Force Multiplier: U.S. Fleet Of Air-Capable Amphibious Warfare Ships
.
By Dan Gouré
October 20, 2020
The Navy and Marine Corps are proposing radical changes to their force structures in line with new concepts for maritime and expeditionary operations. All eyes on what is new, such as the Navy’s desire for fleets of unmanned surface and subsurface vessels and, with respect to amphibious warfare, at least two new proposed ship classes.
What has gotten relatively less attention is the growing importance of airpower to the Sea Services’ ability to conduct agile, distributed operations across the vast distances of the Indo-Pacific theater. Proposals to reduce the number of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and aircraft-capable amphibious warships in favor of proliferating smaller, less capable vessels are extremely short-sighted.
For almost a decade, the Navy and Marine Corps have been working on a set of warfighting concepts that will radically change how the Sea Services fight in the future. What these concepts, Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE), and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) have in common is the conviction that future high-end warfare will involve the operation of widely-distributed, highly-networked land- and sea-based formations equipped with long-range strike capabilities and advanced aircraft, both manned and unmanned.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/10/20/force_multiplier_us_fleet_of_air-capable_amphibious_warfare_ships_581360.html
