Compass Points - Augment the Amphibs
Action needed now on EPF & ESB
Compass Points - Augment the Amphibs
Action needed now on EPF & ESB
August 24, 2024
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The Marine Corps does not have a moment to lose. It must speak up now before the Navy finalizes a plan that could do tremendous harm. USNI News is reporting, "Navy Could Sideline 17 Support Ships Due to Manpower Issues."
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Military Sealift Command has drafted a plan to remove the crews from 17 Navy support ships due to a lack of qualified mariners to operate the vessels across the Navy, USNI News learned.
The MSC “force generation reset” identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet, three people familiar with the plan told USNI News Thursday.
-- USNI News
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What does this mean? It means an important bridging solution for the Marine Corps is being lost.
The Marine Corps does not have enough amphibious ships now to keep Marines on continuous global patrol. The Navy cannot catch up quickly on all the necessary construction and maintenance of traditional amphibs.
For the last several years, the flexible Expeditionary Fast Transport ships have been ready and available for wider use by the Marine Corps. While the Marine Corps has experimented with the EPF ships, the Corps has been slow to make wider use of the ships that could help ensure that forward deployed Marines are always available around the globe. In a similar way, the Expeditionary Sea Base ships, also available now, could help augment the loss of maritime pre-positioning ships.
The Navy describes the Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF):
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The Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) is a shallow draft, all aluminum, commercial-based catamaran capable of intra-theater personnel and cargo lift, providing combatant commanders high-speed sealift mobility with inherent cargo handling capability and agility to achieve positional advantage over operational distances. Bridging the gap between low-speed sealift and high-speed airlift, EPFs transport personnel, equipment and supplies over operational distances with access to littoral offload points including austere, minor and degraded ports in support of the Global War on Terrorism/Theater Security Cooperation Program, Intra-theater Operational/Littoral Maneuver and Sustainment and Seabasing. EPFs enable the rapid projection, agile maneuver and sustainment of modular, tailored forces in response to a wide range of military and civilian contingencies such as Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief.
Features
The EPF is designed to transport 600 short tons of military cargo 1,200 nautical miles at an average speed of 35 knots in Sea State 3. The ships are capable of operating in shallow-draft ports and waterways, interfacing with roll-on/roll-off discharge facilities and on/off-loading a combat-loaded Abrams Main Battle Tank (M1A2). The EPF includes a flight deck for helicopter operations and an off-load ramp that allow vehicles to quickly drive off the ship. The ramp is suitable for the types of austere piers and quay walls common in developing countries. The ship's shallow draft (under 15 feet) will further enhance littoral operations and port access. This makes the EPF an extremely flexible asset for support of a wide range of operations including maneuver and sustainment, relief operations in small or damaged ports, flexible logistics support or as the key enabler for rapid transport.
EPF has a crew of 26 Civilian Mariners with airline style seating for 312 embarked troops and fixed berthing for an additional 104. Military Sealift Command (MSC) operates and sustains the EPFs, which will be allocated via the Global Force Management for Theater Security Cooperation, service unique missions, intra-theater sealift and special missions.
-- US Navy
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As previously reported on Compass Points, the new Expeditionary Sea Base, Robert E. Simanek (ESB 7), began its first sea trials this month. Compared to the EPF, the Expeditionary Sea Base is a much larger vessel. 785 feet.
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The Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) ship class is a highly flexible platform used across various military operations. ESB ships are mobile sea-based assets and are a part of the critical access infrastructure that supports the deployment of forces, equipment, supplies, and warfighting capability.
ESBs have a four-spot flight deck, mission deck, and hangar, designed around four core capabilities: aviation facilities, berthing, equipment staging support, and command and control assets.
