Two Stories, Same Topic

National Defense Magazine has two stories by Grace V. Jean in its February 08 edition discussing Marine amphibious forces. My first question was, why is this two different stories?

The first story, Marine Corps Makes Strong Pitch for ‘Sea Bases’, highlights the point made by Bob Work that Seabasing lacks definition.

So far, however, there is little consensus on what exactly constitutes a sea base. Some officials have argued that the Navy already deploys sea bases — in the form of aircraft carriers, large-deck amphibious ships and cargo vessels. Others, particularly in the Marine Corps, contend that future sea bases require more sophisticated equipment that the Navy currently does not have.

General Conway gives us an idea of what he believes Sea Basing is.

The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James T. Conway, recently endorsed the sea basing doctrine.

“One of the important cornerstones in my mind is this concept of sea basing,” he said. “To be able to put something at sea that serves as a port and an airfield, to flow things through to shore” in an anti-access environment is crucial, he said.

In other words, Conway appears to want a transshipment dock at sea. The advantage to the Marines under that approach is it turns the entire concept of Sea Basing into a MSC issue, forcing the MSC to work out the transfer system problems for the Sea Base itself. It also removes the amphibious force as part of the problem (from the perspective of the Marines), because today's amphibious ships doesn't have the same number of cranes the ARG of the cold war did. By giving up 3 aviation deck amphibious ships, the Marines basically get to upgrade 1 MPF to a forcible entry brigade. We believe this concept of Sea Basing ultimately kills the "Joint Services" approach to Seabasing though, because the capability is only enabled for the prepositioned forces of the Marine Corp.

We tend to think General Conway has the right idea, but the specific approach being sold isn't going to work as advertised. Did anyone tell General Conway what "anti-roll tanks" will do to the cargo load of a LMSR? Beyond that small nugget, if the article is correct, it looks like they are trying to solve the skin to skin transfer problems with the LMSR, but that doesn't make sense, the MLP is the dock. By specializing the transfer system to the LMSR, this approach hampers the capability of existing ships to participate in the Sea Base. That will mean the transfer system for all other ships supporting the Sea Base (like say those supporting the Army),those outside the MPF(F), will have to transfer equipment via cranes. UNREP isn't going to be a fast process.

The second story, More Amphibious Ships Are Needed, Marines Contend, is an interesting article on the problems the Marines are facing with their Amphibious fleet. General Conway offers thoughts on the size of the amphibious fleet.

To support the deployment of two Marine expeditionary brigades in 2015 will require 17 ships for each brigade, Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, told a National Defense Industrial Association expeditionary warfare conference.

“You need 33 or 34, because you have to apply an 85 percent availability factor against that,” said Conway.

“When you go from 17 to 15, you’re leaving about 38,000 square feet of equipment on the pier side,” said James Strock, director of the sea basing integration division at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

Having more ships would enable the Corps to respond to multiple contingencies, such as disaster relief and humanitarian assistance missions. Strock said studies concluded that the minimum requirement is 11 big deck amphibious ships, 11 amphibious transport dock ships and 11 dock-landing ships.

However, here is the real crux of the problems facing the amphibious fleet.

In recent years, equipment has become heavier because so much armor is being added to trucks and combat vehicles.

“The medium tactical vehicle, a 7-ton truck fully dressed out, is showing up at the pier for embarkation in excess of 50,000 pounds,” said Strock.

As a result, 55 percent of the amphibious ships are exceeding weight and stability limits. Another 16 percent exceed only stability limits.

Next generation weapon systems, such as the joint light tactical vehicle, are expected to weigh even more than current equipment.

“Maybe we ought to think about taking the L’s out of that name, because the lightest version is 14,000 to 15,000 pounds,” said Strock.

Amphibious ships are built to accommodate certain numbers and types of equipment and supplies. The problem with vehicles becoming heavier is that the ships can carry only so much extra weight.

“The number of aircraft, tanks and rolling equipment you can put on an amphibious ship is already fixed. You can’t jam a lot more equipment on that ship than what it was designed for,” said Carnevale.

Future weapons systems in all categories are expected to be heavier than current technologies. Increasing the number of ships to accommodate more of those technologies may be one of the only solutions.

I don't care what Northrop Grumman or the Navy says, DIDs LPD-17 page has a paragraph that highlights the broken promise that was in part the justification for the massive size increase in the ship as a replacement.

Navy sources note that the 9 scheduled ships of this class (reduced from 12) are slated to assume the functional duties of up to 41 previous ships. These include the USA's older LSD-36 USS Anchorage Class dock landing ships (all decommissioned as of 2004, LSD-36 and LSD-38 transferred to Taiwan) and its LPD-4 USS Austin Class ships (12 built and serving, LPD 14 Trenton now India's INS Jalashva). The San Antonio Class ships may also replace 2 classes of ships currently mothballed and held in reserve status under the Amphibious Lift Enhancement Program (ALEP): the LST-1179 Newport Class tank landing ships, and LKA-113 Charleston Class amphibious cargo ships.

Clearly that is no longer true. The comments above highlights a problem facing the Marines today, the LPD-17 isn't a replacement for the LST or LKA. While the JHSV can supplement the lost LSTs, so many aspects of the LKA is where the Marines find themselves lacking today, for example the lack of cranes for amphibious ships, the lack of cargo square, and the lack of vehicle square are all problems specific to the lack of a replacement for the LKA.

These are tough lessons learned in war. The answer isn't to take the armor off, it is to to find a way to meet the lift requirements, starting with putting lift back in the ESG as a metric! There are a number of ways to meet the challenges, and it doesn't have to be either Sea Basing or amphibious. I am not impressed how NDM took two stories on virtually the same topic, where you can mix and match the challenges, and broke it into two stories. Both stories is the story, and if it is the Marines and not NDM treating the issues as separate and unrelated, that is another story worth writing.

For the most part though, both stories simply combine to tell half the story. No one mentioned the part about the Sea Basing concept falling short on the aviation requirements. No one mentioned that CH-53K, the primary heavy lift aviation connector for the Sea Base, is underfunded in FY09, and very few on Capital Hill appear interested that as the number of amphibious ships and MSC ships continues to shrink, the demand for both has increased in recent years.

Consider the irony, the Marines want to move entire brigades through a transshipment point in the middle of the Ocean, and the Navy lacks the tenders to reload a single VLS cell at sea. The current Sea Base design doesn't appear to address this maritime anomaly either.

It is also worth noting that amphibious ships are being utilized by the Navy rather than the Marines, which applies another cut into the total capabilities of the amphibious fleet.

Here is something I keep noticing, and maybe the question should be asked to General Conway. Why is it anytime someone discusses Sea Basing, or the amphibious fleet, both are sold with the condition of being able to provide the same capabilities. The (insert either one) will be able to provide greater response to contingencies like disaster relief or humanitarian assistance, and will have forcible entry capability against the enemy. Either topic, just insert either Sea Basing or amphibious ships and you can create the same sentence in either story.

It is time for clear definitions. It is time to apply a clear strategy for expeditionary warfare at sea. Only then will the requirements be right.