The U.S. Navy is in the early stages of planning a new amphibious transport, or, in the more exuberant language of the day, a “Light Amphibious Warship.” What will this proposed ship be doing, and why?
The U.S. Marines have a fairly ambitious goal for the new ship—and they say they intend to use the vessel for all manner of sneaky wartime behavior—dropping a missile battery or two onto an uninhabited atoll might make competing Navies think twice before approaching too close. But the real utility of this potential pint-sized landing platform rests in its ability to shape the maritime environment during peacetime. If the Navy fails to talk about that potential role, its new ship idea will sink in Congress.
Look At The Peacetime Value:
As landing craft go, the Navy’s notional “Light Amphibious Warship” is pretty puny—the minimum length of the proposed vessel is 200 feet, or about half the size of an Arleigh Burke class destroyer. With a crew of 40, the vessel will have a landing ramp, allowing “at least” 75 marines and their vehicles to arrive onshore at degraded port facilities or on beaches and, if needed, the ship will allow the landed troops to quickly re-embark. But with a minimum transit speed of 14 knots, the final requirements for the vessel really appear to de-emphasize speed, and, if the proposed concept of operations is to be believed, the U.S. Navy seems happy to consign a handful of U.S. Marines on this future platform to a nerve-wracking time spent trundling about some future maritime battlefield at the sedate pace of a tramp steamer.
That might be OK. The proposed vessel—at least according to the basic requirements—looks like a modern day remake of the old World War II-era Landing Ship, Tank (or LST) that is crammed into a Landing Ship Medium (or LSM) footprint. As such, both LSTs and LSMs (and their smaller variant, the LCI, or “Landing Craft Infantry) were great. They were built in extraordinary numbers, modified for various uses, and served as a utility infielder for the forces during World War II and beyond. But platforms that were good in World War II may have some trouble surviving in the modern battlefields of the 2020s.
Congress has yet to hear much about the non-warfighting utility of these vessels. Outside of the lofty doctrinal language used to justify the robust “warfighting” rationale for this new, small platform, these pint-size platforms have the potential to fill a really useful—and really open—pre-fight niche—supporting a range of other necessary functions in “shaping” the battlefield. And given the stakes in the shipbuilding budget, Congressional tastemakers will need to be sold on these types of missions.
The U.S Marines may be loathe to admit it, but these platforms, if procured, will have a busy service life supporting small patrol boats and other forward units while engaging with friends throughout the Pacific and Indian Ocean. They’ll be working hard in peacetime, and, if they don’t do that peacetime work, they won’t be doing much more than sinking quickly in a real high-end fight.
Don’t Short-Sell The Ship:
According to a May 27, 2020 report by Ronald O’Rourke, a long-time naval analyst for the Congressional Research Service, the Light Amphibious Warship “program envisions procuring a class of 28 to 30 new amphibious ships” to support a new U.S. Marine Corps operational concept. These would be procured at a pace of about seven a year between FY 2023 and FY 2026, and potentially reshape the Navy’s demand for the large, bulky amphibious assault ships that have dominated the Navy’s attention since the early stages of the Cold War.
These big ships (the USS San Antonio (LPD 17) is a good representative of the U.S. Navy’s big-ship amphibious fleet) are strong platforms too, but they are somewhat dated. And while many are concerned that America’s big-ship amphibious forces are just too vulnerable and valuable to risk in supporting a conventional amphibious landing except under very particular circumstances, the supporters of these large amphibious vessels will not allow the “Light Amphibious Warship” to suck away shipbuilding money. Unless the Navy have a heck of an advocate, the Light Amphibious Warship program will sink under a welter of Congressional concerns about the viability of a slow, plodding amphibious ship in the battlefields of tomorrow.
Ronald O’Rourke’s report should be something of a shot across the bow for the Navy to make a stronger case to Congress. In the report, O’Rourke warns the Navy that Congress will be very interested in understanding the Navy’s justification for this new departure from post-Cold War status quo.
Conclusion:
Having a whole bunch of these tiny “Light Amphibious Warships” out in the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean offers a neat new way to work with local friends, conduct outreach, and, just in general, upset the usual order of things in the Pacific. The idea of finding relative anonymity in the background clutter of normal shipping won’t work in a real fight, but it may happen in peacetime—and that would be the right time to do the sneaky things necessary to win a fight that hopefully will never come.
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