If Marines are expected to counter Chinese military operations in the Indo-Pacific region, they are going to need a way to shuttle troops from island to island across a vast maritime expanse while bottling up China‘s own navy.
Retired Gen. David Berger, the former Marine Corps Commandant, proposed a concept for a light amphibious warship in 2019 as part of his plan to realign the Marines for amphibious-based missions that the Corps is now rushing to implement.
The new Medium Landing Ship (LSM) is how Marine Littoral Regiments armed with anti-ship and anti-air weapons will maneuver throughout the so-called “First Island Chain,” the strategically crucial arc of countries on China‘s immediate periphery in the South China Sea including Japan, Taiwan, parts of the Philippines and Indonesia.
The LSM moved a big step closer to reality when it was formally included in the U.S. Navy’s budget request for fiscal year 2025.
The new vessels are designed to fill a gap between basic landing craft that are a central component of Marine Corps lore and the Navy‘s current fleet of amphibious warships, some of which are the size of small aircraft carriers.
“We need Marines in combat and [Gen. Berger] realized the key wasn’t large amphibious ships carrying tanks and howitzers,” said retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. “What was needed were Marine Littoral Regiments being moved around pre-combat by small watercraft.”
Navy and Marine Corps leaders called for between 18 and 35 LSMs, with a lifespan of about 20 years. The Congressional Budget Office said it would cost $6.2 billion to $7.8 billion to buy 18 of the amphibious warships, or about $340 million to $430 million per vessel. The cost of a 35-ship LSM program would be between $11.9 billion and $15 billion, the CBO said.
The Navy‘s current amphibious force consists entirely of large vessels, including the so-called “Big Deck” vessels like the America-class helicopter assault ships and smaller — but still sizable — warships like the San Antonio class of amphibious transport docks.
The Navy wants to have the first LSM by the 2025 fiscal year and the second a year later. The third and fourth would come in 2027 and the fifth and sixth LSMs in the 2028 fiscal year, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Questions on deployment
While the need may be compelling, analysts say it is still unclear whether Navy and Marine Corps leaders expect the LSMs to deploy and resupply their Marines only before a conflict or even after the fighting has commenced, and whether they would be vulnerable to detection and attack by opposing military forces.
“A ship that is not expected to face enemy fire in a conflict could be built to lesser survivability standards, with fewer defensive systems than a ship that would sail in contested waters during a conflict,” CBO analysts said in their report. “Recent experiments by the Marine Corps suggest that the naval services are still determining what the capabilities of the LSM will be.”
There is some tension between the services because the Marines are looking for an amphibious vessel specifically for operations in the First Island Chain. But that’s not how the Navy likes to operate, said retired Navy Capt. Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation.
The Navy traditionally “likes to design ships that go anywhere, at any time, always, and that’s why you get these very big, expensive ships in the U.S. Navy,” he said. “So there’s this friction between designing specifically for an area versus the Navy, which is the overarching mother service for shipbuilding.”
The Navy and the Marine Corps want LSMs to be relatively simple and relatively inexpensive warships that are about 300-400 feet and a crew of about 70 sailors. They would ideally have some kind of roll-on/roll-off capability and a helicopter landing pad. They want each ship to have a capacity for carrying at least 50 Marines and their equipment.
The Navy said the first LSM will be built to “mostly” commercial standards but with the survivability features of an amphibious warfare ship. That includes strengthening the ship, hardening several critical systems, and providing improved firefighting features to protect the ship’s ammunition magazine.
“It’s expensive but there’s a reason for it. You don’t want a bunch of Marines moving around the First Island Chain to take one small missile hit and the thing sinks, taking all your Marines and their equipment,” Capt. Sadler said. “You want to be able to take a few hits and keep on going.”
Chinese military strategists insist they are unimpressed with the attempt by U.S. and allied militaries in the region to contain Beijing within the First Island Chain, while saying the central role Taiwan would play in any conflict is only encouraging what they call “separatist” voices in Taipei.
“From beginning to end, the idea of blocking the People’s Liberation Army of China within the ‘First Island Chain’ has been nothing but a pipe dream,” the state-controlled Global Times wrote in an editorial earlier this month. “With the continuous strengthening of China‘s national defense capabilities, the ‘First Island Chain’ has become increasingly fragmented and broken, failing to form a solid ‘chain of islands.’”
Sticker shock
Any of several U.S. shipyards could build the LSM fleet. The Navy prefers to have a single shipyard construct all of them but is open to multiple shipyards building to the same design if doing so will cut down the cost and the time it takes, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Adm. Montgomery, the senior director of FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, said the Navy is “legitimately worried” that the price tag for the LSM program could spiral out of control as was the case with the ill-fated Littoral Combat Ship program.
“You can’t have an expensive LSM or even a moderately expensive LSM ‘and’ your big deck [amphibious ships].You will double break our shipbuilding program,” he said.
He said about 21 large-scale amphibious warfare ships and 30 to 35 of the LSMs would be a good mix to allow the Navy and Marine Corps to carry out the complete range of amphibious operations.
The concept of a moderately-priced, moderately-sized amphibious ship capable of ferrying troops from a Marine Littoral Regiment around the inner ring of island-nations confronting China makes sense. But, it’s important to determine what capabilities the LSM needs to be successful and stick with it, Adm. Montgomery said.
“Once you say you’re going to defend yourself in high-end combat, every little ‘whiz-bang’ that comes around, you’re going to want to put on it,” he said. “A ship like this is like a minesweeper — it doesn’t defend itself, somebody else defends it or it’s in a passive environment. Then, you can deliver ships at a reasonable cost.”