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The Navy and Marine Corps are eyeing a 200- to 400-foot Light Amphibious Warship that would carry about 75 Marines, store as much as 8,000 square feet of kit and cost not much more than $100 million apiece, a naval official. Read More
Defense Secretary Mark Esper tours the avenger class minesweeper USS Devastator, docked at Naval Support Activity Bahrain on Oct. 28, 2020. DoD Photo
At the beginning of the year, the Navy and Marine Corps sent a new fleet plan to Pentagon leaders that called for relying on smaller ships and unmanned vessels to meet future missions and defeat future adversaries. The Pentagon rejected the plan.
Nine-months later, Pentagon leaders reached the same conclusion: the Navy needed to be more distributed and weighted towards small combatants and unmanned craft.
What did that additional effort really get the sea services? Not much, according to some officials involved in both processes.
U.S. Marines with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3d Marine Regiment, scope out their terrain during an amphibious assault exercise, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, May 28, 2020. Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 3d Marine Regiment, and Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3d Marine Regiment, conducted an amphibious assault exercise and military operations in urban terrain to increase littoral mobility proficiency in 3d Marine Regiment and advance the goals of the Commandant of the Marine Corps 2030 Force Design. US Marine Corps photo.
The Marine Corps is asking hard questions about its Force Design 2030 plan and gaining answers through a flurry of experimentation and wargaming, to help quickly reshape the force to deter or win a fight against China.
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The future Savannah (LCS-28) is floated down the Mobile River on Sept. 2, 2020, just days after it was christened at the Austal USA shipyard. Austal USA photo.
Austal USA is expanding the capacity and capability of its Alabama shipyard, doubling down on investing in its future in a way reminiscent of 2009, just before it won the block buy of Littoral Combat Ships that secured the yard a spot in the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base. Read More
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This post has been updated to add that the LAW ships would come out of the Navy shipbuilding budget.
The Navy and Marine Corps’ new Light Amphibious Warship program is already in industry studies, with the service pushing ahead as quickly as possible in an acknowledgement that they’re already behind in their transformation of the force. Read More
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The Navy and Marine Corps are looking to quickly overhaul their Cold War-era way of moving Marines around, with the services already agreeing on the basic requirements for a new Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) and in the early phases of looking at a separate small amphibious ship class. Read More
Marines with Alpha Company, 1st Radio Battalion, I Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group (MIG), hike during a field exercise (FEX) at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif. on May 28, 2020. US Marine Photo
The Marine Corps is starting to form and experiment with the littoral regiment at the heart of its modern-day island-hopping strategy, the head of Marine Corps combat development told USNI News. Read More
