– C4ISRNet – A project inside the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has the potential to pull the Navy’s unmanned surface vessel aspirations forward a decade.

– Defense News – The Navy selected Fincantieri’s FREMM design for its next generation frigate, but as with most new platforms it will be a long time before the first ship hits the fleet.

– National Interest – Will U.S. Navy submarines be armed with laser weapons? That’s the implication of a new Navy research project.

(Thanks to Alain)

– War Zone – The Advanced Airborne Sensor is a powerful and shadowy intelligence gathering and targeting tool carried by a small number of P-8As.

– US Naval War College Review – Wayne Hughes writes that the predictive power of experts, operations analysis, and the value of information are interwoven subjects that are hard to winnow down to an essence. Prediction is a big subject, so I have limited this article to what I know best: the operational and tactical domains of conventional warfare.

– USNI Proceedings – The SEAL professional ethos serves as a reminder for Naval Special Warfare—and any who aspire to high standards—that excellence must be earned every day, on and off duty.

– Barents Observer – U.S. wants a more visible military footprint in the Arctic. The anti-submarine exercise off the coast of northern Norway on Friday comes amid increased Russian submarine sailings into the North Atlantic.

– CIMSEC – By taking a few notes from the narcos, the United States Navy can develop a class of hard-to-detect semisubmersible Medium Unmanned Surface Vessels that will be combat-effective in the high-end fight against China.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s newest surface combatant has Italian heritage. In a major win for Wisconsin’s Marinette Marine shipyard, the Navy selected Fincantieri’s so-called FREMM design, an acronym that stands for “European multi-purpose frigate,” in its original Italian.

– USNI Proceedings – The Navy is starting to pay attention to offensive mine warfare again.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy has decided to split the frigate class, recompeting the program after the first 10 ships are under contract, leading to a new award and another bite at the apple for the bidders who lost out the first time around.

– USNI Proceedings – The Harry S. Truman Strike Group’s April 2018 deployment offers a host of lessons for the Navy as the service renewed the concept of dynamic force employment with today’s fleet.

– Defense News – An issue that risks damage to the F-35’s tail section if the aircraft needs to maintain supersonic speeds is not worth fixing and will instead be addressed by changing the operating parameters. The deficiency means that at extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability. The problem may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts.

– USNI News – USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) was delivered to the fleet after completing its combat system activation and subsequent at-sea trials.

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy’s improvement in pilot performance comes as a direct result of a push in 2018 to get more jets to a better state of material readiness.

– USNI News – By embracing data and developing the Naval Sustainment System and Performance to Plan frameworks for aviation readiness, the Navy had 340 more aircraft flying in March 2020 compared to March 2019, including 90 more Super Hornets.

– Virginian Pilot – A Navy hospital ship deployed to New York City to help fight the coronavirus outbreak is no longer needed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday, expressing confidence that stresses on the hospital system are easing.

– War Zone – Just like how Navy planes have vast instrumented ranges for aerial wargames, submarines have one too, and it is arguably even more impressive.

– USNI News – USS America (LHA-6) is steaming towards waters in the South China Sea where a Chinese government survey ship and its China Coast Guard escorts are in an international maritime dispute with Malaysia.

– Defense News – An internal Office of the Secretary of Defense assessment calls for the Navy to cut two aircraft carriers from its fleet, freeze the large surface combatant fleet of destroyers and cruisers around current levels and add dozens of unmanned or lightly manned ships to the inventory.

– USNI Proceedings – Issuing letters of marque presents international legal risks—some real, others imagined—but these are manageable.

– USNI Proceedings – The United States should issue letters of marque to fight Chinese aggression at sea.

– South China Morning Post – The United States should encourage the use of privateers to fight Chinese aggression at sea, according to a pair of articles in magazine produced by the US Naval Institute.

– Business Insider – The 737 is Boeing’s best-selling narrow-body aircraft, and the P-8 Poseidon is 60% similar to it. The other 40% can drop torpedoes.

(Thanks to Alain)

– War Zone – In this article, we will cover the capabilities of both kinds of submarine-launched torpedoes and how they actually work, which is very different than what you have probably seen in the movies.