Compass Points - Amphib U-Turn
Getting more amphib ships
Compass Points - Amphib U-Turn
Getting more amphib ships
September 26, 2024
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When going in the wrong direction, the most important thing is to turn around. It is impossible to make progress by continuing to go in the wrong direction. To make progress, it is necessary to turn around. The Navy has not constructed nor maintained enough amphibious ships for the Marine Corps. This is not a new problem. It is a been a problem for decades. While the Marine Corps focuses on amphibious ships, the Navy has a pressing need not only for amphibious ships, but for submarines, aircraft carriers, and many other ships. Budgets, shipyard capacity, and time make it difficult to construct and maintain all the needed ships.
In his recent article, "Fixing the Navy's Readiness Crisis" author and Marine Gary Anderson reviews the Marine Corps' longstanding lack of amphibious ships.
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Whenever a global crisis arose, since the start of the Cold War, a president’s first question has always been "where are the carriers and where are the marines?" Until recently, the answer was a few hours or a few days away. That is no longer the case.
Today, we have only two Navy aircraft carriers forward deployed, both in the Middle East monitoring the war in Gaza and Southern Lebanon. For the Marines, there are not enough amphibious ships to maintain a persistent presence in the three critical global hot spots – the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and the Indo-Pacific.
For the first time, in the past few years, the Navy-Marine Corps team could not respond to crises situations in Sudan and Turkey. While the Marine Corps is partly to blame for shedding significant parts of its traditional amphibious role to concentrate on island defense in China’s first island chain. The greatest problem, however, has been a lack of amphibious ships to carry the marines.
The readiness of amphibious ships, critical to the Marine Corps statutory and traditional mission has fallen to forty percent. At any given time, we have only twelve seaworthy amphibious ships to cover the entire world. With crises emerging around the globe, this critical shortfall is unacceptable.
-- Gary Anderson in Real Clear Defense
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While the lack of amphibious ships is not new, the problem was made much worse back in the summer of 2019 when the new Commandant issued his Commandant's Planning Guidance (CPG). In the CPG the new Commandant recklessly threw away the Marine Corps' long standing requirement for enough amphibious ships for a two MEB lift. The Commandant told the Navy that the Marine Corps would be satisfied with fewer amphibious ships.
This surprising announcement resulted in the Secretary of the Navy putting a "strategic pause" on all amphibious ship construction. Later, the Navy Secretary announced that no further San Antonio class amphibious ships would be built. One bad decision has grown into more bad decisions. In the Marine Corps the resulting crisis in amphibious ships has alarmed nearly every Marine who understands the importance to the Nation of Marine Corps global crisis response. Only the most ardent supporters of the former Commandant still believe the Marine Corps needs fewer amphibious ships.
It has taken direct oversight by Congress to set into law a requirement for 31 amphibious ships. A recent article in USNI News announces, "Ingalls Wins $9.6B in Shipbuilding Contracts for 4 Amphibious Warships." Finally, the "strategic pause" in amphibious ships building is over. And the previous decision to build no more San Antonio class amphibious ships has been reversed.
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HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding has been awarded $9.6 billion in contracts to build four amphibious warships, according to a Tuesday announcement from the Pentagon.
A $5.79 billion award funds the detailed design and construction of three Flight II San Antonio-class amphibious warships – LPD-33, LPD-34 and LPD35. A second $3.8 bill award funds the advanced procurement and detailed design and construction for the future big deck amphib Helmand Province (LHA-10), according to the contract announcement.
“We greatly appreciate the stability that this award provides to all Ingalls shipbuilders and our surrounding communities,” Ingalls president Kari Wilkinson said in a statement to USNI News.
“It is an honor to continue our support of the joint Navy and Marine Corps mission to meet the minimum 31 amphibious ship requirement.”
-- USNI News
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The construction of new amphibious ships is important. Allowing allies like Japan, Australia, and South Korea to perform ship maintenance would also help. Using ships that are available now like the Expeditionary Fast Transports and many other types and sizes of available ships would also help.
When going in the wrong direction, the most important thing is to turn around. It is impossible to make progress by continuing to go in the wrong direction. Turn around. Compass Points salutes the Secretary of the Navy for turning around and restarting the construction of more San Antonio class amphibious ships. This does not solve the amphibious ship crisis, but it gets the Navy and Marine Corps moving in the right direction.
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Real Clear Defense - 09/25/2024
Fixing the Navy's Readiness Crisis
By Gary Anderson
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USNI News - 09/24/2024
Ingalls Wins $9.6B in Shipbuilding Contracts for 4 Amphibious Warships
By Sam LaGrone
The 3rd Marine Division is being converted to three MLRs. The 3rd Marines and 12th Marines have already been redesignated MLRs. The 4th Marines is next up. Said another way, 1 of the 3 active Marine Corps Divisions has been restructured and reorganized into irrelevance. The bill payer for this transformation has been I and II MEF under the misguided concept of “divest to invest.”
The purpose of the MLRs in III MEF are to forward deploy SIFs inside contested areas to sink PLAN ships. Each MLR has one Naval Strike Missile Battery. The NSM is subsonic and short-range (115 NM or thereabouts). The shorter missile range means the SIF must deploy deeper into the Chinese WEZ to even theoretically get off a shot.
But, the Marine Corps has no capability to deploy, redeploy, or logistically support widely dispersed and isolated SIFs inside the WEZ. The current and previous Commandants put all their eggs in the LSM basket - - articulating a requirement for 35. The Navy has reduced the requirement to 18. None have been built to date. Five have some visibility in the budgeting process. The main stumbling block to procurement is survivability. The ships as currently envisioned are simply not survivable, despite Marine Corps pronouncements that they will blend in with commercial shipping and go to ground and hide when the shooting starts.
With or without the LSM, the SIFs cannot be logistically supported. With no SIFs, the MLRs are irrelevant. Without MLRs, Force Design is irrelevant. Alarmist or realist?
Again.. .FD2030 is proving to be a colossal disaster for our Corps and its readiness!!!