The current model of sea basing is promising but the idea of the Mobile Off-Shore Base was truly revolutionary. The idea of having a floating landing strip capable of landing C-17's floating off the coast of a hostile nation is 'awesome'!
Imagine the war in Afghanistan if these were now in service? A Contingent of Marines/Soldiers would be easily resupplied without jumping through the hoops of crossing and establishing bases in fragile countries...Pakistan would lessen in its importance to the effort and our foot print on land would be dramatically reduced.
With all the effort being made to field new classes of ships to get the sea base concept going (specifically the Mobile Landing Platform), a better move might be to fully fund this old (circa 2001), but still exciting idea.
It was a great concept, but a fragile one. It would require nearly a full CSG in support to both protect it (from subs, small boat swarms and missile attacks in particular) as it was a very slow moving fat target. You really wouldn't want to sale a MOB into the Persian Gulf...
ReplyDeleteAnother argument was that if equipment had to be flow to the MOB, than it just as well could be flown directly to the APOD ashore.
still, a single MOB based at Diego Garcia could take the strain off that over-burdened coral base - take about maritime prepositioning!
edit: 'talk' about MPS ;).
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