Light Amphibious Warship / Landing Ship Medium Update

As you know, the key to the Marines idiotic missile sniping (and ASW!) concept is the Light Amphibious Warship, now being called a Landing Ship Medium (some admiral-wannabe probably got another star for that reclassification!) in the latest churn which attempts to look like progress.  The LAW/LSM is already a few years late as the Marines have already stood up their littoral regiments (they haven’t explained how they’ll transport those Marines since the LAW/LSM does not yet exist).
 
The Navy has seemed reluctant to embrace the Marine’s concept and has slow-walked the LAW/LSM program, as noted in the GAO annual report.[1]
 

… after years of delays and affordability concerns, the Navy shifted to a two-block acquisition strategy in December 2024 that reduces requirements for the ships in the first block and defers pursuit of a ship that will fully meet requirements to a later block.[1]

So, the Navy is going to purchase ships that they know will not meet the requirements?  Do you know what a ship that can’t meet the requirements is called?  That’s right, it’s a reef, paperweight, target drone, LCS, embarrassment .
 
Is the Navy at least moving quickly on the Block 2 version that fully meets the requirements?
 

… program officials said they have yet to start planning the details of the transition to the second block, such as the timing of the transition or the requirements of the next block.[1]

They haven’t even defined the requirements, yet? 
 
I can’t see anything going wrong with this program.
 
 
 
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[1]Government Accountability Office, "Weapon Systems Annual Assessment", Jul 2026, p.144

Amphibious Assault Size

Our peacetime paradigm has led us to believe that war is a small affair:  a few ships, a company of soldiers, a platoon with a few missiles (according to the Marines!), a carrier and a couple of escorts, etc.  We’ve forgotten the immense scale of effort that a true war requires.  Let’s take a look at historical amphibious assaults from WWII and remind ourselves of the size of the effort required for success.
 
 
Guadalcanal - 11,000 troops initial assault, 1^st Marine Div, plus 6,000 additional men from various battalions over the next few weeks;  initial force proved too small and required additional Marine and Army reinforcements
 
Tarawa/Makin - 35,000 troops, 36 transports, 2^nd Marine Div.; 8th, 2nd, 6th, 10th, 18th Regiments plus other battalions; 27^th Army Div., 165^th Regiment, 3^rd Battalion/105^th Infantry Regiment
 
Kwajalein – 85,000 troops,4^th Marine Div, 7^th Army Div, 300 ships
 
Eniwetok – 3500 troops, 22^nd Marine Reg., 106^th Infantry Regiment
 
Saipan - 60,000 – 70,000 troops, 2^nd Marine Div, 4^th Marine Div, 27^th Infantry Div
 
Guam - 36,000 troops, 3^rd Marine Div, 77^th Infantry Div
 
Tinian – 15,000 troops, 2^nd Marine Div, 4^th Marine Div
 
Peleliu – 28,000 troops, 1^st Marine Div, 81^st Infantry Div
 
Luzon - 175,000 troops;  6^th Army, 800 ships
 
Iwo Jima – 110,000 troops, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th Marine Div;  500+ ships
 
Okinawa - 200,000 troops, 1^st, 2^nd, 6^th Marine Div, 7^th, 27^th, 77^th, 96^th Infantry Div
 
Normandy – 173,000 troops, 4^th, 82^nd, 90^st, 101^st, 1^st, 29^th Infantry Divisions plus several British and Canadian divisions
 
Desert Storm – While not an amphibious assault and not even remotely approximating a high end, global, peer war, it still involved some 600,000+ troops of all types.

 
We’ve come to believe that an amphibious assault can be conducted by a platoon, company, or, at the high end, a 2000 man Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU).  This is simply not true.  The best any of those can do is a minor raid and, in the context of a peer war, those would be very minor annoyance raids, at best.
 
In addition to noting the size of the ground forces, check the size of some of the naval components:  up to several hundred ships!  Our entire current Navy would be insufficient to conduct a single assault.
 
