USNI News – Navy officials in Washington and on the waterfront are trying to help the Littoral Combat Ships grow more reliable and maintainable, amid a surface navy-wide effort to focus on crew-level maintenance as a means of improving operational availability.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy has halted deliveries of Lockheed Martin’s Freedom-class littoral combat ship, citing a design flaw with the ship’s transmission.

Breaking Defense – The United States could not make enough military equipment fast enough to sustain its military in the event of a major war. While much thought has been given to how a great power conflict might erupt or play out, far less has been written on how the U.S. industrial base could sustain U.S. wartime equipment losses in such a conflict.

Naval News – During the Surface Navy Association (SNA) 2021 Virtual Symposium held last week, Lockheed Martin was showcasing a new artist impression showing two LRASM fitted on a F-35 Lightning II.

USNI News – Surface warfare leaders throughout the Navy last week mused about how to employ new classes of ships such as the Littoral Combat Ship and Expeditionary Sea Base, as the fleet transitions to a new type of operations against peer competitors.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy and General Atomics in November used sonobuoys dropped from an MQ-9A Block V Reaper to track a simulated submarine target on a U.S. Navy Pacific test range, in what the contractor says is the first time an aerial drone has deployed a self-contained anti-submarine warfare system.

1945 – James Holmes writes that haste is a recurring theme in Chief of Naval Operations Mike Gilday’s 2021 “Navigation Plan,” released this week. 

Defense News – In his address this week at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium, top surface warfare officer Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener told a virtual audience that the surface community is increasingly relying on simulators to give officers and sailors alike the chance to keep their skills sharp, even if they are unable to get underway.

USNI News – The Government Accountability Office released a new report that warns Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine cost and schedule plans are at risk due to problems with a new digital design tool and cascading effects stemming from the design challenges.

Breaking Defense – Navy officials said this week that the destroyer, which still hasn’t been deployed almost five years after she was christened, might find a place in the fleet after all.

Naval News – It seems probable that a US Navy submarine, the USS Georgia (SSGN 729), has been detected by Iranian forces in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz. The circumstances are unclear.

Defense News – Between 1991, when the Navy commissioned the USS Arleigh Burke, and 1998, when it commissioned the USS Mahan, the service built the class at a pace of three per year. Now, as those ships are bearing down on their 35-year expected hull life, the Navy wants to grow its fleet, but it lacks the budget and capacity to modernize those first 21 ships to the latest configurations. So while the fleet will try to keep them around as long as possible, it will have to get creative in its problem-solving approach.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy wants to buy a next-generation large surface combatant by the end of the 2030s, but its not being built for a new kind of sensor or weapon system. The newly dubbed DDG(X) is being built for power.

Navy Times – Chronic manning shortfalls aboard U.S. Navy warships were found to have contributed to the fatal 2017 collisions of the Fitzgerald and John S. McCain, disasters that killed 17 sailors and scarred many more of their shipmates for life.While the surface fleet has made improvements in manning its ships in recent years, more remains to be done, the head of Naval Surface Forces said Tuesday.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s next-generation frigate, the Constellation class, is a do-or-die effort for the service and a critical test of its return to building ships around existing technologies rather than designing them around technologies in development.

CIMSEC – The Navy has not had a formal strategy process, most capstone documents being the products of an ad hoc effort, so it is never a routine occurrence when one is issued. Thus it is a worthwhile exercise to try and read between the lines of a new document. Hopefully this exercise will be of use to readers.

USNI News – The chief of naval operation’s new call to focus on sea control and power projection could lead the service to shed other non-core missions the Navy conducts today, such as manning Aegis Ashore missile defense sites. The biggest problem is, no one else has agreed to take over that mission yet.

CIMSEC – Coming on the heels of the new tri-service maritime strategy (“Advantage at Sea”), the Department of the Navy has now released an updated framework for the Arctic region— “A Blue Arctic: A Strategic Blueprint for the Arctic.” The document is a marked improvement on the brisk 2019 Navy version. It is particularly innovative (as strategies go) in including the Marine Corps in a “Blue/Green” approach to the region and in its navigation of cooperative themes in a moment dominated by great power competition. Yet it also has room for growth, in particular on how to connect loftier concepts with operational realities.

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff – This. Is. Extraordinary.

USNI News – The head of the Navy warned the surface force there is little time to waste in designing and fielding key technologies it will need for a lethal and distributed future fleet.

Defense News – This is the final installment of a three-part series on the Navy’s struggles to develop unmanned ships and systems.

Task and Purpose – What good is an aircraft carrier that can’t reliably launch and land aircraft?

USNI News – The Navy in the next few weeks will release a further refinement of how to operate and maintain the Littoral Combat Ships that today make up the small surface combatant fleet. In parallel, though, the service is working hard to take lessons learned from years of struggles with the LCS and ensure the upcoming frigate program can hit the ground running.

Defense News – The Navy wants a suite of unmanned systems to reduce the cost of owning and operating its fleet, while boosting the missile capacity and sensor distribution of its manned ships. But this idea for less expensive sea power depends on the Navy’s record for rapidly maturing technologies. Congress is skeptical of that history and intentionally tried to slow the Navy down. Now, lawmakers have made evident a new plan for development. Instead of rushing out half-baked systems, they want the Navy to go fast by getting the program right the first time.

Defense News – After a bruising, year-long fight with Congress, part of the Navy’s plan to field unmanned ships appears to be on life support, making 2021 a crucial year for plotting a path forward.