– 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.

– Naval News – Lockheed Martin received an Office of Naval Research (ONR) contract to integrate a prototype Layered Laser Defense (LLD) weapon system aboard a U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).

– USNI News – Manning forward-deployed ships with fewer sailors, making less carrier strike groups available to deploy and reducing the size of command staffs are moves the Navy is considering as part of its drive to reduce $40 billion from its budget, according to a February memo outlining the cuts under consideration.

– USNI Blog – Redefining what a mine is, across the services, is an important step to ensure that the wealth of creativity and expertise in the technical and operational community are taken advantage of.

– National Interest – The growing modern mine threat is so significant, that the Navy has been fast-tracking a wide range of new countermine attack and defense strategies. The approach is focused on both littoral mine fields as well as higher-tech deep water mines associated with threats posed by great powers as well, according to senior service leaders.

(Thanks to Alain)

– National Interest – As Richard Feynman might advise: make caveat emptor your motto when sizing up new concepts. If a hypothesis doesn’t undergo rigorous tests, and if it doesn’t perform well . . . it’s wrong.

– USNI News – Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly is commissioning a six-month study on the future of the aircraft carrier and carrier-based aviation, the Navy announced today.

– USNI News – The future of anti-submarine warfare for countries who can’t afford to invest in top-of-the-line submarines and maritime patrol aircraft could be a netted fleet of unmanned platforms that can create “passive acoustic barriers” at chokepoints or drag towed arrays through a country’s territorial waters.

– Defense News – In a move with sweeping consequences for the US Navy’s battle force, the service is canceling plans to add 10 years to the expected service lives of their stalwart destroyer fleet, a cost-savings measure that would almost certainly hamper plans to grow the size of the fleet.

– War Zone – The U.S. military is developing an interceptor intended to knock down hypersonic boost-glide vehicles specifically for deployment on U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke class destroyers equipped with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system.

– CIMSEC – Mine countermeasures are actions intended to reduce the risk that mines pose to transiting vessels. Risk is defined as the probability that a transiting vessel will incur mission abort damage from a mine detonation if it travels along a predetermined route through the potentially mined area. The purpose of an MCM operation is to lower the risk so it is safer to transit. The estimation of risk is critically important to determine if the level of risk to a transiting vessel is acceptable and if the applied effort is effectively lowering the risk.

– USNI News – The Navy is evaluating with the Army and Air Force a strategy to beef up U.S. military presence and force protection in the Arctic.

– Breaking Defense – The Future Carrier 2030 Task Force, which the service will announce next week, will study how carriers stack up against new generations of stealthy submarines and long-range precision weapons being fielded by China and Russia.

– War Zone – The US military sees the ability to reach out with airpower and take out enemy ships as increasingly critical to beating a major adversary.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s four guided-missile destroyers in Rota, Spain, could soon get company. Senior U.S. military officials are pushing hard to get two more destroyers forward-deployed in Europe, and the move appears to have the support of top Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

– USNI Proceedings – Without the ships and mariners of the U.S. merchant marine, the nation could find itself with military forces deployed overseas with no means to feed, arm, or sustain them.

– USNI News – A pending force structure analysis calls for bigger and more spread out Navy than previously thought.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy is doing something it hasn’t done since the 1980s — test its abilities to win in a contested crossing of the Atlantic.

– CIMSEC – Continuous learning environments, opportunities for multi-disciplinary research in warfighting concepts and technology, and expanded Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) training, as envisioned in the CNO’s FRAGO, provide important opportunities to master new skills. But do they do enough to prepare the force for the complexity and chaos likely to characterize the future maritime environment?

– War on the Rocks – Good software elevates human performance. Bad software kills people, even in peacetime.

– Defense News – Despite campaigning on a 350-ship Navy, U.S. President Donald Trump is on track to leave office with a fleet smaller than the 308 ships called for by the Obama administration.

– War is Boring – The USS Colorado (SSN 788) was spotted with significant cracking along her hull, though she remained structurally sound and the damage appeared to only affect the Special Hull Treatment, an anechoic coating used to absorb sound waves.

Thanks to Alain!

– CIMSEC – The Carrier Strike Group staff could benefit from an overhaul. The complexity of the future fight in terms of surveillance, maneuver, and fires call for a level of synchronization and expertise in planning that the current staff is unprepared for.

– USNI Proceedings – The U.S. Navy needs to relearn lessons from the Cold War era and rebuild as it confronts a Russian and Chinese threat that is smaller but considerably more capable that its predecessors.