Analysis of the Navy's Amphibious Warfare Ships for Deploying Marines Overseas

摘要

Today, the U.S. Navy's fleet numbers 284 ships, including 29 amphibious warfare ships. This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report reviews the size, missions, and use of the Navy's amphibious warfare ships and related expeditionary forces under the Navy's 2012 shipbuilding plan. The 2012 plan, the Navy's latest 30-year shipbuilding plan, has a force of 33 amphibious warfare ships as its objective. The primary purpose of those ships in wartime is to carry Marine Corps units overseas and to support and sustain them as they deploy ashore. Amphibious forces represent a significant investment of taxpayer dollars. Over the next 30 years, the Navy plans to purchase 20 new amphibious ships at a total cost of about $50 billion (in 2011 dollars). That total does not include the personnel costs and annual operating costs for fuel, maintenance, and training the Navy will face to use its amphibious warfare force. A force of 33 ships represents a fiscally constrained compromise from the Marine Corps' objective of having 38 amphibious ships. That 38-ship goal represents the number of ships the Navy and Marine Corps would like to have in the fleet to execute an opposed amphibious assault using two Marine expeditionary brigades in the event of war. Under the 2012 plan, the Navy's inventory of amphibious ships would reach at least 33 ships for 15 of the next 30 years between 2017 and 2031. The rest of the time, from 2012 to 2016 and from 2032 to 2041, the amphibious force would fall below that objective. Over the next 30 years, the force would never reach 38 ships. CBO's projections indicate that the Navy's 2012 plan would enable the service to provide overseas presence throughout the next 30 years that would be similar to or exceed the presence it provided in 2007. However, the Navy would not be able to meet the 2010 goals of combatant commanders, which are 'fiscally unconstrained,' for peacetime amphibious capabilities around the globe.