– USNI News – The Navy is considering expanding the number of SeaRAM installations on its ships beyond a quartet of ballistic missile defense ships based in Spain and Littoral Combat Ships.
New U.S. Naval Aircraft Integrating for Longer Range Operations
– USNI News – The Navy has begun integrating its newest airplanes into the air wing and joint forces during training and finding that these platforms, including the EA-18G Growler and F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, are extending the range and increasing the sophistication of operations.
South Korea Wants BMD Capability for Guided Missile Destroyers
– USNI News – Seoul is considering adding Raytheon SM-3 missiles to its fleet of Aegis guided missile destroyers to give the ships a ballistic missile defense capability.
Asia’s Looming Subsurface Challenge
– War on the Rocks – From the 1950s until today, Russia’s dangerous Atlantic submarine force has represented the technological pacing threat for the U.S. Navy in the undersea domain. However, this trend is slowly changing. It will be the waters of the Pacific, not the Atlantic, where the U.S. Navy will be most sorely tested. In his 2016 posture hearing, Commander of U.S. Pacific Command Admiral Harry Harris noted that Chinese, Russian, and North Korean submarines constitute 150 of 200 submarines currently in the Pacific. Numbers only tell part of an increasingly ominous story. The trajectory of submarine investments made by these nations — and ten other Asia-Pacific countries — will create a far more dangerous undersea domain in the Asia-Pacific by 2030. Developing the policies and frameworks that will enable effective shaping of this environment must be started before the crisis hits.
China Steps Up Naval Presence Near Key Disputed Island
– FreeBeacon – China is building up maritime security forces around a key disputed island in the South China Sea that the Pentagon has warned China not to militarize. According to Pentagon officials, the number of Chinese maritime security vessels near Scarborough Shoal, in the Spratly Islands, has risen sharply over the past several weeks.
Magic Carpet Ride: Navy Software Eases Carrier Landings
– Breaking Defense – So easy, a journalist can do it. That could be the slogan for the Navy’s new Magic Carpet software, which simplifies the most stressful task in aviation: landing on deck of an aircraft carrier.
Top Marine: No Need To Change Deploying Groups
– Defense News – The 2,500-person Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is the basic formation of regularly-deploying US Marine Corps units, typically embarked aboard a three-ship US Navy amphibious ready group (ARG) that deploys for six months or more at a time. But the various units that make up the MEU are often called on to carry out missions hundreds of miles apart, even thousands of miles. It’s not unusual that the MEU and ARG, which together train before the deployment to operate as a single unit, split up once in theater to the point where the three ships might not even see each other for months. So does it make sense to continue that MEU/ARG construct? Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Corps, says yes.
WestPac Prepositioning Ships Making Slow But Steady Progress In Seabasing
– USNI News – Seabasing forces in the Western Pacific continue to build proficiency as they practice marrying up expeditionary transfer dock USNS Montford Point (T-ESD-1) with local large medium-speed roll-on/roll-off ships (LMSRs.
Seek, but shall ye find?
– The Economist – A proliferation of quieter submarines is pushing navies to concoct better ways to track them
RIMPAC Major Step for Australia Ahead of First ARG Deployment
– USNI News – The Rim of the Pacific 2016 exercise has given the Australian landing force a well-timed opportunity: soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2 RAR) played a central role in three-ship Amphibious Ready Group operations off Hawaii ahead of conducting ARG operations on their own for the first time ever next year.
F-35B Tactics Evolving As Pilots’ Understanding Of Technology Matures
– USNI News – The Marine Corps’ top aviator said the F-35B Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter pilots have matured in their understanding of the new platform in the year since the service declared initial operational capability (IOC), pushing themselves to push past planned tactics and create a new way of using the fifth-generation technology.
Focus on the Marines
– USNI Proceedings – There is a dangerous disconnect between Marine aviation readiness levels and calls for increased mission versatility; ‘something has to give.’
The Fourth Battle of the Atlantic
– USNI Proceedings – With ‘more activity from Russian submarines than we’ve seen since the days of the Cold War,’ an improved European force posture becomes vital for the U.S. Navy and NATO.
India to acquire three Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates from Russia
– Janes – Russia will supply three Admiral Grigorovich-class (Project 11356M) frigates to India that were originally intended for the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet.
Panning for Gold – Assessing Chinese Maritime Strategy From Primary Sources
– US Naval War College Review – This article seeks to describe the range of sources available for helping to understand Chinese maritime strategy and to assess their relative value.
Navy, Marines put V-22 to the Test in Carrier Experiment
– USNI News – Ten days into a two-week fleet battle experiment on this aircraft carrier off the California coast, the Navy is getting a good look at how the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor can fit into flight and deck operations of its carrier fleet. So far, the outlook is promising.
Marine Harriers Strike ISIS Targets in Libya from USS Wasp
– USNI News – Marine AV-8B Harriers operating from USS Wasp (LHD-1) have struck ISIS targets Libya.
NATO’s New Role – The Alliance’s Response to a Rising China
– US Naval War College Review – As Sino-American security competition increases, it is reasonable to expect that China will try to divide the United States from key NATO members through diplomatic and economic means. Members of the transatlantic community should anticipate this challenge and be prepared to meet it. In doing so, the normative aspect of the alliance can play a key role.
This is Russia’s new unique underwater drone for Arctic waters
– Barents Observer – A series of unmanned underwater vehicles (UAV) for both research and military purposes are under development.
Gaming Distributed Lethality
– USNI News – “We have to stop thinking of adversary maritime forces as ‘threats’ and instead what they really are: ‘targets’ for our increasingly lethal, distributed surface, amphibious, and submarine forces,” Dr. William Bundy, director of the Gravely Group at the Naval War College, asserted during a recent interview…
Proposed US military buildup on Guam angers locals who liken it to colonization
– The Guardian – Proposal to bring an additional 5,000 marines to territory already 28% occupied by US military stirs frustrations – but many support the idea in a ‘fragile’ economy.
Labour ‘saddled Navy ships with dodgy engines’
– Daily Telegraph – The former Labour Government ignored concerns about the reliability of the engines for the Royal Navy’s most powerful warships in order to buy from a British manufacturer, a former head of Britain’s Maritime Warfare Centre has said.
America Is Hacking Other Countries With Stealthy Submarines
– Washington Post – Did you know that the military uses its submarines as underwater hacking platforms?
The UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration Ruling With Captain James Fadell
– CIMSEC – A discussion on the UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on territorial disputes in the South China Sea with one of the China-watching community’s best known, most respected, and outspoken voices, retired U.S. Navy Captain James Fanell.
Israel Navy Readies for Third-Generation USV
– Defense News – The Israel Navy is planning to deploy a new generation of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) based on a US-built combat craft and remote-control technologies and subsystems developed by state-owned Rafael. Once deployed by the middle of next year, they will complement manned surface ships in multiple missions, including defense of Israel’s economic waters, anti-mine and anti-submarine warfare.
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