
The development of a new landing ship key to the Marines Corps’ island-hopping strategy in the Western Pacific is on hold due to Navy concerns over cost, USNI News has learned.
After receiving bids from industry, the Navy canceled the request for proposals for the Landing Ship Medium, a beachable platform crucial to how the Marine Corps envisions itself operating in a conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific under its Force Design plans.
“We had a bulletproof – or what we thought – cost estimate, pretty well wrung out design in terms of requirements, independent cost estimates,” Assistant Secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition Nickolas Guertin said at an American Society of Naval Engineers symposium last week.
“We put it out for bid and it came back with a much higher price tag,” he added. “We simply weren’t able to pull it off. So we had to pull that solicitation back and drop back and punt.”
A Marine Corps spokesman acknowledged the difficulty in developing an affordable platform that can effectively shuttle Marines around islands and shorelines. For now, to quickly get the Marines a ship that can move them around the region, the Navy plans to buy a “non-developmental vessel” while it works on the requirements, Lt. Col. Eric Flanagan told USNI News last week.
“The Marine Corps and Navy are currently working to create an acquisition way ahead for LSM Block I that includes a schedule, cost estimate, and detailed requirements,” Flanagan said. “Affordability and delivery schedule are key factors in pursuing littoral maneuver in support of [stand-in forces]. As with all modernization efforts, our capabilities must be pursued within affordability constraints.”

Requirements churn and disagreements between the Navy and Marine Corps over a path forward have plagued the Landing Ship Medium for several years, since the program was previously called the Light Amphibious Warship. While the Marine Corps has pushed for a more affordable ship that’s built to commercial standards, the Navy’s requirements for improved survivability have increased the cost.
The idea was for the Navy to buy a smaller, less expensive amphibious ship that could shuttle Marines around islands as they set up ad-hoc bases on islands and fire weaponry like anti-ship missiles in a potential conflict and quickly move to new locations. The Marines Corps has converted two of three planned Marine Littoral Regiments that would rely on the LSMs to move across the Pacific.
At a lower price point, the Navy could buy more ships, and current requirements call for 18 to 35 LSMs. The Congressional Budget Office projected the lead ship in the class costing anywhere from $460 to $560 million, according to an April report. If the Navy buys the 18 to 35 ships according to current plans, each hull could cost $340 to $430 million. Initial plans in 2020 called for each ship to cost $100 to $150 million.

While the ship is a key part of the Marine Corps’ Force Design strategy, any platform that fulfills the requirement will get purchased out of the Navy shipbuilding account. With mounting bills to pay out of the shipbuilding budget – including submarines, destroyers and cruisers – the amphibious warships remain a lower priority.
Last fall, the Navy put out a request for proposals to the shipbuilders after finalizing requirements for the Landing Ship Medium earlier in 2023, USNI News reported at the time. Those requirements called for a platform that could haul 75 Marines and 600 tons of equipment, and have a cargo area of about 8,000 square feet, a helicopter pad, a 70-person crew, spots for six .50-caliber guns and two 30mm guns.
“Specific configuration details will be determined during the detailed design phase, but generally the ship will be less than 400 feet long, have a draft of less than 12 feet, an endurance speed of 14 knots, and roll on/roll off beaching capability,” Naval Sea Systems Command told USNI News at the time.
The wide range of capabilities that last year’s RFP asked the shipbuilders to provide may have increased the cost, according to Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel who is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“At the high end, it was almost an [tank landing ship] kind of vessel, something about the size of a World War II LST,” Cancian told USNI News. “And of course at the low end, something quite small. When you give bidders that much range, you’re naturally going to get pushed to the high end. So I’m not surprised.”
Naval analyst Bryan Clark said the Marine Corps was willing to accept more risk to the platform in exchange for cost savings, but the Navy’s standards for warships prevent the services from going down this path.

“The way the Navy manages programs – shipbuilding programs in particular – is you’ve got the people that enforce technical standards have a veto over what the program managers do in terms of establishing requirements for the ship,” Clark told USNI News.
The Navy’s Fiscal Year 2025 shipbuilding request, unveiled earlier this year, asked to buy one Landing Ship Medium. Congressional authorizers approved the purchase of the ship in their National Defense Authorization Act agreement. The policy bill includes a provision that fences funding for the program until the Navy secretary verifies the “basic and functional design” of the ship. That provision is waived if the Navy pursues a commercial platform or a “nondevelopmental item,” according to the legislation.
Meanwhile, House defense appropriators cut most of the funding the Navy sought to buy the first Landing Ship Medium, while Senate defense appropriators allotted the $268 million the service asked for in the budget proposal. It’s unclear what the final defense spending bill will do to the program.
For now, the Marine Corps is leasing a stern landing vessel so it can experiment with a platform similar to a future Landing Ship Medium. The Marines took a modified offshore supply vessel, known as the Resolution, and are leasing it from Hornbeck Offshore Services so they can perform water testing and work out the requirements for a future LSM.
The Marines are already manning the units that would operate from the LSMs. The service converted its Hawaii-based regiment to the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in 2022 and one of its Okinawa-based regiments to the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment in 2023.
“The Navy and Marine Corps are committed to delivering a timely, affordable, littoral maneuver solution, which requires alignment of capabilities, resources, acquisition, and Congressional support,” Flanagan told USNI News.
“The Marine Corps is looking to leverage existing commercial and military capabilities that require minimal modification and can provide sustainment and littoral mobility.”