We’ve completely forgotten the magnitude of the forces necessary to wage a high end war.  The only point to this post is that we have got to start remembering what real war entails and start training for and factoring in the sheer magnitude of: 

• Ground force size (tens to hundreds of thousands of troops)
• Logistics required to support massive ground forces
• Horrifying attrition
• Naval force size assets (hundreds of ships)
• Industrial manufacturing capacity (see attrition)
• Munitions consumption on a staggering scale

  
Our pathetic exercises involving platoons and companies or a few ships is so insufficient and inadequate as to border on criminal (in the figurative sense).  We have to scale our exercises up to semi-realistic sizes.  We need to exercise actual divisions, not virtual simulations.  We need to assemble and exercise several dozen ships at a time and learn how to command and control them as well as keep them supplied with munitions and fuel (guaranteed we can’t).
 
Almost none of this involves the pursuit of new technology which seems to be the military’s main focus and default solution to any problem or question.  We are so far off the correct path we can’t even see it from where we are!  The Navy is, by their own public statements, facing an imminent Chinese war …  …  and they’re downsizing the fleet!  In what alternate reality does that make sense?
 
As I keep saying, we’ve forgotten what real war is.  Perhaps this post will help us remember.

Assault Ratio

One of the well known cornerstones of maritime strategy is,

The Seat of Purpose is on Land (1)

Too many naval observers tend to view naval matters in isolation, as purely ship-on-ship affairs.  The reality is that navies exist to support ground actions.  Yes, they may do this, in part, by ship-on-ship battles but the ultimate purpose of a navy is to influence and support matters on land.  Thus, the US Navy in WWII found itself conducting a series of amphibious assaults in the Pacific in order to support the overall strategy of seizing the LAND(S) of Japan.

Unfortunately, the land (islands) that needed to be seized was held by Japanese forces that had had sufficient – often lengthy – periods of time to build fortified defenses.  Thus, overwhelming force was needed to ensure victory against a dug in and fortified defense.  This brings us to that well known axiom of attack which gives the advantage to the defenders by a margin of 3:1.  This means that the attacker must bring a numerical superiority in troops of 3:1 in order to ensure victory.

Attack is to Defense as 3 is to 1

Let’s look at the historical data for the Pacific campaign and see how the numbers and troop attack:defense ratios compared in several of the major defended assaults.

	Date	US Troops	Japanese Troops	Attack:Defense
Tarawa	Nov 1943	18,000	4,800	3.75 : 1
Hollandia	Apr 1944	50,000	14,000	3.57 : 1
Saipan	Jun 1944	59,000	29,000	2.03 : 1
Guam	Jul 1944	36,000	22,000	1.64 : 1
Tinian	Jul 1944	41,000	8,000	5.12 : 1
Peleliu	Sep 1944	47,500	10,900	4.36 : 1
Philippines	Oct 1944	200,000	85,000	2.35 : 1
Iwo Jima	Feb 1945	110,000	21,000	5.24 : 1
Okinawa	Apr 1945	183,000	76,000	2.41 : 1

Indeed, we see that the attacking US forces did, generally, have a 3:1 advantage although the ratios varied quite a bit.  A further factor affecting the ratio is that in an amphibious assault, there are other elements involved such as aircraft and ships which may positively impact the attacker’s effective ratio (fire support, bombardment, etc.) while not impacting the numerical ratio.  In short, the attacker:defender ratio is a useful concept but is affected by many factors beyond just troop counts.  The takeaway from the ratios we see in the table is that the attacking force did seem to recognize the necessity and/or desirability of having a significant numerical advantage and this is the lesson for us, today.

One also can’t help but be struck by the sheer numbers of troops involved.  We’ve come to believe that war is something that is conducted by a squad or platoon on patrol and that a major action might involve a company of a hundred or so troops.  In stark contrast, amphibious assaults in WWII involved multiple regiments, divisions, and even armies!  Given that a single big deck LHA amphibious ship can carry 1600 or so troops and other amphibious ship classes even less, where are we going to get the transport capacity to move 50,000 – 200,000 assault troops for a single operation?  But, I digress …

