The Marine Corps said it desperately needs a new type of vessel called Light Amphibious Warships that can rapidly conduct beach landings in the Western Pacific to deliver troops and missile-firing vehicles.
Included in that need is transportation for its new Marine Littoral Regiment, the first of which will soon be activated at Kaneohe Bay as part of a radical reorganization of the Corps to better deter China.
The Army has a sizable navy — a surprise to many — including four big oceangoing Logistics Support Vessels at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam that can conduct beach landings with troops and vehicles.
Although the Army built a reputation as a watercraft powerhouse in World War II, with today’s budget constraints it may no longer be able to afford to keep that role.
The Navy, meanwhile, may not be able to afford as many Light Amphibious Warships as the Marines want.
Therein lies an opportunity, some now argue.
In 2020, Navy and Marine Corps officers wrote in an opinion piece that a chunk of Army watercraft — Logistics Support Vessels and Landing Craft Utilities — should be transferred to the Navy or Marine Corps.
Taking possession of two types of Army watercraft is a “solution on a silver platter,” Marine Capt. Walker Mills and Navy Lt. Joseph Hanacek wrote at DefenseNews.com.
With budget concerns only growing for fiscal 2023, a shift in ships from the Army to the Marine Corps is likely to get serious consideration, said Bryan Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at Hudson Institute.
“I think they (the Marines) are going to have to look more closely at Army watercraft, and I think those four in Hawaii are an ideal solution for part of their problem,” Clark said in a recent phone interview.
The Army said its watercraft fleet in 2020 consisted of 134 vessels, but that fleet “is undergoing divestment and will be reduced and modernized with new systems by 2026.” All watercraft were removed from the Army Reserve in 2019.
New replacement watercraft being considered by the Army include the Maneuver Support Vessel (Next) and (Light).
Clark said watercraft don’t really fall within the Army’s six modernization priorities — the first of which is long-range precision firepower to counter Russia and China.
But the Army’s navy “does align with the Army’s idea, ‘Well, we want to be relevant in the Pacific.’ So it’s part of the friction inside of the Army right now where … they really want to be relevant in the Pacific theater, so they are investing in some capabilities that are relevant to the Pacific,” he said.
“So they are really torn,” Clark added, particularly with budget constraints for fiscal 2023. “They are going to have to make some choices. So I would not be surprised if these watercraft get pushed out and closed down, because I just don’t think the Army’s going to be able to pay for that.”
The Pentagon could transfer Army watercraft to the Marines, he said.
The Army in recent years considered selling off some of its watercraft, including the Hickam-based Logistics Support Vessel SSGT Robert T. Kuroda (LSV-7), one of the most capable in its fleet. The vessel is named for a Honolulu resident and Medal of Honor recipient who advanced on two machine gun emplacements near Bruyeres, France, in 1944, killing multiple enemy soldiers before being felled by a sniper.
The Kuroda-class, at 314 feet, is a modernization over the Besson-class LSVs, which are 40 feet shorter, according to the Army. LSV-7 and 8, the MG Robert Smalls, also stationed at Hickam, have a pointed bow that make for better sea-keeping as well as 12,440 square feet of drive-thru cargo deck.
Two of the Besson class, the General Brehon B. Somervell (LSV-3) and Lt. William B. Bunker (LSV-4), are also based at Hickam.
“In this maritime-dominated area of responsibility, Army Watercraft Systems serve as a force multiplier for the Army and joint force,” Maj. Gen. David Wilson, commander of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command on Oahu, which owns the watercraft, said in an email.
Army watercraft “are a strategic capability in the Army inventory and will be essential in enabling the joint force in crisis, competition and conflict,” Wilson said.
ASKED ABOUT the future of LSVs at Hickam, Wilson said, “The plan for where the LSVs will remain and are projected to be depends on several variables; what I can tell you for sure right now is that we will maintain LSVs in Hawaii.”
Eight LSVs are in the Army inventory. The website TheDrive.com reported in July that the General Services Administration was auctioning off nine 73-foot Army Landing Craft Mechanized and eight 174-foot Landing Craft Utility vessels.
The Navy and Marine Corps, meanwhile, are pursuing 24 to 35 Light Amphibious Warships to land at least 75 Marines on remote islands where they could target enemy ships with Naval Strike Missiles or relay that information to other shooters. The ships would be 200 to 400 feet in length.
Clark said the Marines “are running into a lot of roadblocks with the Navy,” which “wants to build something that’s more survivable.”
That makes the ships more expensive and possibly fewer in number.
The Marine Corps doesn’t want to give up on the idea, but now “is sort of casting about for alternatives to the Light Amphibious Warship,” he said.
One option being considered is using the Navy’s existing fast but relatively lightly armored Littoral Combat Ships, but “they can’t really pull up on the beach, whereas Army watercraft can,” Clark said.
He said he can see Littoral Combat Ships and big Navy amphibious ships used to transport Marines across open ocean with Army watercraft repurposed as Navy or Marine Corps vessels and being relocated to Guam, the Philippines or Japan for interior movement.
The Marine Corps already is piggybacking off Army watercraft capability by using them in Hawaii and elsewhere to deliver equipment ashore in exercises.
“The Marine Corps requires shore to shore mobility in the littorals and detailed analysis has led the Navy to pursue a purpose- built Light Amphibious Warship,” Marine Corps Forces Pacific said in an email.
Army watercraft “certainly offer a complementary capability and Marine units commonly use Army watercraft for opportune lift in exercises around the globe,” the Oahu-based command said. “The Indo-Pacific intra-theater oceanic transportation is a high demand capability — we can’t have too much.”
The Corps added that it “will continue to work with the Navy to develop the (Light Amphibious Warship) while the Army continues to plan and execute surface mobility with their watercraft program.”
The Army in Hawaii continues to refine its own maritime skills, transporting 101 Schofield infantry soldiers with 15 combat vehicles in October on a Logistics Support Vessel from Oahu to Hawaii island — a 20-hour trip. The Army said the troop transport was an “unprecedented mission” for LSV-3.
The Marines “are facing this challenge of moving Marines, and with (new Marine Littoral Regiments), they’ve got to come up with some solution that works,” Clark said.
In the near term there’s not really enough money to get the Light Amphibious Warships that the Marines want, “and they are going to have to work with the Army. I think one thing the (Defense Department) might need to do is come up with some kind of reconciliation to say, ‘All right, we’re going to shift a lot of this Army watercraft portfolio over to the Marines.’”
Clark thinks that could be a path ahead “just because the budget constraints are such that I think there are a lot of folks in (the Office of the Secretary of Defense) that are looking for ways to make the Army focus on its bidding in the European theater, and this is an element that would be part of that.”
