Dire State of Navy Amphibious Fleet Has Cost Marines Decades of Lost Training, Deployment Time
6th December 2024
A scathing and detailed new watchdog report has found the condition of the Navy’s amphibious ship fleet — the fleet Marines rely on to be America’s rapid deployment force — is so degraded that it has already cost the Marine Corps decades of training and deployment time.
Half of the Navy’s 32-ship amphibious fleet is considered to be in “poor” condition by the Navy’s own standards, according to the Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday. “In some cases, ships in the amphibious fleet have not been available for years at a time,” which also means that “these ships are not on track to meet their expected service lives,” the agency said.
The figures come at a time when the sea service has become increasingly tight-lipped about the state of its fleet as a whole and insights into the state of amphibious ships come only when they publicly and visibly break down on camera. However, even then, officials have downplayed the issues actually facing their ships.