Berger's call for more large amphibious ships is puzzling.

 via Defense News

Since the Biden administration released its National Defense Strategy last year, Berger said, he’s faced the same questions: “Are they still viable? Do we still need them? Should we be buying them? Their survivability, their cost, we’ve heard all the arguments before. Are they really useful in deterring? Are they really useful in winning a conflict?”

“The amphibious fleet is exactly the right tool to deter our competitors,” he answered.

Berger said the fleet is critical to deterring the Chinese, but the Pentagon isn’t giving the Navy and Marine Corps a sufficient budget to support that amphibious deterrence.

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 Berger said the pause would shrink the fleet inventory, which would create a problem if a conflict or humanitarian crisis emerges and amphibious ships with embarked Marines aren’t ready to respond.

Here 

Berger's call to retain 31 large amphibious ships is puzzling.

The ENTIRE Marine Corps is going to a large, recon/counter recon, stand in force concept.

The MTVR, and ACV are the largest, heaviest vehicles that will deploy aboard those ships.

Its easy to see that the Marine Corps has EXCESS capability if operating ashore with those vessels.

If the idea is to use them in other roles for the sea battle then surely the Navy would be well served to put them aboard dedicated warfighting ships.

It just doesn't make sense.

On one hand he bemoans that the Marine Corps isn't task organized to face future threats so he makes the Marine Corps smaller and lighter and tosses most of the armor that these ships were designed to carry, but on the other he insists that the Navy hold onto ships that were built to support a Marine Corps that no longer exists.