Fewer Than 1/3 of Navy’s Amphibious Ships Are Ready to Deploy
“We can’t live with that,” Marine commandant says after high-profile missions were delayed or scuttled.
CAITLIN M. KENNEY | MARCH 11, 2023
MARINE CORPS NAVY INDUSTRY
The readiness of the Navy’s amphibious fleet is low—really low, the Marine commandant said.
“I woke up this morning, checked what's the readiness rate. It's 32 [percent]. We can't live with that. We can't live with a 32 percent readiness rate. And over the last decade it’s below 50” percent, Gen. David Berger said Thursday at a Capitol Hill event hosted by the Amphibious Warship Industrial Base Coalition, a lobby group for amphib builders.
The readiness rate is the proportion of ships that can deploy as part of a three-ship amphibious ready group, Maj. Joshua Larson, the commandant’s spokesman, told Defense One.
Over the past decade, the readiness rate of the amphibious fleet has averaged 46 percent, from a high of 55 percent in 2012 to the record low of 39 percent in 2015. It averaged 45 percent last year, Larson said.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/03/fewer-13-navys-amphibious-ships-are-ready-deploy/383874/