– CNN – Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has submitted his resignation a day after leaked audio revealed he called the ousted commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt “stupid” in an address to the ship’s crew.

– USNI Proceedings – Long-range strike coupled with battlefield transparency will make ships targetable anywhere, any time. As some of these capabilities already are being fielded, the window for developing counterstrategies is closing fast.

– Task and Purpose – The Navy has hit a new low by firing an aircraft carrier captain who was trying to save his crew from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

– USNI News – The Bataan Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and embarked 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) are now in the Persian Gulf as USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) crossed the Suez Canal and is now operating in the Mediterranean Sea after spending several weeks in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations.

– Defense News – A $1.6 billion defensive ring around Guam. Millions in new military funding for partner nations. A billion dollars for increased stockpiles of long-range weapons. These are just some of the investments on a $20 billion wish list quietly submitted to Congress in recent weeks by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command head Adm. Phil Davidson. The wish list was specifically requested by members of Congress who are eyeing it as the basis for a new Pacific-focused pot of money to deter Chinese military action in the region.

– USNI News – The carrier commander who warned that his crew didn’t have enough resources to fight an accelerating COVID-19 infection aboard his ship, has been relieved of command.

– BBC – The US says it is sending warships to the Caribbean to stop illegal drugs.

– Naval News – U.S. Navy Expeditionary Sea Base ship USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB 3), assigned to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (USNAVCENT), has been conducting joint naval and air integration operations with U.S. Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters assigned to U.S. Army Central Command’s (USARCENT) Task Force Saber, throughout the month of March.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy generated glowing headlines and cheering crowds when deploying its hospital ships Mercy and Comfort to Los Angeles and New York City respectively. But the ships are both pushing 50 years old and need replacing, and what those replacements will look like is anything but certain.

– USNI News – The commander of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) asked U.S. Pacific Fleet leadership to take his crew off his carrier and send them all into quarantine ashore on Guam, as a COVID-19 outbreak on the carrier spreads at an accelerating rate.

– USNI Proceedings – The service must address this threat to the lifelong health of its sailors.

– War Zone – Two sailors onboard the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which forward-deployed in Japan and presently pier-side there, have tested positive for the COVID-19 novel coronavirus. This comes just a day after the U.S. Navy announced it had quarantined the entire crew of another aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, on their ship in port in Guam after a number of sailors contracted the virus.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s first stealth destroyer, the Zumwalt, is on track to have its combat system installation completed and delivered within days.

– Navy Times – To combat a growing outbreak of COVID-19 on the carrier Theodore Roosevelt, the Navy has ordered the ship to pull into Guam and have the whole crew of 5,000-plus sailors tested for the novel coronavirus.

– CIMSEC – Information is the currency of mission command.

– Global Times – Questions have been raised over whether there will be large-scale novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infections on a deployed US warship after the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt reported three confirmed cases on Tuesday in what is believed to be the first such COVID-19 case on the deployed warship.

– Defense News – Amid heightened tension with Iran, the U.S. Navy is operating two carriers in the Middle East, and all signs point to increasing pressure from U.S. Central Command to maintain aircraft carrier presence that has ebbed in recent years as the U.S. focuses on competition with China and Russia.

– Bloomberg – New toilets on the Navy’s two newest aircraft carriers clog so frequently that the ships’ sewage systems must be cleaned periodically with specialized acids costing about $400,000 a flush, according to a new congressional audit outlining $130 billion in underestimated long-term maintenance costs.

– The Hill – James Holmes writes that last week Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations or America’s top naval officer, released a video message reviewing precautions the service has taken to fend off the coronavirus. Chief among them: enlisting water as a barrier against contagion. Themistocles’ fleet staged a waterborne defense of land against human antagonists; the U.S. Navy fleet can defend its crews from landborne pestilence by remaining at sea. It can self-isolate.

– AFP – The United States announced Friday it has successfully tested an unarmed prototype of a hypersonic missile, a nuclear-capable weapon that could accelerate the arms race between superpowers.

– USNI Blog – Toss out your plans to get to 355.

– USNI News – The Pentagon is starting the process of activating Navy hospital ships USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) and USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) as part of the Defense Department’s domestic response to the spreading COVID-19 virus.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is backing away from the idea of a classwide service-life extension project for the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, but is leaving open the possibility to upgrade some of its workhorse surface combatant.

– Breaking Defense – Two American aircraft carriers are sailing in the Middle East for the first time since 2012, a deployment which joins a large new Marine force and the repositioning of Patriot batteries to Iraq. The movements are part of a broad realignment of forces reflecting the deepening American effort to keep Iran in check.

– Breaking Defense – Frustrated with Pentagon-run war games that contributed to the Defense Secretary taking over the Navy’s shipbuilding plans, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly on Tuesday said be believes planners should not have added a phantom 12th aircraft carrier to the mix, an extra ship the Navy won’t have until the 2060s.