The ships that take Marines to war are in really, really bad shape

For years Marine Corps leaders have been calling for more amphibious ships to transport Marines and their warfighting equipment around the globe. But a recent government oversight report revealed what bad shape the Navy’s existing amphibious ships are in – and raised major concerns about challenges for the Marine Corps in fulfilling critical national security missions. 

Of the 32 amphibious warfare ships now in inventory, only half are in “satisfactory” shape, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in December showed. Sixteen ships are classified in “poor material condition,” including five of the nine amphibious assault ships, the largest and most capable of the amphibs. In addition, inspectors found ships that needed much more maintenance than their documentation indicated; missing ship availability reports from the Navy and Marine Corps; and canceled maintenance periods for ships that are marked for retirement, even though they still have upcoming missions and deployments.

All this matters because the Navy’s amphibious ships are what enables “America’s 911 force,” the Marine Expeditionary Units that assemble and deploy anywhere in the world within hours for humanitarian aid and disaster relief missions, as well as conflict response and deterrence. The 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which was already deployed on three amphibious ships near the Middle East, contributed the first regular ground troops to enter Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Arriving via helicopters from the flight decks of the ships, the Marines hit the ground in November 2001 with gear and weapons ready.

Even during shorter “intermediate maintenance periods,” which can happen as often as once per quarter if a ship isn’t deployed, there’s a rapid activation timeline: ships are supposed to be able to get underway and into the fight within 96 hours if the Navy needs them.  

“However, when we toured the [dock landing ship] USS Germantown in October 2023, officials told us that the ship could not deploy within 96 hours due to the extensive amount of maintenance in its ongoing intermediate maintenance period,” investigators found. “This matched our observation of the ship’s condition at that time.”

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Investigators were also told that the ship was due for a “super continuous maintenance availability,” a term without an official Navy definition that hints at just how much work the Germantown needed.

As it turns out, the Germantown may have been lucky to be getting in for maintenance at all. The report uncovered a decision by the Navy to cancel all major maintenance periods for the service’s 10 dock landing ships, or LSDs, which it had made plans in 2022 to retire before the end of their planned service life. Congress blocked this divestment plan later that year, worsening a mess.

“The Navy had to continue operating the ships – even though it had already canceled the required maintenance periods,” the GAO report found. “As a result, these LSD class ships fell into further disrepair, which compounded the amount of work the Navy needs to complete in future maintenance periods.”

In 2023, according to the report, the Navy found that seven out of 13 incidents determined to affect fleet readiness were connected to LSD diesel engine problems due to maintenance that failed to happen. It’s a self-feeding problem, too: the LSD USS Fort McHenry, which was decommissioned in 2021, was poorly maintained and had accumulated a maintenance backlog of about $146 million, which contributed to the Navy’s decision to retire the ship six years early.

Another LSD, the USS Tortuga, remains in the Navy’s active inventory but hasn’t deployed since 2013, the report found, despite five different maintenance and modernization periods since then.

Nine of the 10 LSDs are now classified as in poor material condition. The third category of amphibs, the amphibious transport docks or LPDs, are in the best shape, with 11 out of 13 in satisfactory condition. But even though the Navy told GAO it plans to restore maintenance for ships on the divestment track, the report said its policy does not yet reflect that, and the future of the amphibious fleet, with older ships headed for mothballs, remains in question.

“The Navy is likely to face difficulties meeting a statutory requirement to have at least 31 amphibious ships in the future given the age of many ships and other factors. The Navy is considering extending the service life for some ships to meet the 31-ship requirement,” the report stated. “However, these efforts will require up to $1 billion per ship, according to the Navy, with six ships needing service life extensions in the next 3 decades amid rising ship construction costs and maintenance backlogs.”

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Meanwhile, real-world impacts are becoming evident. Two MEUs, deploying on three-ship Marine Expeditionary Units, hit operational snags due to maintenance last year, the report shows. The Boxer ARG, led by the amphibious assault ship Boxer, was forced to delay a deployment by 10 months because all three ships encountered maintenance delays; and the Boxer itself experienced rudder problems and had to return to port in its transit to join the group.

“During the time that the USS Boxer was unavailable, the Marine Corps was unable to deploy the full 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit and lacked the capabilities provided by F-35 fighter aircraft,” the report states.

The America ARG, led by the amphibious assault ship America, also had to adjust a planned full-strength patrol because there weren’t enough ready ships to join it, resulting in missed exercises and a “presence gap” in the Pacific, where it deployed.

Meanwhile, the world is getting hotter. In December, the 26th MEU, deployed aboard the Bataan ARG, returned from an eight-month deployment to Europe and the Middle East that saw it working to deter Iranian from seizing merchant vessels around the Strait of Hormuz, help stop wildfires in southern Europe, and respond to ensure safe commercial shipping access in the Bab El-Mandeb and Red Sea after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

While amphibious ship advocates are hopeful that a recently announced multi-ship buy that will give the Navy four new amphibious assault ships beginning this fiscal year will help rebuild the fleet of 31 ready ships that the Marine Corps maintains it needs, GAO says the services have work to do in agreeing on maintenance goals and standards and defining amphibious warship availability needs. 

The Navy has yet to act on GAO’s findings, according to the report.

Feature Image: Sailors release a mooring line as the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown departs U.S. Fleet Activities, Sasebo, Japan, for a patrol. (Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Richard Doolin/U.S. Navy)

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