A concept of operations intended to enable the US Navy to operate more effectively against potential adversaries that could bring concentrated firepower to bear on high value US Navy warships is one of the factors driving demand for a new class of logistics vessels. As highlighted briefly in the July/August 2020 issue of Warship Technology, in order to counter the improved capabilities of China more effectively in particular, the US Navy wants to begin shifting to a new fleet architecture that is to be more distributed than its current fleet architecture. This more distributed architecture would make use of more small units, and fewer high value, larger units. The concept of operations, known as Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), would be complemented by a new Marine Corps operational concept, Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), under which relatively small Marine Corps units armed with anti-ship cruise missiles and other weapons would conduct 'shoot-and-scoof operations against adversary ships.
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