The numbers of troops – and remember that this was repeated for each assault! – suggest that we need to radically readjust our operational thinking.  When was the last time we practiced an amphibious assault with more than a single ship, let alone the twenty to ninety troop transports necessary for a serious assault?  If we think we’re going to conduct major amphibious assaults (a notion that ComNavOps does not agree with!), as the Marines claim to be able to do, we need to begin practicing how to coordinate that many ships, how to integrate them into a single operational plan, how to simultaneously unload them without them getting in each other’s way, how to get all those troops ashore (currently, we can only land a portion of the troops as we are limited by AAV numbers – how will the rest get ashore?), how to get the troops ashore quickly, how to move enough supplies (the logistics that are the heart of any operation) to sustain an assault, and a thousand other aspects – including fire support and, yes, I’m going to continue to bang that drum because our doctrine calls for it, assumes we have it, and yet we have none.

On a broader level, this same 3:1 requirement applies to land battles.  I’m not as familiar with Army matters but I know that for the last few decades we have stopped exercising complete, large units.  It’s probably safe to say that there is no serving General who has commanded an entire division in an exercise.  The Army has been leading the way among the services as far as refocusing on major war but even they are still woefully behind the curve.  Perhaps they’ve begun to exercise at brigade and larger levels but, if so, I’m unaware of it.  Regardless, the Navy and Marines are absolutely not operating at these levels and they need to begin doing so, immediately.

I touched on it, already, but these kinds of troop numbers also point to a need to reinvigorate our logistic capability.  How will we supply food, ammo, fuel, water, and the thousand other items needed by 50,000 – 200,000 men in the field?  How will we get that quantity of supplies to the operational area?  How will we provide escort for the logistic ships?  How will we get the vast quantity of supplies ashore in a timely manner given that we struggle to get enough supplies ashore during a minor humanitarian assistance mission?  How will we get supplies ashore if we don’t have a secure port?  And so on …

As I’ve stated in previous posts, it is not reasonable to have all the equipment and capabilities to accomplish this on hand today.  We didn’t have that capability at the start of WWII, either.  Those are the things you build during the war.  What is reasonable is to have designs for cheap troopships ready to go, prototypes of effective landing craft (not the nearly useless LCACs that we have) that are operational and working on tactics, plans in hand for likely major assaults, fire support plans (you know, for our non-existent fire support capability), etc.

Regarding exercises, no, I don’t expect us to perform an amphibious exercise involving 50,000 – 200,000 troops (although the assault fleets did exactly that prior to each assault!) but we should do at least a yearly assault exercise involving, say, a complete Marine Expeditionary Brigade (14,000 troops or so).  What a cluster**** that would be but, at least, we’d know where the problems are and we could begin addressing them now rather than waiting for our own Tarawa to find out that we don’t know what we’re doing.

We need to wake up. 

We need to remember that war involves massive numbers of people and equipment. 

We need to recognize that what we’re organized for and training for, today, bears almost no resemblance to actual war. 

We need to begin preparing for war …  China is.

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(1)http://www.navy.mil.za/SANGP100/SANGP100_CH01.pdf , p.6

LST Development and Death

The LST was a WWII development intended to provide amphibious assault landing capability on a much larger scale than the individual, small landing craft.  In this role it was hugely successful.  So, given that the Navy has no LSTs anymore, what happened to its development that led to abandoning a combat proven, immensely valuable vessel?

Let’s briefly review the original WWII LST(v2).  As we know, it was purpose designed for larger scale beaching unloads.  As such, it was not normally part of the initial assault wave but was a key part of the follow on reinforcement and sustainment effort.  It was able to land a large quantity of troops and vehicles without requiring a port, artificial harbor, or other extraordinary effort.  With a bow door and ramp, vehicles were able to simply drive straight off the vehicle deck, across the ramp, onto the beach, and into the fight.  

WWII LST

The cargo capacity was 2,100 tons and approximately 200 soldiers. Its heart was a tank deck which was 230 ft long, 30 ft wide, and 12 ft tall. (1)  Well over a thousand LSTs were built during the war and hundreds served around the world for many decades after the war.

The LST was a nice balance of rapid construction (two months build time), low cost, low risk versus payload, and efficient delivery directly to the beach.

