The MESF also supports the Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) – 17 ships built or modified in the 1980s and ‘90s to hold enough equipment and supplies to maintain 15,000 Marines for 30 days. Those ships are divided into three squadrons, one usually sailing the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, the second normally located at Diego Garcia in the central Indian Ocean and the third operating in the Guam/Saipan area of the Pacific. From there, a squadron can steam to a crisis area to support Marine fast response missions far more quickly than that level of supplies could reach them from a land base or port.
A look at the bow of the Mobile Landing Platform ship, USNS Montford Point, as it enters San Diego Bay, Calif., for the first time. MLP 1 is the first-of-class ship and will deliver a flexible platform to support Marine Prepositioning Ship squadrons. General Dynamics/NASSCO photo
Even so, the MPF falls far short of the pre-2010 Marine Corps definition of seabasing as “the deployment, assembly, command, projection, reconstitution and re-employment of joint power from the sea without reliance on land bases within the operational area” and the sea base as “an inherently maneuverable, scalable aggregation of distributed, networked platforms that enable the global power projection of offensive and defensive forces from the sea”.
The MPF is strictly a floating supply depot, supporting the actual projection of offensive and defensive forces from the sea by one old construct, the carrier battle group, and one more recent, the Amphibious Readiness Group – a trio of ships carrying a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) comprising 2200 warfighters and the aircraft, landing craft, combat vehicles and equipment they need for the 21st century version of a traditional Marine Corps amphibious assault.
The LPD 17-Class Role In Seabasing
In his program summary, NAVSEA’s LPD 17-class Program Executive Officer (PEO) described the San Antonio-class amphibious transport docks as able to perform a variety of expeditionary warfare missions, designed to operate independently or as part of an ARG, ESG or JTF.“The ships of the San Antonio class are a key element of the Navy’s seabase transformation,” the PEO wrote in early 2013. “LPD 17-class ships are engineered and equipped with the latest technologies, allowing them to functionally replace 41 ships, from the LST 1179 [Landing Ship, Tank], LKA 113 [Landing Craft Carrier], LSD 36 [Landing Ship, Dock] and LPD 4 ship classes. Because the principal mission of LPD 17 San Antonio-class ships is to deploy combat and support elements, [they] have been enhanced with additional lift capability.
The amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17) departs Naval Station Norfolk. San Antonio was getting under way to better position Navy assets if required to provide Navy relief to areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. With its extra space and ability to accept new equipment, the LPD 17 is ready for sea base mission packages yet to come. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Betsy Knapper
“Each LPD 17-class ship encompasses more than 23,000 square feet of vehicle storage space, more than double that of the ships it replaces. Vehicle storage space is provided through a well deck design, which allows for the transportation of LCACs or conventional [assault amphibious vehicles]. This capability is enhanced by the incorporation of a flight deck that accommodates both CH-46 helicopters and MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.”
Cmdr. Darren Nelson, CO of the USS Arlington (LPD 24), believes his ship and its sisters will be a vital part of the Navy/Marine Corps’ retooled seabasing concept for this decade and beyond.
“Seabasing is an ever-changing mission package. The LPD 17-class, with its extra aircraft and cargo space, is designed to give the Navy/Marine Corps team greater flexibility. It can accept newer equipment as it comes along, giving it greater future capability to meet the needs of the MEU or COCOM,” he noted.
“The Corps is shrinking, but the MEU concept will remain our base for amphibious operations,” added CWO3 Darren R. Flint, the Arlington’s Marine Corps combat cargo officer. “Sea-basing is an extension of that, with other ships to provide greater sustainment to extend an amphibious op, replenish vehicles and supplies.
“So it extends your ability to fight the fight, to come back to the ships for repairs away from the fight. The new LPDs also have a medical capability on par with the LSDs, so you can bring warfighters back for treatment, getting those able back to the fight more quickly.”
Nelson said the new LPDs also will be used to support the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), a class of relatively small surface vessels intended for operations close to shore. That includes using the LPDs’ expanded cargo capacity to help change out mission requirements for the LCS at sea – a form of seabasing facilitating far faster and more efficient retasking of an LCS in a quick-response environment.
The most recently completed ARG deployment with one of the new LPD 17s, the USS New York (LPD 21), enabled the 24th MEU commander, Col. Francis Donovan, to further assess the role and capabilities of the new ships as part of the ARG and in support of the seabase concept.
The greater capacity and design of the new LPD 17-class for more independent missions than the ships they are replacing also fits that need.
“As a MEU guy, we look at mobility and moving to the sound of guns, to the crisis point. What we proved in our deployment is, for us, seabasing means expeditionary operations from the sea, operating ship-to-objective, then returning to the ship. The LPD fits right into that mode, not just putting stuff ashore to build an iron mountain, but operating from the sea,” he said. “When MPF gets involved and you have some mid-ocean connectors, the LPD 17-class could fit in as some kind of larger scale connector.