– Breaking Defense – For the first time, a Royal Navy pilot has taken off and landed an F-35B on a British aircraft carrier, eight years after the UK retired its last generation of aircraft carriers.
The Maritime History of a War Weary Naval Fleet
– National Interest – John Lehman’s new book, Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea, could help America gird for what comes next on the high seas.
Is this the Marine Corps’ next amphibious combat vehicle?
– Marine Corps Times – The winner of a contract to develop the Marine Corps new amphibious combat vehicle, the first of its kind in four decades, showcased a potential variant that would give commanders eyes on all areas of the littoral battlefield, on-board drones and targeted hand offs to any ACV in their formations.
Marines to Focus Investments on New Concepts, New Systems for the Future Fight
– USNI News – Striking the right balance between funding today’s force and funding new capabilities for the future has always been a challenge, but Marine Corps leaders have firmly come down on the side of favoring modernization to win in a future fight.
Marine F-35Bs Fly First-Ever Strike Missions Against ‘Fixed Targets’ in Afghanistan (Updated)
– War Zone – The debut combat missions for American Joint Strike Fighters came after the same jets conducted armed reconnaissance patrols near Somalia.
U.S. Aircraft Carrier Deployments at 25 Year Low as Navy Struggles to Reset Force
– USNI News – Aircraft carriers – the most visible tools of U.S. military power – are spending more time in maintenance and at home even as the Pentagon has declared it’s entered a new era of competition with China and Russia.
What will launch from France’s future aircraft carrier? The government and Navy are teaming up to find out
– Defense News – The French procurement office and the Navy will submit proposals to the Armed Forces Ministry based on definition studies for a future aircraft carrier.
How the Marines Will Help the U.S. Navy and America’s Allies Win the Great Indo-Pacific War of 2025
– War on the Rocks – The purpose of this article: a dispatch from four marines to our naval service leadership and the American people sharing ideas on how the Marine Corps can help the Navy, the joint force, and our allies win by averting — or, if necessary, succeeding in — the speculative Great Indo-Pacific War in 2025. This can be accomplished by maximizing the use of lethal, coordinated, and swarming Warbot combat teams. These distributed marines will be able to strike adversaries from every direction, both within the littorals as well as at stand-off range. In so doing, they’ll enable friendly naval maneuver, reassure allies, create countless “no win” dilemmas for adversaries, and buy space and time for U.S. policymakers.
China Sees Mixed Results in Quest for Indo-Pacific Air Access
– War on the Rocks – Competition over critical infrastructure isn’t just confined to the maritime realm. In fact, access to airfields is just as essential to allow military aircraft to cover the vast distances across the Indian Ocean. This is why China and its competitors are paying ever more attention to securing access to airfields and to deny access to others.
Marine Corps Cancels AAV Survivability Upgrade
– USNI News – The Marine Corps has canceled its Amphibious Assault Vehicle Survivability Upgrade effort with SAIC and will instead focus its efforts on the Amphibious Combat Vehicle that will eventually replace the AAV.
On the new battlefield, the Navy has to get software updates to the fleet within days, acquisition boss says
– C4ISRNet – The Navy has to get software updates and patches to the fleet within days if it’s going to win in the future, the Department of the Navy’s acquisition boss has said.
How the Fleet Forgot to Fight, Part 2: Firepower
– CIMSEC – The Navy’s tactical ignorance is built into its arsenal. Currently some of the Navy’s most important weapons development programs are not just evolutionary, but revolutionary in the possibilities they open up. This is not due to innovation, but instead many of these noteworthy and foundational capabilities are finally arriving decades after the technologies were first proven, many close to half a century ago. Many of these most crucial weapons are already in the hands of great power competitors such as Russia and China who have had decades of opportunity to train and refine tactics with them.
With a big cash infusion, Congress is all-in on the amphibious Navy
– Defense News – Congress sent a message this year that it wants the Navy to build amphibious ships, and it’s going to put up the money to do it.
How America Beat Queen Victoria’s Britain without Fighting
– National Interest – America pushed Britain out of the Western Hemisphere, more or less, by the turn of the twentieth century. It did so by making itself the strongest contender in the New World, harnessing its burgeoning industrial might to build a navy able to command the waters Washington cared about most.
Could China Build Its Very Own F-35B with Russia’s Help?
– National Interest – Recent Chinese writings point to some interesting signs.
B-52 Tested 2,000lb Quickstrike-ER Winged Standoff Naval Mines During Valiant Shield
– War Zone – Being able to lay entire minefields with pinpoint accuracy from high altitude, over 40 miles away, and on a single pass is a total game changer.
Time Out For Tactics
– CIMSEC – Nobody’s arguing that inspections aren’t important. Heaven only knows what the beam of a flashlight might find under the bunk of a warship during a zone inspection. But there must be some way to reduce the 80 or so inspections a combat unit is subjected to every 18 months and use some of that time for the study of tactics.
Who is the Admiral Rickover of Naval Artificial Intelligence?
– War on the Rocks – Unlike the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (also known as the Naval Reactors program) today there is no Navy organization accountable for overseeing a practical application of any AI-enabled combat system that is ready be pushed to the fleet in the near future. Useful military AI is proven in concept. What if the Navy treated operationalizing AI enabled combat systems the way it once treated operationalizing nuclear power?
Truman Carrier Strike Group Returns to Europe After Mid-Deployment Visit to Norfolk
– USNI News – The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (CSG) returned to the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations for the second time this year after spending a month visiting its homeport of Norfolk.
Congress to buy 3 more LCS than the Navy needs, but gut funding for sensors that make them valuable
– Defense News – Congress loves buying littoral combat ships, but when it comes to the packages of sensors and systems that make the ships useful, lawmakers have been less enthusiastic.
China Sent Uninvited Spy Ship to Russian Vostok 2018 Exercise Alongside Troops, Tanks
– USNI News – Russia recently concluded the 2018 edition of the massive Vostok exercise series that included Chinese forces for the first time. At Moscow’s invitation, Beijing sent People’s Liberation Army soldiers, helicopters, tanks – and one uninvited Chinese surveillance ship.
How the Fleet Forgot to Fight, Part 1: Combat Training
– CIMSEC – The U.S. Navy is suffering from self-inflicted strategic dysfunction across the breadth of its enterprise.Part One looks at U.S. Navy combat training and draws a comparison with Chinese Navy training.
The US Navy is going to need a bigger boat, and it’s getting ready to buy one
– Defense News – The U.S. surface Navy is moving rapidly toward buying a new large surface ship that will replace the aging cruisers, a ship that Navy leaders and experts say will need to be spacious to accommodate future upgrades and weapon systems.
Japanese submarine conducts first drills in South China Sea
– Reuters – A Japanese submarine has for the first time joined a naval drill in the South China Sea in an expansion of Japanese activity in the disputed waterway claimed by China and others.
The inside story of how a US Navy pilot shot down a Syrian jet
– Navy Times – Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Tremel made history last year when he became the first American aviator in nearly 20 years to shoot down an enemy plane.
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