Post-war, in the late 1950’s, the US Navy built seven new LSTs designated the De Soto County class.  It was 445 ft long versus the WWII LST of 327 ft.  The main refinement seems to have been improved habitability for crew and embarked troops.  This class marked the beginning of the end for the LST in US Navy service.  It was a significantly larger ship that offered no new or improved combat capability and marked an unwise trend toward deployments over missions.

De Soto County Class LST

In 1969, the Navy finalized the ruination of the LST with the construction of the Newport class which was substantially larger, more complex in design and operation (a Mickey Mouse derrick/ramp, over-the-bow arrangement and bow thrusters), and incorporated a stern gate to launch AAVs and mate LCUs.

Newport Class LST - Note Over-the-Bow Ramp

Here’s a comparison of the WWII LST and the Newport LST.

	LST	Newport
Length, ft	327	522
Width, ft	50	70
Crew	120	220
Transport, troops	140	400

Newport Class LST - Note Flight Deck

We see, in the LST design history, today’s trend toward deployment ‘cruise’ ships meant to house troops for extended periods instead of just for the duration of an assault. 

The trend towards deployments and permanent troop housing led to the explosive size growth of the type.  Compare the original LST at 327 ft long with the Newport class at 522 ft – with no concomitant increase in combat capability, just a larger size which made the ship a larger target and greater risk, contrary to the combat dictate of spreading the risk.  Yes, some small growth could reasonably have been expected given the increase in tank and vehicle size but much of the increase went to habitability rather than capacity.

Other than a core of LSTs maintained for training and tactics development, LSTs should never have been turned into ‘cruise’ ships.  They should have been tied up pierside and left until needed.  A simple rotational schedule for training exercises would suffice to keep the ships mechanically maintained and operable and core of crews trained.

Because the LST became a deployment asset rather than a mission asset, it had to perform more functions.  The LST became more of an amphibious ‘base’ ship than a single function landing vessel.  This is seen in the provision of a stern gate in the Newport class to allow AAV launches and mating with LCUs and the incorporation of a flight deck.  This eventually led to the amphibious fleet of today which epitomizes all the weaknesses we’ve discussed: concentration of risk, unaffordable cost, deployments over missions, and sub-optimal capability for the combined roles of aviation and transport.

By abandoning the single function, combat-focused design in favor of a deployment ‘cruise’ ship meant to house troops for extended periods, the Navy made the LST unaffordable relative to its other budget desires  …  …  …  and the LST vanished from the fleet.

There’s a larger issue, here, and that is that we’re peacetime designing warships out of existence by giving them non-combat features until they become unaffordable.  Once war ended and the sharp, laser-focus on combat capabilities vanished our ship designs began wandering into peacetime requirements of comfort and endurance rather than combat.  We now have a fleet of compromised designs intended for peacetime use rather than war.

We need to bring the LST back but only in its original form:  cheap, quick to build, mission oriented, and without peacetime frills.

____________________________

(1)https://www.army.mil/article/10067/lst_in_wwii

13th MEU Deployment Tidbits

The Essex Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) just left for a deployment to the Western Pacific and Middle East.  There are some interesting aspects to the deployment including a detachment of F-35Bs.  Here’s some more tidbits of interest.

Essex ARG includes Essex (LHD-2), amphibious transport dock USS Anchorage (LPD-23), and dock landing ship USS Rushmore (LSD-47).

• "Blackjacks" of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 21 (MH-60S helos)
• Assault Craft Unit 5 (LCAC)
• Naval Beach Group 1
• Beachmaster Unit 1
• Fleet Surgical Team 3
• Tactical Air Control Squadron 11

13^th MEU is commanded by Col. Chandler Nelms and consists of

• Command Element
• Aviation Combat Element
• Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 166 (Reinforced)
• Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 211
• Ground Combat Element
• Battalion Landing Team 3/1 (Reinforced)
• Logistics Combat Element
• Combat Logistics Battalion 13.

  

The F-35B’s belong to VMFA-211 (Yuma Marine Corps Air Station, Ariz.) and will make up part of the 26-aircraft air combat element.  A MEU typically operates around half a dozen Harriers in addition to MV-22s and various transport and attack helos so, presumably, the F-35B’s will also number around six.

