– Military Times – The Marine Corps has made strides to improve standards for the MV-22B Osprey nearly two years after a report found unsettling evidence the service was deploying squadrons that were not mission-ready. But some problems persist due to high operational demand and a lack of resources.
USS Fort Worth is one sleek warship
– USA Today – The first thing you notice when you step aboard this sleek new warship is that there aren’t many sailors — but almost all are doing double duty.
Norfolk-Based Helo Squadron Tests APKWS Rocket Guidance System
– USNI News – APKWS “fills in a very important part of the lethality gap in (the MH-60S’s) weapons footprint,” hitting a sweet spot between the AGM-114 Hellfire missile and unguided 20mm cannons and 2.75-inch rockets.
Seoul detects 50 North Korean subs leaving bases
– Korea Times – Fifty North Korean submarines have left their bases since Saturday, hours before high-level inter-Korea talks took place at the truce village of Panmunjeom the same day.
Understanding Japan’s Shifting Defense Policy
– USNI News – The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed major changes in Japan’s defense policy, with strong implications for the United States and U.S. armed forces in the Pacific. The changes, designed to shift Japan away from an isolated, pacifistic defense posture to a more dynamic one based on bilateral and even multilateral relationships, are controversial but not uncommon to most nations.
Well, Here’s One Way to Stop a Swarm of Iranian Attack Boats
– War is Boring – The U.S. Navy appears to have a new low-cost plan to counter Iran’s fleet of speedboats.
How the Philippines Plans to Revive a Former US Naval Base
– The Diplomat – Amidst the tensions generated by China’s development of artificial islands in the South China Sea, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Voltaire Gazmin reiterated the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) plan to rehabilitate the air and naval facilities in Subic Bay Freeport in the central part of the mainland island of Luzon.
Hamas claims to nab Israeli spy dolphin
– Times of Israel – Islamist group’s naval unit says it captured mammal equipped with espionage equipment, including cameras.
Marines Adding Tanks, Artillery to Black Sea Rotational Force to Reassure Against Russian Threat
– USNI News – The Marines are shaking up their force in Europe, adding a one-of-a-kind Combined Arms Company to the Black Sea Rotational Force to train with local partners and allies on anti-tank capabilities.
U.S. Navy Seeks Better Sub-Hunting Technology to Counter Putin
– Bloomberg – The U.S. Navy wants to upgrade its ability to detect Russian submarines in response to assertive naval moves by President Vladimir Putin.
The Navy is seeking to deploy a sophisticated surveillance device made by Lockheed Martin Corp. in the Atlantic Ocean. The device, towed by a ship, already is in use in the Pacific. As soon as mid-2016, the service also wants to send to the Atlantic a prototype networked “undersea sensor system” that “addresses emergent real-world threats.”
A Short History of the U.S. Navy’s Most Secretive Submarine
– War is Boring – USS Jimmy Carter is an underwater spy.
Largest Chinese, Russian Joint Pacific Naval Exercise Kicks Off This Week
– USNI News – The navies of China and Russia will meet this week for the two countries largest ever naval exercise in the Pacific.
No, Russia Isn’t Building a Giant New Aircraft Carrier
– War is Boring – Russian media reported in early 2015 that the Kremlin is preparing blueprints for a huge new aircraft carrier to replace the Russian navy’s current flattop, the relatively small and aged Admiral Kuznetsov. But Moscow’s new carrier is likely to remain a paper concept. A quarter-century after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia lacks the money, expertise and industrial capacity to build aircraft carriers.
Next Exit: Joint Information Environment
– USNI Proceedings – Proponents of the newest method for putting information technology and networks to best military use must build a superhighway to the future, not the past—or even the present.
Don’t Call it a Comeback
– Air Force – The Air Force isn’t rebalancing to the Pacific. It never left.
Keeping Our Asymmetric Edge
– USNI Proceedings – Congress must take a strong position in promoting naval innovation.
The Deadly Future of Littoral Sea Control
– USNI Proceedings – In an age of precision-strike weapon proliferation, a big-ship navy equals a brittle fleet. What’s needed is a revamped force structure based on smaller surface combatants.
Capability-Based Planning and the Death of Military Strategy
– USNI – In the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review, released days before the September 11 attacks, the Department of Defense announced a shift in approach—one that had been trickling through DOD since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Billed as “a new defense strategy and an associated risk management framework,” the emerging addition to the defense planning lexicon was a “capabilities-based approach.”
USS Ashland Returns To Saipan With Supplies To Restore Water, Power To Island
– USNI News – Marines and sailors from the amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland (LSD-48) returned to Saipan in the Northern Marianas with heavy equipment to restore power and water purifiers to provide as much as 40,000 gallons of drinking water after the island was devastated by a typhoon last week..
Cutting Weight on Littoral Combat Ship ASW Mission Package Not a New Problem
– USNI News – The Navy’s quest to cut weight from the planned Littoral Combat Ship anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission package is neither the result of weight gain in the planned systems nor a new requirement of the program. The need to reduce at least 15 percent of the weight of the systems is born instead of the service’s decision to use proven systems and always has long held plans to mount a weight reduction.
Japan Looks South: China’s Rise Drives New Strategy
– Breaking Defense – You’d expect the top admiral in the Japan Self-Defense Force to talk about defending Japan. But Adm. Tomohisa Takei surprised me on his latest visit to Washington — his third in 10 months — with a speech that clearly demonstrates how Japan is broadening its strategic perspective. The new view from Tokyo takes in the Indian Ocean and, especially, the disputed South China Sea. Driving this change, of course, is an alarmingly assertive China.
Successful SM-6 Ballistic Missile Defense Test Set To Expand Capability of U.S. Guided Missile Fleet
– USNI News – The U.S. Navy and the Missile Defense Agency has proved a modified Raytheon Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) missile can not only tackle cruise missiles and aircraft threats but also inbound ballistic missiles.
USS John Warner Shows Off Jumbo Missile Tube During Comissioning
– Foxtrot Alpha – The Virginia Class fast attack submarine, the USS John Warner, was just commissioned into service. She is the second Block III Virginia Class boat to be produced, and has a pair of new huge Virginia Payload Tubes on her bow. These replace twelve individual vertical launch tubes used to fire Tomahawk missiles in previous Virginia Class boats.
Chinese Navy Warship Rammed Two Vietnamese Fishing Vessels
– USNI News – A People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) amphibious warship allegedly rammed two Vietnamese fishing vessels operating near the disputed Spratly Islands in July, according to local press cited in an Office of Naval Intelligence threat to shipping report.
U.S. Scrambles Amphib USS Ashland, 31st MEU Marines to Saipan for FEMA Typhoon Relief Mission
– USNI News – Amphibious warship USS Ashland (LSD-48) and elements of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) are bound for Saipan — at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — to assist in disaster relief following the devastating landfall of Typhoon Soudelor last week.
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