– Defense News – Six years after the U.S. Navy rolled out its “Optimized Fleet Response Plan” for manning, training and deploying its ships over a 36-month cycle, many of the key promises have failed to materialize, according to public statements from Navy officials and experts.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy conducted more freedom of navigation operations in 2019 than in any year since the U.S. began more aggressively challenging China’s claims in the South China Sea in 2015.

– USNI Blog – Given the advancement of anti-ship missile technology, saturation attack capability, and the opportunity to knock out a U.S. capital ship, carriers are becoming a liability in a peer-to-peer conflict.

– USNI News – U.S. 2nd Fleet is having deploying units test out new complex tactics on their way across the Atlantic, with each of these so-called Fleet Battle Problems contributing to an overall maturation of the concepts the Navy would use in a peer adversary fight.

– C4ISRNet – The U.S. Navy and Boeing demonstrated the ability to control unmanned aircraft with a manned jet, a capability that is critical for concepts intended to keep naval aviation relevant into the 21st century.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy plans to launch long-range, ship killing missiles from its premiere submarine-hunting aircraft, a clear signal the Pentagon is looking for new ways to meet the tyranny of distance in the Pacific theater.

– Naval News – Aki is the third vessel of the Hibiki-class of Ocean Surveillance Ships. Their mission is to gather undersea acoustic data emitted by foreign submarines. Therefore, Aki is equipped with a surveillance towed-array sensor system (SURTASS), which is a very long range active / passive sonar that can be deployed into the sea to collect various acoustic data.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy destroyer Fitzgerald, which was badly damaged in a 2017 collision off Japan that claimed the lives of seven sailors, is underway for its first significant at-sea time since arriving at Ingalls Shipbuilding two years ago.

– National Interest – James Holmes writes that battleship history casts doubt on the future of über-expensive behemoths like the U.S. Navy’s Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs). The question isn’t just whether the aircraft carrier is obsolete, a floating target in the missile age. That reduces the question to technology. The question is whether the carrier is worth its cost in strategic and political terms.

– USNI News – As the Navy moves forward with unmanned surface and undersea vessels in a range of sizes for myriad missions, some things remain constant among the vehicles: they’ll all need to continue making improvements in autonomy, they’ll all need parts that are reliable enough to go without human intervention for weeks or months at a time, and they’ll all need power sources for their long journeys. The Navy and its industry partners, even as they work through the acquisition and development of specific programs, are hard at work tackling the “foundational” technology areas that cut across programs.

– Defense News – The is U.S. Navy desperately trying to get away from shooting down anti-ship missiles with other missiles, and the carrier Gerald R. Ford could prove useful in the pursuit of alternatives.