Deployment training evolutions included exercises in maritime interdiction operations, anti-piracy operations, close-air support, air assaults, reconnaissance, amphibious landings, humanitarian assistance, non-combatant evacuation, assisting the State Department. (3)  Note how many of those missions are non-combat.

One of the interesting aspects of the ARG is the apparent lack of advanced communications and data linking as compared to other surface warships.

“Olin [Capt. Gerald Olin, Amphibious Squadron 1 commander and commodore of the Essex], who’s served on warships and a carrier, said he was surprised when he came to Essex – his first amphibious ship assignment – and took command of PHIBRON 1 in November after serving as its deputy commander. “I didn’t see an air picture. I didn’t see a robust link picture,” as he did on other ships.

“We’re trying to up that game a little bit, ensure that the command-and-control piece is much more clearer for the leader controlling forces,” he said of the Essex ARG. (1)

The Marine Commandant noted the same types of issues.

“Neller [Commandant of the Marine Corps] voiced concerns about continued shortfalls in advanced joint communications technology among the Navy’s L-class inventory of amphibious ships, particularly as it enables the Marine Corps to maximize the capabilities and features of the Joint Strike Fighter. “They need to have a comparable capability with other ships,” the commandant said.

With the F-35 shipboard deployments looming ahead, “I’m not sure we’re going to optimize the capability of that airplane on the big-deck amphib because of some of the command-and-control. So we’ve got to fix that,” he added.” (1)

And,

“The Marines’ new F-35Bs have the sensors to gather vast amounts of data and the computer smarts to “fuse” and make sense of it, experts tell us, but the Navy amphibious warships it will fly from lack the networks and computing to download and use all that intelligence. (4)

“almost none of our ships are equipped communications-wise to make full use of all of the information an F-35 can send to them in real time,” (4)

How long has the F-35 been under development and the Navy still hasn’t addressed aircraft-to-ship communications and data linking?  It’s not like this is a sudden, new problem.  The communication and datalinking issue has been highlighted for many years in DOT&E reports.

F-35 sensor fusion remains a problem.  Note the use of the phrase, “a little bit funky”.

“Shoop, VMFA-211’s commander, said the F-35B’s AN/APG-81 distributed radar “is the best one on the market, hands down,” noting among other features its multiple air-to-ground nodes to link with ground forces. Various sensors fused for situational awareness into a single display remain “a little bit funky,” he said, but pilots “get a God’s eye view.”

“It’s good right now. It’s getting better as software fusion algorithms get tweaked,” he added.”

The MEU will also deploy with a small UAV, the RQ-21 Blackjack.

“The F-35B isn’t the only new aircraft the 13th MEU will have for the first time. The air combat element will have the RQ-21 Blackjack, a small, tactical Group 3 unmanned aerial vehicle from a detachment from Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1, based at Yuma.

“There are some naysayers about the RQ-21 deploying with the MEU, because it does have a fairly limited radius as a platform,” Nelms said. “It’s got an incredible amount of time on station, but it’s only get a fairly limited amount of combat radius for us because it’s a line-of-sight controlled platform.”

The UAV has a “range” of 50 kilometers, or 31 miles, according to Naval Air Systems Command. (Boeing, whose subsidiary Insitu, Inc., developed the RQ-21, advertises a “line-of-sight range” of 55 nautical miles, or 63 miles.)” (1)

Blackjack UAV

These kind of UAVs are a niche capability but, under the right circumstances, can be quite useful.  Whether they’re worth the space onboard ship is an open question especially since the ARG/MEU has plenty of full size helos with much greater range.

13^th MEU will also bring along M1 Abrams tanks – something that is becoming less and less common.

“Along with a full company of 19 light-armored vehicles, more than it took on its prior MEU deployment, it will have a platoon of [four] M1A2 Abrahms main battle tanks.” (1)

The Marine’s focus on non-combat capabilities shows with the 13th MEU deploying with a Female Engagement Team (2) which is, according to the Marines, a small group of women as advisers and liaisons uniquely poised to cut through cultural sensitivities surrounding gender.  What a bunch of bilgewater!  If you need a Female Engagement Team then you’re not engaged in combat and you don’t need the Marines.  The Marines are meant to fight, not talk.  We have plenty of other organizations that can talk about feelings and sensitivities.

