Navy-Marine Corps Amphibious and Maritime Prepositioning Ship Programs: Background and Oversight Issues for Congress

Abstract

As of the end of FY2004, the Navy operated 35 amphibious ships, and the Military Sealift Command operated 16 maritime prepositioning force (MPF) ships for the Marine Corps. The Navy is currently building a new amphibious assault ship called LHD-8 and also is procuring new LPD-17 class amphibious ships. A total of 12 LPD-17s were originally planned, but the FY2006-FY2011 Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) proposes reducing that figure to 9, with the final 2 to be procured in FY2006 and FY2007. The FY2006-FY2011 FYDP also calls for procuring new-design amphibious assault ships called LHA(R)s in FY2007 and FY2010, for starting procurement of a new type of MPF ship called the MPF(F) in FY2009, and for starting procurement of two new types of sealift "connector" ships in FY2009 and FY2010. Three developments have caused the Navy to reconsider its plans for procuring amphibious ships and maritime prepositioning ships. One is a new concept of operations for conducting expeditionary operations ashore, called enhanced networked sea-basing, or sea-basing for short. A second is a new concept for crewing and deploying Navy ships called Sea Swap. A third is the rising Navy ship procurement costs. These developments have led to changes in Navy plans for procuring amphibious and maritime prepositioning ships. In June 2005, the Navy submitted a report to Congress on the MPF(F) program that was required by the conference report (H.Rept. 108-622 of July 20, 2005) on the FY2005 defense appropriations bill (H.P. 4613/P.L. 108-287 of August 5, 2004). The report effectively cancels the MPF(F) program and converts the term MPF(F) into a generic term that refers to the future collection of ships of other types that will implement the sea-basing concept. Although this report details the composition of the Navy's new preferred MPF(F) squadron, several other aspects of the Navy's plans for procuring amphibious and maritime prepositioning ships remain unclear.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 29, 2005
Accession Number
ADA472750

Entities

People

  • Ronald O'Rourke

Organizations

  • Library of Congress

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Carriers
  • Amphibious Operations
  • Amphibious Ships
  • Command And Control
  • Fixed Wing Aircraft
  • Governments
  • Iraqi-War
  • Landing Craft
  • Marine Corps
  • Marine Transportation
  • Military Organizations
  • National Security
  • Naval Operations
  • Naval Warfare
  • Navy
  • Surface Transportation
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
  • Public Financial Management and Budgeting