– USNI News – The Navy held a sundown ceremony on Friday for its last operational F-18 Hornet squadron, with the “Blue Blasters” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 34 taking their last flight over Naval Air Station Oceana before transitioning to newer jets.

– War Zone – The U.S. Navy’s Sea Hunter unmanned surface vessel has become the first ship of any description to ever sail from San Diego, California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and back without the need of a crew for navigation and steering. It’s a significant milestone for this particular vessel and its future cousins, which the service has primarily been developing as anti-submarine warfare platforms, but could also provide electronic warfare support and acting as decoys to help shield friendly forces.

– National Interest – Tallying up ship numbers makes poor shorthand for U.S. naval power. Bean counting yields one datapoint, albeit an important one. There is some bare minimum of assets needed to concentrate strength at scenes of battle. But bean counting not only disregards the enemy, the surroundings, and the goals set by the navy’s overseers, it doesn’t differentiate among ship types.

– Business Insider – Some nagging problems are affecting the Navy’s P-8As, according to a recent Pentagon report.

– Navy Times – A scathing internal Navy probe into the 2017 collision that drowned seven sailors on the guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald details a far longer list of problems plaguing the vessel, its crew and superior commands than the service has publicly admitted.

– Navy Times – The watchstanders on the bridge of the USS Fitzgerald had succumbed to “confusion, indecision, and ultimately panic,” according to an internal Navy investigation into the Fitzgerald disaster obtained by Navy Times.

– USNI Proceedings – The rise of the Chinese Navy and the return of the Russian Navy have created serious challenges to U.S. command of the sea.

– USNI Proceedings – A dedicated office could coordinate R&D efforts and focus on delivering prototypes of autonomous unmanned systems to the fleet.

– USNI News – The Navy’s approach to information warfare continues to mature, as the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group is conducting the first pre-deployment training with a board-selected Information Warfare Commander serving on the strike group admiral’s staff.

– War Zone – The Navy’s newest and most advanced carrier can’t make it through a day of operations, on average, without a launch and recovery system failure.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is looking to get a lot of underway time out of its new frigate and is eyeing a crewing model that swaps out teams of sailors to maximize the operational time for each hull.

– Breaking Defense – Despite the Navy’s misgivings over having dozens of its ships sailing in boxes hunting for missiles, plans remain in place for more Aegis-capable hulls, as well as new radars, and mobile missile defense batteries.

– Defense News – Large and medium-sized unmanned surface combatants under development by the U.S. Navy will likely have crews aboard, at least at first.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy is looking to get out of the missile defense business, the service’s top admiral said today, and the Pentagon’s new missile defense review might give the service the off-ramp it has been looking for to stop sailing in circles waiting for ground-based missile launches.

– USNI News – Naval Surface Forces is continuing its push for an experimental squadron that would help figure out how to best leverage new platforms such as the Zumwalt-class destroyers and unmanned surface ships.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is zeroing in on a cost and the shape of its new frigate as it prepares to launch an open competition this summer.