Female Engagement Team - Seriously?

The 13^th MEU’s deployment is demonstrating the changes the Corps and the MEU’s are undergoing as they transition from powerful, feared, credible amphibious combat units to non-combat, light infantry, crisis response groups whose focus is steadily moving away from combat and towards humanitarian missions.  Peer level combat seems to be a fading priority.

______________________________________

(1)USNI News website, “Challenges Ahead as 13th MEU, Essex ARG Prep for First West Coast F-35 Deployment”, Gidget Fuentes, 12-Feb-2018,

https://news.usni.org/2018/02/12/challenges-ahead-13th-meu-essex-arg-prep-first-west-coast-f-35-deployment

(2)https://www.13thmeu.marines.mil/

(3)http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=105312

(4)Breaking Defense website, “Upgrade Navy Networks To Get Most From F-35: Commandant Wants Quality” Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., 15-Feb-2018,

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/02/upgrade-navy-networks-to-get-most-from-f-35-commandant-wants-quality/

We Didn't Bring The Tanks

I’ve been waiting for this one for a while, now, and it’s finally happened.  The Marines are deploying a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) without any tanks.  Perhaps it’s happened before and I just didn’t notice.  As noted in the May 2017 issue of Proceedings,

“Despite the maneuverability, lethality, and survivability that tanks provide, the 15^th MEU will deploy without its battalion landing team’s (BLT’s) M1A1s.  The unit will embark on the USS America (LHA-6), the USS San Diego (LPD-22), and the USS Pearl Harbor (LSD-52);  these ships lack adequate space for the unit’s equipment, driving the decision to deploy without the tanks.”

The article’s author goes on to note that, in addition to the obvious benefits of armor, firepower, infantry support, and survivability, tanks also offer a great deal of flexibility due to their dozer blades and mine plows which allow the tanks to create and remove obstacles, clear safe paths through mine fields, provide breeching capability under fire, etc.

The point of this post is not to analyze or extol the value of tanks but, rather, to note the insanely stupid decisions that have led to not having enough room for the MEU’s equipment and the highly questionable choice to leave the tanks behind.

Let’s start with the decision to remove the well deck from the LHA America.  Without a well deck and LCAC, there’s no point loading a tank since you can’t unload it.

“To that end, its commanders [Col. Joseph Clearfield, commander of the 15th MEU] say, the 15th MEU/ARG remains a highly-capability and perhaps more flexible force. The lack of a well deck, often cited by critics in recent years, won’t diminish its combat and operational might, they said.” (1)

Losing the MEU’s entire tank platoon doesn’t diminish the MEU’s combat capability?  Spin is one thing, lies are another.

Nope - Didn't Bring 'Em

There’s another aspect to all this and that is the Navy/Marine’s obsession with disaggregated Amphibious Ready Groups wherein the individual ships go their separate ways on deployment.  What happens when the USS America, with no well deck and no connector craft, has to conduct a solo operation?  If it requires nothing more than light infantry, they’ll be fine.  If it requires a bit of heavy support, they won’t have any.  In any single ship, contested operation, the aircraft will be largely tied up defending the ship and will be unavailable for ground support.

The Marines are supposed to be a medium weight force.  Leaving the tanks behind and using an LHA without a well deck is just another step on the path to a pure light infantry force.  Light infantry are not survivable on the modern battlefield.

If this MEU has to conduct a contested amphibious operation and the troops are being pounded and screaming for armored firepower, someone is going to have to tell the troops, “We didn’t bring the tanks.”

