During the last Amphibious Warship Industrial Base Coalition breakfast event on Capitol Hill, Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Combat Development and Integration, told media that the redesign efforts to change the current amphibious ships, or ‘not buying any more at all’ intention, are literally “gone.”

The US Navy and Marine Corps will continue with the existing design of the SAN ANTONIO-class amphibious transport dock ship in Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25). In accordance with it, the first LPD Flight II ship, whose design has already been scaled down for affordability compared to the first 13 SAN ANTONIO LPD, will continue its planned construction and delivery to the fleet in the coming years. The efforts to create a scale-down design and reconsider the big flat-top amphibious ships project due to the current and future threats were conducted in the last 2 years by a joint USN-USMC team. 

The top senior Marine officer has been echoed by industry leaders, lawmakers, and other Marines who attended the breakfast event, supporting the full funding for the next ship in the class, LPD-33, in the FY25 budget. Worried about not having enough naval platforms for deploying Marines across the globe, it is likely that the wishing plan of the USMC - and USN - is to fund LPD construction every other year and the larger amphibious assault ships every 4 years as well as multi-ship buys. 

The Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Christopher Mahoney, during one of his last speeches confirmed the will of the Corps to ask for LPD on 2-year intervals and LHA on 4-year intervals. Gen. Mahoney also confirmed the requirements to have additional funds to build the Landing Ship Medium (LSM), the fulcrum of the new Littoral Warfare concept, which production was planned to start in FY22 and has been delayed to FY25, despite the experimentation going on.

Lt. General Heckl also used the event to highlight the maintenance issues that are affecting the BOXER Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), currently split between the Pacific and the homeland; maintenance problems have also affected the BATAAN ARG and 26th MEU. During the interview with the media, he used the phrase “One ship is not a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit)”, in order to reinforce his statement.

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