Over many years, the Marine Corps expressed its operational requirement for amphibious lift as enough lift for two Marine Expeditionary Brigade Assault Echelons (MEB AE) of forcible-entry capability, reinforced with two additional MEBs from the Maritime Prepositioning Force. The two MEB AE forcible-entry capability requires 34 amphibious warfare ships (17 ships per MEB). When forward-presence requirements are considered with the 2.0 MEB lift requirement, the AE requirements total 38 ships. Of these 38 ships, 11 must be aviation-capable large-deck ships — LandinHelicopter Assault (LHA), Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD), or Landing Helicopter Assault (Replacement) LHA(R) — to accommodate the MEB’s Aviation Combat Element. Today, with FD 2030, the Marine Corps says it no longer has a requirement for 38 ships. In doing so, as Daniel Goure reports at 19fortyfive.com (link below) the Marine Corps and the nation may be left without an effective amphibious warfare fleet.
1945 (19fortyfive.com)
Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
U.S. Marine Corps Could Be Left With No Effective Amphibious Warfare Fleet
By Daniel Goure
. . . The Navy appears to be taking radical steps that could have the effect of gutting the large amphib force. In its FY2023 budget submission, the Navy proposes decommissioning four of the remaining aging Whidbey Island LSDs. Simultaneously, it seeks to truncate procurement of the LPD 17 Flight II, the ship class that was supposed to replace the LSDs, to three. As the remaining LSDs age out, the amphibious force would be reduced to some 26 large vessels, of which 16 would be 13 LPD Flight Is and just three Flight IIs . . .
. . . Terminating LPD 17 Flight II production would have a number of negative consequences. It would undermine the ability of the Navy/Marine Corps team to serve as this nation’s premier emergency force. Even if the Navy acquires the 35 LAWs the Marine Corps wants, they are not a replacement for LPD 17s. The loss of the LPD 17 would also have a devastating impact on the shipbuilding industrial base.
The Department of Defense may be creating a “perfect storm,” a situation in which LSD decommissioning and LPD 17 Flight II production terminations, coupled with increasing costs for the LAW, could leave the Sea Services with inadequate numbers of both large and small amphibs. As a result, the amphibious fleet would not be postured to meet either its peacetime presence and crisis response missions or contribute to a high-end fight as envisioned by the Marine Corps’ new operational concept.
Dr. Daniel Goure, a 1945 Contributing Editor, is Senior Vice President with the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. He is involved in a wide range of issues as part of the institute’s national security program. Dr. Goure has held senior positions in both the private sector and the U.S. Government. Most recently, he was a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. Dr. Goure spent two years in the U.S. Government as the director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also served as a senior analyst on national security and defense issues with the Center for Naval Analyses, Science Applications International Corporation, SRS Technologies, R&D Associates, and System Planning Corporation.
The amphibous shipbuilding industrial base has dwindeled to a single zip code. That is the zip code for Pascagoula, MI. The vendor base for those ships is, in many cases, down to a single supplier. In many of those instances, the product line for these ships is the lions share of their sales. It only takes rumors of termination to cause this fragile lower tier of the industrial base to collapse. Reconstitution will take years with sharp increases in cost due to the absence of competition. The LPD 17 has been designed to accommodate many variants. One compelling example is JCC(X), requiring only a 50m plug. There are others for another discussion. Building one LPD 17 every other year for a decade will grow lift nicely as we watch LAW unfold in much the same manner as LCS. Like LAW, LCS was a mandated departure from conventional wisdom in an environment where dissent was unwelcomed, and the surface Navy took its long trip to Abilene.