I know a certain guy that will cheer the fact that this new ship will be getting a crane. Its still a monster of a ship and I wonder if the Marine Corps isn't getting more capability than necessary. The current LPD carries 800 Marines! The next gen LHA will exceed that number and carry over 1500! We're getting less shipping but more carriage.
I'm beginning to think that Mike at New Wars was right. Smaller might be better. In the future, if we lose one ship to a lucky torpedo or air attack we could be facing the loss of an entire Battalion plus of Marines. That's not acceptable.
I think that's about right as an evolution. Look what happened to the Burkes.
ReplyDeletei hadn't even considered it. wow. spot on!
DeleteSol agree.
ReplyDeleteOne of my concerns about the three ship makeup of the current ARGs is that there is TOO much stuff i.e. capability in each singular hull to be lost. It is not so much smaller ships as more hulls to spreadload the new/larger capability sets across. BTW MPS ships have been spreadloaded for years now.
And did you notice that the HII LPD-17 Flight Two also proposed decreasing troop accomodations to 500? Less than a battalion.
It will be interesting to see WHAT the Navy decides to do for LSD(X) nee LX(R)?
I never get it. Why do we need two different types of Amphibious docking ships in the first place? In order words what makes a LSD unique from LPD or vice versa? And looking at the picture, the newly proposed ship has the same hull, it’s NOT smaller than its predecessor. It may be simpler or cheaper to build, but definitely not smaller.
ReplyDeleteLSD are about landing craft and large outsize cargoes (like bulldozers etc) these all take volume within the hull. LPD are about marines, their immediate equipment, and moving the marines rapidly ashore via LC, vehicles, and helicopters. It is halfway house between the LHA/LHD and LSD; it is all about flexibility. What surprised me about San Antonio is, considering that the USN has the LHA/LHD and helicopters in large numbers, why it isn't configured with a full length flight deck so waves of helicopters can't be operated.
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