USNI News – Two Iranian warships are nearing the English Channel, according to satellite photographs reviewed by USNI News. The ships are thought to be headed to the Baltic Sea to represent Iran in a July 25 naval parade off the coast of St. Petersburg to commemorate the 325th anniversary of the Russian Navy.

USNI Proceedings – China has been infiltrating U.S. networks for years. A comprehensive, preemptive cyber attack on the U.S. Navy is not hard to imagine.

1945 – How do you change a culture? That question courses through a new congressionally mandated report from retired marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery. The coauthors warn that failing to renovate the surface navy’s culture would court defeat against an increasingly well-equipped, increasingly rowdy Chinese navy.

Naval News – Quantity has a quality all of its own. And when the quality relates to U.S. Navy missiles, having more of them is inevitably a massive increase in capabilities. The latest Block V Virginia Class submarine will greatly increase the number of missiles which can be carried. In effect this will make it a cruise missile submarine (SSGN). Yet it will not take away from this otherwise flexible anti-ship, anti-submarine, intelligence and special forces platform.

War on the Rocks – Given the very real limitations on deploying additional personnel or platforms to existing forward bases or to aspirational new ones in the Western Pacific, Washington ought to adopt a more peripheral approach to conflict management in the region. An emphasis on platforms that do not require new basing rights would offer a more mobile and survivable posture. 

Global Times – A Beijing-based think tank is keeping an eye on an increase in close-range reconnaissance activities this year by US Navy ocean surveillance ships in the South China Sea, saying in a report released on Tuesday that the US is attempting to monitor Chinese submarine activities in the region and provide anti-submarine intelligence support.

CIMSEC – U.S. Navy and Department of Defense bureaucratic and acquisition practices have frustrated innovations promoted by Chiefs of Naval Operations and the CNO Strategic Studies Groups over the past several decades.¹ The Navy could have capabilities better suited to meet today’s challenges and opportunities had it pursued many of these innovations. This alternative history presents what the Navy could have been in 2019 had the Navy and DoD accepted the kinds of risks faced during the development of nuclear-powered ships, used similar prototyping practices, and accepted near-term costs for longer-term returns on that investment.

National Review – Jerry Hendrix on why a troubling new report on the Navy’s surface-warfare capabilities and culture matters.

USNI News – By 2025, the Navy will have solved its strike fighter shortfall in part by changing how it will field the F-35C Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter. Instead of two squadrons per air wing with 10 tails, the Navy will now field a single squadron with 14 tails.

CIMSEC – CIMSEC shared questions with Captain Eric M. Sager to discuss the Submarine Force’s new Aggressor Squadron (AGGRON). In this conversation, Capt. Sager discusses what AGGRON is doing to enhance undersea lethality, the vital importance of connecting adversary doctrine to submarine force development, and how a dedicated Red team makes for much more realistic high-end combat training.

War Zone – The Navy’s Optical Dazzling Interdictor, or ODIN, was photographed installed on the USS Stockdale during a replenishment in the Pacific.

Navy Times – The Navy is poised to start selecting sailors and civilians this summer to become warrant officers and operate the MQ-25 Stingray carrier-based refueling drone.

CIMSEC – This article outlines the path that led to the U.S. Navy’s current strategic deficit and proposes a framework for a new maritime strategy, one that should be immediately developed along with the corresponding force structure assessment. With a modest 5% additional investment in the Navy over the next five years, 90% of the changes required by this strategy can be achieved.

USNI News – The Navy’s surface warfare community is weighed with a culture that values administrative chores over training to fight, ship commanders that are micromanaged and an aversion to risk, according to a new survey overseen by a retired Navy admiral and Marine general at the behest of a group of Republican lawmakers. That culture was at least partially responsible for a string “of high-profile and damaging operational failures in the Navy’s Surface Warfare community,” the report found.

USNI Proceedings – The Washington Naval Treaties had different effects on interwar innovation in Britain, Japan, and the United States.

Navy News – In a year’s time, progress has been made in all programs ranging from Combat Crafts to mini submersibles to Unmanned Underwater Vehicles as USSOCOM gears towards peer nation challenges. Naval News presents a summary of the NSW programs discussed at Virtual SOFIC 2021.

War Zone – The three-decade-old submarine appears to have received a big addition to its sonar system during a protracted refit.

USNI Proceedings – The United States and its allies must have sufficient combat power in key theaters such that the enemy will hesitate to undertake hostile operations.

War on the Rocks – The time has come for the U.S. Navy to pass the freedom of navigation mission set to unmanned systems

USNI News – The integration of Navy SEALs and special boat teams into carrier strike group and amphibious ready group training exercises reflects naval special warfare’s renewed commitment to support the fleet and joint force and reinforce its own roots as naval commandos.

War Zone – The Navy has shared some additional details about USS Alaska’s very rare stopover, which comes amid a flurry of naval activity in the region.

(Thanks to Alain)

War on the Rocks – The U.S. Navy is on the verge of strategic bankruptcy. Its fleet isn’t large enough to meet global day-to-day demands for naval forces. Due to repeated deployments and maintenance backlogs, the fleet also isn’t ready enough to meet these demands safely, nor can it quickly surge in an emergency. Finally, the fleet isn’t capable enough to meet the challenges posed by China’s increasingly modern and aggressive People’s Liberation Army Navy. How did this happen to a force that, as recently as two decades ago, dominated the world’s oceans to a degree perhaps unequalled in human history? The answer is gradually and then suddenly.

USNI News – The Navy will have six Littoral Combat Ships deployed by the end of the year – a record for the program

War Zone – The USS Montpelier’s publicized mine-loading exercise in Greece’s Souda Bay comes as naval tensions grow in the eastern Mediterranean.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy is seeing improved maintenance on deployed littoral combat ships amid efforts to boost readiness and operational endurance, now that is has switched from contractor-based work to sailor-performed maintenance.