophe has smoldered inside the sea service’s public and private shipyards for years.

CIMSEC – America should reconceive how it leverages and secures its territorial waters, trade routes, and the high seas. The history of America’s tangled maritime bureaucracy offers insight to how it can answer China’s challenge.

War Zone – The ability to fight and win in the high-stakes game of undersea warfare is all about the art of listening. Here’s how it’s done.

Naval News – The United States Navy’s future build of the Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) opens up new possibilities for add-on modular armament options and specialized roles that no other U.S. Navy warship can perform. Granted, the LUSV is not a truly designed combat warship in the strategic and tactical sense, but through the Author’s speculative concept imagination and innovation, the LUSV’s long open cargo deck can provide the U.S. Navy with LUSV role possibilities unseen of, unheard of, and unfit for any other U.S. naval warship, manned or unmanned. Naval News will explore in four parts possible future roles and armament options for: Part 1: LUSV as a Deep Strike Platform.

War Zone – The chosen trainer would be expected to offer fighter-like qualities and take the strain off the frontline combat fleet.

USNI News – The Navy’s ability to defend the nation’s vital security interests is “marginal,” – with the caveat that its score is trending to “weak” in capability and readiness – while the Marine Corps’ ability is graded as “strong,” according to a think tank’s latest survey of United States military power.

USNI News – Three Littoral Combat Ships deployed in the Indo-Pacific – USS Jackson (LCS-6), USS Tulsa (LCS-16) and USS Charleston (LCS-18) – have been operating on a high tempo across the region.

CIMSEC – A new strategy must first deal with how to defeat a Chinese attack in the short term and then how to deal with a protracted war in the long term, all the while maintaining and exercising global command of the sea.

USNI News – A cascade of failures – from a junior enlisted sailor not recognizing a fire at the end of their duty watch to fundamental problems with how the U.S. Navy trains sailors to fight fires in shipyards – are responsible for the five-day blaze that cost the service an amphibious warship, according to an investigation into the July 2020 USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) fire.

USNI News – The U.S. Navy on Friday refuted Russian claims that it prevented a U.S. destroyer from crossing into its territorial waters in the Sea of Japan.

Foreign Policy – History reveals a country’s rise and decline are directly related to the heft of its navy. So why is the United States intent on downsizing?

CIMSEC – In this article Robert Rubel will highlight potential issues with strategy development so that Navy leadership can determine an effective naval strategy.

Forbes – The Navy’s lack of ship repair support in the central Pacific is a serious matter. 

War Zone – A veteran submariner explains the challenges crews face navigating complex undersea environments that they can’t even see.

AP – A Navy nuclear engineer with access to military secrets has been charged with trying to pass information about the design of American nuclear-powered submarines to someone he thought was a representative of a foreign government but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent

USNI News – Last week, USNI News spoke with First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff Adm. Tony Radakin  about the ongoing deployment of Queen Elizabeth, the AUKUS deal in which the U.K. and U.S. will work with Australia to build a new class of nuclear-powered submarines, and less restrictive“come as you are” naval operations could be the future of maritime alliances.

CIMSEC – So, CNO: Remember your 18 February 1991 introduction to naval mine warfare. Thirty years on, the Navy’s mines and mining objective must make America’s adversaries worry about the threat of mines and seabed warfare systems more than their weapons concern the United States and its allies and partners.

USNI News – Almost a dozen sailors have been injured after a U.S. nuclear attack submarine hit an unknown underwater object in the South China Sea.

USNI Proceedings – Thinking about naval intelligence skills in three distinct ways can help community leaders make better use of industry and academia in developing talent.

1945 – A thought experiment: suppose the U.S. Marine Corps were looking for a winsome amphibious transport—let’s call it a “light amphibious warship” (LAW)—to help marines vault from island to island to pummel hostile fleets. Suppose these warships didn’t yet exist, and Congress seemed leery of procuring them. And suppose the U.S. Navy had light vessels on hand—call them “littoral combat ships” (LCS)—that were more or less a wasting asset…

CIMSEC – The current cryptologic warfare officer pipeline represents an outdated model in which senior officers had the flexibility to expose their new ensigns to diverse mission sets and applications of SIGINT during their initial tour, ensuring they developed a wide understanding of cryptology. In the increasingly specialized modern intelligence environment, NAVIFOR must adjust its career progression pipeline to ensure its young officers can provide better support to deployed forces.

War Zone – The Constellation class frigate will be notably larger and wider, displacing hundreds of tons more than the Italian design from which it is derived.

USNI News – The Navy has created a new task group on the East Coast to ensure it has ready destroyers that can deploy on short notice to counter the Russian submarine threat in the Atlantic Ocean.

1945 – James Holmes appraises the U.S. strategic perspective on the Mediterranean Sea.

CIMSEC – The variety of extreme natural disasters that annually hit U.S. Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM) area of responsibilities, exacerbated by climate change, demonstrates the Command’s need for a permanently-assigned hospital vessel.