General Characteristics, Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB)
Builder: NASSCO
Propulsion: Commercial Diesel Electric Propulsion
Length: 239.3 Meters (785 feet)
Beam: 50 Meters (164 feet)
Displacement: 90,000 tons (fully loaded)
Draft: 10.5 Meters (fully loaded); 12 Meters (load line)
Speed: 15 knots
Range: 9,500 nautical miles
Crew: 44 Military Sealift Command personnel
Military Crew: 101 military (Accommodations for 250)
-- US Navy
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The EPFs and ESBs can be used as a powerful bridging solution for the Marine Corps and for regional Combatant Commanders. Compass Points has long advocated assigning Special Purpose MAGTFs embarked on EPFs and ESBs to regional Combatant Commanders. That way when a crisis erupted in their AOR, the regional CCDR would always have a Marine Special Purpose MAGTF to respond.
The Marine Corps is struggling with a lack of traditional amphibious and pre-positioning ships. The EPFs and ESBs are powerful bridging options for augmenting and upgrading the traditional amphibious and pre-positioning fleets. The Marine Corps needs to step forward now and claim the EPFs and ESBs before they are put out of service.
If the Marine Corps is not able to make use of the EPFs and ESBs, it makes it even more imperative for the Marine Corps and the Navy to work together to find new ways to accelerate amphibious ship maintenance and construction. Every possible amphibious ship alternative and every possible shipyard must be pressed into service now.
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USNI News - 08/22/2024
Navy Could Sideline 17 Support Ships Due to Manpower Issues
By Sam LaGrone
https://news.usni.org/2024/08/22/navy-could-sideline-17-support-ships-due-to-manpower-issues
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Compass Points - DAX MAGTF - Part 2
Keep the promise to be there.
August 12, 2023
https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-dax-magtf-part-2
Superb insights. The vast array of ships available for purchase globally reveals innumerable craft available for a wide range of USMC/USN missions. We could buy everything we need while our own military ship building capacity sorts itself out. Why is that not done? Well, it is complicated…..if you don’t want to solve the problem.
The second portion of the problem is manning the ships. The first priority of the Navy should be manning its ships. The tooth to tail ratio is badly broken. Yet, on the other end of the spectrum the Navy can’t even purchase enough trousers for the Navy.
Imagine a college football coach who briefs the University President and reveals that he has the full complement of coaches, assistant coaches, trainers, conditioning coaches, administrative staff, public affairs people, academic tutors, a day care center, guidance counselors, community outreach team, DEI evaluators and 60 scholarship players but will not be able to field 11 offensive and 11 defensive players. Not only can’t he field a whole team, but those he can field may not have trousers.
The upper echelons of the civilian and uniformed leadership seem to be perfectly comfortable revealing their impotence and incompetence without regret or shame. It has become a culture tolerant of repeated failure spawned by incompetence, apathy, ignorance, corruption and denial.
"If the Marine Corps is not able to make use of the EPFs and ESBs, it makes it even more imperative for the Marine Corps and the Navy to work together to find new ways to accelerate amphibious ship maintenance and construction. Every possible amphibious ship alternative and every possible shipyard must be pressed into service now."
The issue is not lack of facilities. The issue with ship maintenance is the continued deferment of maintenance and the lack of skilled tradesmen to effect these repairs. I have been shouting from the rooftops about the lack of available skilled tradesmen and women to work in the shipyards.
Who has not seen the "We build giants" commercials that are plastering the airwaves during sporting events? They are paying $22 an hour to start to hold a broom! If you want to learn a trade, they will teach you!
The Hampton Roads area of Virginia, home to Huntington Ingalls (builders of subs and carriers), and countless shipyards and repair companies CANNOT GET THE LABOR WE NEED.
I partially blame the Navy for this. Their haphazard way of planning maintenance is one of the lead problems with keeping trained talent in your workforce. Right now, one of the shipyards is in the process of laying off hundreds of workers since they did not win the latest LHD contract. The shipyard just down the road, who won the contract, is hiring. How is that for stability of home/work life? Having to find a new job every two years?
And this is just the maintenance side. Can you imagine if they did stop making the ships for a "strategic pause" and the effects on the skilled workforces those building yards employ?