_______________________________________

(1)USNI News website, “Navy, Marines to Test, Stretch Aviation-heavy USS America Before Deployment”, Gidget Fuentes, 23-Jan-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/01/23/navy-marines-test-stretch-aviation-heavy-uss-america-deployment

LX(R) and LCAC

The LCS received intense scrutiny at its inception and that scrutiny continues to this day.  The Zumwalt, by comparison, has received almost none (baffling, huh?).  Somewhere in between is the LX(R).  Let’s take a couple of posts to look a bit closer at the LX(R).  We’ll start with just a quick peak at the LCAC carrying capacity of the LX(R).  This is just setting the stage for a few upcoming LX(R) posts and is not intended to be a deep analysis.  Read this post as a simple factoid, so to speak, that acts as a lead in to more posts.

The Navy intends to replace the LSD-41/49 class ships with a new LX(R) class.  One of the key differences between the old and new ships will be the well deck space and, in particular, the LCAC capacity.  Let’s take a closer look.

The LSD-41 Whidbey Island class dock landing ship is an 8 ship class with the ability to carry 4 LCACs or 5 LCACs if the cargo ramp is raised.  That’s 32 or 40 LCACs, total.

The LSD-49 Harpers Ferry class dock landing ship is a 4 ship class with the ability to carry 2 LCACs.  That’s 8 LCACs, total.

In total, the LSD-41/49 class has a capacity for 40-48 LCACs.

The Navy is planning to replace the 12 LSDs with 11 LX(R)s.  Each LX(R) will carry 2 LCACs for a total of 22.

So, the amphibious fleet will go from 40-48 LCAC capacity to 22.  That’s quite a drop for an amphibious fleet that is already sorely lacking sufficient ship to shore connectors.  Does that signal that the Navy/Marines are getting out of the amphibious assault business altogether, or that the Marines are betting on shifting from amphibious assault to vertical assault, or that they’re just idiots?  I have no idea what the official line of thinking on this one is.  For the moment, ponder this and we’ll take a closer look in a bit.

LSD-41 Class - 4 LCACs

LX(R) Class - 2 LCACs

Sneak peak:  There is actually another, more likely, explanation (although don’t discount the idiocy explanation!) which we’ll cover shortly.

Scattered Across the Pacific

USNI News website has an article about Marine Commandant Dunford suggesting that the Marines must fundamentally shift the way they operate in response to their new preference for force disaggregation across the Pacific (1).  The Marines are looking to put small forces in several locations:  Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Guam, and Australia.  These would all be elements of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) and would result in the MEF being scattered across the Pacific. 

As suggested in the article, two questions come to mind.

1.    What useful purpose can small packets of Marines serve?

2.    How can the overall force be reaggregated when the need arises?

While small packets can offer some benefit for non-combat or very low end peacetime operations such as embassy evacuations or humanitarian assistance, you have to wonder if that benefit justifies both the cost of multiple bases and the breaking up of a coherent force.

Further, these disaggregated forces presumably have little or no heavy equipment with them.  How will they marry up their equipment?  What kind of relevant training can they do while disaggregated without their equipment?

Consider the basing of Marines in Australia.  There is no need for Marines anywhere near Australia.  I guess they’re closer to China if that ever became a need but that type of need would not materialize overnight and an extra thousand lightly equipped Marines wouldn’t make much difference anyway.

More important is the issue of re-aggregating.  Part of the rationale for disaggregating the force is the supposed lack of amphibious vessels.  I don’t believe that claim but we’ll accept it at face value for the sake of this discussion.  So, if we haven’t got enough ships to keep the force together and afloat, how will we transport those Marines when we need to re-aggregate them, presumably to face a Chinese or N. Korean threat?  A fleet of JHSVs (which haven’t got the numbers or the range), tugs, barges, or small commercial ships would not only be a slow, logistical challenge but would be defenseless if any enemy opted to contest the movement. 

The entire disaggregation movement appears to be an attempt to claim a piece of the Pacific Pivot budget pie more than an operationally useful deployment of forces.  There are highly useful missions for the Marines within the context of the Pacific Pivot and AirSea Battle but it’s not scattering small packets of Marines across several thousand miles of Pacific ocean.

(1)USNI, “Dunford: Marines Must Fundamentally Rethink Deployment Strategies, Training”, Megan Eckstein, June 25, 2015,

http://news.usni.org/2015/06/25/dunford-marines-must-fundamentally-rethink-deployment-strategies-training