The Navy may get a boost in readiness through additional military construction to support aviation readiness and shipyard workforce growth, if provisions in the House Armed Services Committee’s 2017 defense bill pass, but the Marine Corps would not get any aviation readiness dollars above what the service requested in its February budget submission. – USNI News
Most of the Marine Corps’ 276 F/A-18 Hornets are deployed, being used for training or in need of repair, the service's top aviator told lawmakers on Wednesday. – Military Times
As advocates call on the Pentagon to buy as many as 200 next-generation bombers to counter growing threats, House legislation released this week urged the Air Force to take another look at how many B-21s commanders really need. – Defense News
A key Democrat is raising concerns about plans to reverse Army troop cuts and mandate a higher raise than requested by the Pentagon. – The Hill
Higher pay raises for the nation's military personnel could lead to more readiness shortfalls, a key House Democrat warned Wednesday. – Military Times
Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall, in congressional testimony Wednesday, defended the controversial path to end the US reliance on Russian rocket engines for military space launch—and Senate appropriators signaled their continued support. – Defense News
Shortly after that seemingly anodyne press release on April 12, the Defense Department said it was withdrawing its request for legislation intended to elevate national security concerns in the review of proposed mergers among U.S. defense contractors. The reason, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer said Wednesday, was that the antitrust enforcers assured him they would give adequate weight to such issues. In the process, a conflict among federal agencies on antitrust enforcement may have been averted. - Bloomberg
The Navy is sticking to its plans to field an unmanned MQ-XX Stingray platform with just tanking and surveillance capabilities to start with, while the Marine Corps is experimenting with the MQ-8C Fire Scout to help inform its path forward for amphibious assault ship-based unmanned aviation, officials said Wednesday. – USNI News
The US Army has launched a number of different types of missiles from its new Multi-Mission Launcher (MML), developed entirely by the service, but last week marks the first time a foreign interceptor was tested with the system. – Defense News
Bill Gertz reports: The U.S. is moving to counter Chinese and Russian hypersonic strike vehicles using lasers, the director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency revealed last week. – Washington Times’ Inside the Ring