Report: More Amphibious Ships in New Shipbuilding Plan

The amphibious ship is the dreadnought of the modern era at sea, at least when looked at from the perspective of prestige globally and how virtually every major naval power is adding amphibious ships to its list of capabilities. Some have called the emerging 21st century era the Expeditionary era. While I don't think expeditionary warfare must mean amphibious warfare, the flexibility of amphibious ships in tackling modern maritime requirements is unmatched by other platforms, which is why I share the General's pause for optimism.

From Key To Future Seabasing Efforts Conway: Marines Need Amphibious Ships, Prepositioning Vessels by Zachary M. Peterson, Inside the Navy (subscription).

“There’s a new Navy shipbuilding program out there that I don’t think has been made public yet, so I won’t talk about it,” Conway told reporters Jan. 23 at a breakfast in Washington. “It gives me pause for optimism on the subject of amphibs.”

The commandant may have been referring to yet-to-be-released ship force structure numbers anticipated to include a higher number of amphibious ships. The numbers are expected in the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard’s Naval Operations Concept, which was supposed to be released last year but has been held up due to the inclusion of the force structure numbers.

Marine and industry sources tell Inside the Navy an amphibious fleet larger than 33 vessels is expected in the document.

This move would put the future force structure of the US Navy into alignment with maritime strategy in my opinion, but it also means something has to give. If we give to amphibious ships, we take from somewhere else.

The most likely scenario is we reduce the number of nuclear aircraft carriers to at least 10, potentially fewer. The next most likely scenario is fewer submarines, which accepts risk at the high end of war. While submarines are smarter platforms for the future Navy than DDG-51s, more DDG-51s will win that debate.

We will have 62 DDG-51s for almost 2 more decades, the difference between 62 and 70 DDG-51s is purely an industrial consideration to the shipyards, not strategic to the Navy, so in keeping shipyards working it is not necessarily a bad thing. CG(X) is the most important ship in development, and someone in the Navy needs to be saying this as often as possible. We know it won't be built on the DDG-1000 hull, and we know it will probably use many technologies developed with DDG-1000. We also know CG(X) will be the centerpiece of the Navy's ballistic missile defense priority as we move into the 21st century. The more CG(X) is discussed, the better in my view.

The least likely scenario is the LCS buy is reduced from 55, although that would be where I would start cutting current plans. While the LCS is not a wasted effort, the platform has capabilities worth replacing the mine ships with even at a cost of $550 million. However, it doesn't solve many existing littoral warfare challenges even if others claim it does. We are still missing that small combatant, what I think should be ~600 tons and cost $100 million, a ship built to do the dirty work in the littoral.

Regardless, more amphibious ships is a great start. Using the Seapower 21 analogy from last night, the Navy has decided big surface combatants were a bad idea, and has gone with more amphibious ships (which can be big motherships) instead. This move is perfectly aligned with maritime strategy, and news worth being optimistic about in my opinion.