CIMSEC – The U.S. Navy faces a period in which its missile-firing capacity is declining as strategic threats are rising. Distributing long-range fires across existing additional classes of ships with the help of containerized launchers offers a solution to fill the VLS gap, provide reload flexibility, and expand the number of shooters at sea. While some vessels might not possess the same organic communications, radars, and command and control capabilities as destroyers and cruisers, Navy efforts to improve the fleet’s connectivity and battle network could eventually mean these missiles can be used with the help of other ships in the theater. In distributing lethality this way, the Navy could dig itself out of its VLS hole faster, and achieve the virtues of mass without the vulnerabilities of concentration.

CIMSEC – Archers need arrows. If Congress and the U.S. Navy do not act now to ensure submarines stay armed and ready for battle, munitions problems will only worsen – leaving the force, the fleet, and country more vulnerable.

War on the Rocks – The sinking of the IRIS Dena was a stark reminder that naval warfare follows its own logic. Engagements can occur far from home waters, unfold with little warning, and carry consequences well beyond the immediate tactical exchange. In this case, a single submarine strike intersected with global trade flows, alliance dynamics, contested information environments, and the legal realities of conflict at sea.

USNI News – The Navy cancelled the Modular Attack Surface Craft program launched last year and is creating a new acquisition strategy for unmanned vessels, a service official told reporters Thursday.

CIMSEC – This article proposes the creation of sea-going factories and power plant ships to obtain decisive strategic advantages. Advantages range from shortened supply lines to specialized and customized resupply of both land and sea forces. The consideration of factory ships should not be framed as specialized vessels versus generalized ones. Factory ships should be viewed foremost as factories that happen to float and move like ships, and not primarily as ships.

Though such vessels will need to be specifically designed one day, the present threat represented by the PRC can be addressed by refitting unwanted, but functional, vessels into sea-going factory ships. This article strongly urges a study to be performed to decide the feasibility of the pure concept and its rapid implementation through retrofitting existing vessels.

CIMSEC – A future war in the Western Pacific will not be decided by which side fields the most exquisite platforms on the opening day of combat, but by which side can afford to keep firing on day one hundred. The U.S. is currently organized around a force-and-munitions paradigm that assumes short, decisive campaigns that do not exist in reality. Against a peer with a large, industrialized economy and an asymmetric approach designed to circumvent U.S. short-range precision strike, the result is likely paralysis if not outright defeat.

CIMSEC – A stronger homegrown U.S. shipbuilding and maritime industry remains essential. But domestic revitalization and allied integration are not alternatives; they are mutually reinforcing. A revitalized U.S. industrial base working closely with selected, capable, and willing maritime allies is indispensable to a strategy of deterrence along the First Island Chain. Understood in this light, allied shipbuilding is not optional. It is imperative.

Defense News – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday called NATO allies “cowards” for their unwillingness to help secure maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which he said would be a “simple military maneuver” with little risk. Analysts studying military matters and geopolitics disagree.

USNI News – Ford, the flagship of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, is in port for maintenance and repairs following a March 12 fire in the aft laundry room.