The Army Abruptly Pulls Ship Auction Listings And Halts Plans To Slash Its Naval Fleet
The service had controversially planned to sell off dozens of ships and other watercraft, inactivating multiple units in the process.
By Joseph TrevithickJuly 29, 2019
The U.S. Army, at least for the immediate future, has put plans on hold to gut its obscure and underappreciated fleets of amphibious ships, landing craft, tugs, and other maritime assets. The General Services Administration, or GSA, which had previously announced it would be auctioning off dozens of these vessels over the next year and a half, has pulled down all of the existing listings offline. The first to go was for USAV SSGT Robert T. Kuroda, one of the Army's eight General Frank S. Besson class Logistics Support Vessels, or LSVs, which disappeared shortly after The War Zone first reported it was up for sale and highlighted the potential controversy surrounding selling it.
On July 25, 2019, gCaptain, citing an anonymous source, was first to report that Acting Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy had ordered an end to the previous plans to divest as many as two of the LSVs, along with 18 LCU-2000, up to 36 LCM-8 landing craft, 20 tugs, and a pair of floating crane barges. The memorandum reportedly also puts a stop to the inactivation of at least nine watercraft units and reassignment of those personnel to other positions with the Army. The LSVs, which you can read about them in more detail in this past profile at The War Zone, are the largest ships the Army has and Kuroda is one of the newset and most capable.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29198/army-abruptly-pulls-auction-listings-and-halts-plans-to-cut-underappreciated-naval-fleet
