Amphibious Community Pushes for Continued Spending Amid Worries About 2020 Shipbuilding Plan

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Amphibious Community Pushes for Continued Spending Amid Worries About 2020 Shipbuilding Plan
By: Megan Eckstein
February 7, 2019 4:56 PM


CAPITOL HILL – The amphibious warship community and supporters on Thursday pushed for continued momentum for shipbuilding, amid growing concerns that the upcoming Fiscal Year 2020 ship construction plan may not be as generous as the 2019 plan was.

Things are looking positive for amphibious force: the Navy decided to replace its aging Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships (LSD-41/49) with a Flight II variant of the much more capable San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock (LPD-17), which will be built on the same hot production line at Ingalls Shipbuilding as the first 13 Flight I ships. On the larger amphibious assault ships, there is increasing chatter in the Navy about accelerating the procurement of the next hull, LHA-9, to avoid any gaps in production and even to buy that ship as part of a two-ship buy, akin to the recent two-carrier buy that was lauded for its cost savings.

https://news.usni.org/2019/02/07/amphibious-community-pushes-continued-spending-amid-worries-2020-shipbuilding-plan?utm_source=USNI%20News&utm_campaign=4323483022-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-4323483022-231902465&ct=t%28USNI_NEWS_DAILY%29&mc_cid=4323483022&mc_eid=c5fd1847fe