Independent Amphibious Ship operations require smaller amphibs..

Major Hat Tip to ELP Blog for finding the vid!



The USMC/USN Team is pumping out a whole slew of new operating concepts, but one in particular will have implications for ship building though.

Independent amphibious ship operations.

I'm not entirely sure where they're going with this concept.  Are we looking at individual ships leaving for patrol on their own?  Are we talking about maintaining the MEU structure and having the ships dispersed under the direction of different Combatant Commanders?  I just don't know.

If this thing evolves to individual amphibs going out solo with a Company Landing Team aboard then we're going to need a totally different class of amphibs.  The America, San Antonio and LX(R) will hardly make sense if that is where we're going in the future.  Sidenote, its also another indication of a bias toward COIN instead of conventional combat.

If we're going to send these amphibs out solo then we're going to need many more of them...they're going to need to be smaller, the attached air wing will be utilitarian at best and landing craft and armored/logistics/utility vehicles will be at a  premium.

That means that the ship above might be closer to the future than what we're using today.