Is STILL biting the Navy in the butt…
Nearly half of the amphibious warfare ships Marines need to deploy often are unavailable due to maintenance, according to a government watchdog. How the Navy currently manages those repairs means jarheads will continue to deploy late to the fight.
The Dec. 3 Government Accountability Office report, which detailed an audit from April 2023 to December 2024 at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, and Naval Base San Diego, California, provided a decade’s worth of data regarding underperforming amphibious warfare ships.
In the report, Marine Corps data from 2011 to 2020 showed that the specific class of ships were available for operational tasks only 46% of the time.
Full article HERE from Navy Times.
Amphibs have always been ‘second hand’ children of the surface community, not a premier CO billet. And they have historically been rode hard and put up wet, spending a lot of time underway, with limited maintenance availabilities.
Half of the amphib fleet is not expected to make it to their service life, even with maintenance, but all of the fleet have to exceed their service life to maintain the current minimum amphib support requirements. Also, a revision to the ‘availability’ rules when in maintenance have resulted in more ships being put in a not capable of going to sea classification.
When sequestration hit with a vengence in 2013, they fell even further behind in maintenance, and the class replacement ships slid two or more years further out on construction. Also, you have to add in the administration’s distaste for using Marines as the striking force they are, so they spent a lot of time on ‘float’ at sea with no real mission.
Now, with maintenance periods running longer and longer due to the amount of work required to get ALL of the fleet back to basic capabilities, and lack of shipyards capable of doing the work, I cannot see any way for this situation to improve any time soon…
Grrrr…
While I applaud Trump’s efforts to trim the budget; military readiness is one area where more money, properly directed is vital.
I hope they’re smart enough to see that. That Hegseth seems to have weathered the storm and will be confirmed bodes well, I think. Having war fighters at the top means they know how badly troops need transport and logistics.
Just because someone says “sequestration caused less money to be spent on A” doesn’t mean that is a true statement. Sequestration dollars were allocated by those in charge. They could just as easily have continued to spend money on A while cutting B instead. The military brass made those choices. So imagine a world where the money spent on DEI training (B) was cut and our ships were maintained (A). We would have saved just as much money but people opposed to cutting budgets generally wouldn’t be able to spout nonsense about why the ships aren’t properly maintained and why, therefore, the Pentagon needs more money. It’s a well known shell game. You cut visible and necessary stuff (fire stations) while leaving less visible and necessary programs alone (art subsidies) and then scream that taxes need to be raised because we don’t have enough fire stations and people will die.
Hey Old NFO;
Truth be told is that “Maintenance ain’t sexy” meaning that it don’t have the following in capital hill, it don’t have “The Star Power” the money and it is easy to divert to “other causes dear to the brass to assist in promotion”. It will get worse, as too few dollars chase too many weapons systems. I recall a story in the late 1970’s where a ship the U.S.S Cassisteo, as I recall the Capt refused to go on deployment because he deemed the ship was too unsafe because she had missed too many maintenance cycles, was undermanned and underequipped. I think it cost his career, but it drove home the sad shape of the Navy. The Army had what was called the “Hollow Army” and the Airforce had “Hanger Queens” everywhere, basically planes grounded for lack of spare parts. I am seeing the same thing again, and we are spending money on DEI and other foolishness instead of maintenance and other necessary tasks. If it isn’t corrected, it is gonna bite us in the posterior.
Yeah, true in the military as in other government entities. No politician ever got their picture in the paper, on TV in front of a gear reduction unit being torn apart. No champaign bottles get broken over a large chiller being put back in service. Just like no school board member gets shown on the local news cutting a ribbon for a new furnace.
Maintenance doesn’t feather as many beds as building dozens of useless tiny ships.
Sequestration was done in a way to cause maximum chaos and harm to procurement and readiness, but it didn’t have to do much to crash the houses of cards.
Something like 10 years ago I had the same conversation with a trustee of a non-Ivy exclusive college. He and his peers have the same problem: everyone wants their name on the shiny new building, lab, ship … but no one makes their donation or budget include the required periodic and routine maintenance and updates from ribbon + 5 years to the final cycle before demolition. Any change in other costs, lost income or donations, or “squirrel!” idea means the shiny building gets darker and danker, without time or $ for deep cleaning or system maintenance. Question became how slowly could they lose.
But, but… we were going to put the “Peace Dividend” from the end of the cold war to use for helping the (deserving minorities) people. There never was a “Peace Dividend” and the USSR, rebranded as the Russian Federation although diminished never really went away. Plus, as with the collapse of all previous empires, chaos among the former colonies and occupied states erupted as soon as the soviet military pulled out. But our vote buying congress critters pulled the money from the military and spent it on domestic programs anyway.
This is what you get with a former empire in decline. At this point, collapse might be a better word.
Want accelerated entropy? Invite and elect a bunch of Satanic, leftist, Commies into your society. You’ll get, slow and soft at first, then fast and hard.
Anyone notice the quickening?
All- Can’t disagree at all, thanks!
It’s not lack of funds. The military has plenty of funds. They are wasting it on bullshit, not preparedness.
A granddaughter’s significant other is on a boomer, the Pennsylvania, that can’t deploy due to maintenance issues. Guess we are lucky the missile, if aboard, can hit Russia while sitting in drydock in Bremerton.
What is the Trump Administration’s plan to make the US Navy Great Again?
Our country is broke. The dollar is being rejected as the world’s reserve currency. We’ve depleted our munitions by sending them to the Ukraine. We have 1/100 the shipbuilding capacity of China. We gave up on the war on Terror. Where do we need to send troops? Hpersonic missiles, the Orlinkov (spelling) and drones mean war at sea is changing away from the aircraft carrier and the anphib. Subs are probably our best bet for maintaining sea lanes open against peers. Maybe some frigates for anti-piracy. Not sure what our bright boys have up their sleeves, but I suspect aircraft carriers have gone the way of the battleship.
The Coast Guard manning is down, and arguably, their ships are older. Airframes are being taken out of service due to non-repairable age issues.
What are our priorities, defend Nato who can’t be bothered to defend themselves? Try another unsuccessful Middle East war? Invade China?
We have sold our children, grand children and great grand into debt slavery. We have been invaded from the south with cooperation of the UN, NGOs and our own govt. We have outsourced industry and bought into silly green energy while not dealing with our infrastructure maintenance.
What are our priorities and what can we accomplish? National Defense is a top priority for a Govt, one long abandoned by ours. We need to stop and reverse the invasion, we need to pay down the debt, we need to put Americans to work, we need to bring our industry back. None of that requires Amphibs. What we need is to rebuild the US Merchant Marine and keep sea lanes open for our trade.
OBTW, China is conducting economic war against the US, including cheap imports but also stealing Intellectual Property, spying, etc.
I’m former Navy and I’m not being critical of the Big Blue. Rather, I’m looking at the country we are leaving to our descendants. I learned the hard way trying to help someone who won’t help themselves is a waste of time and money (NATO). We have issues to fix at home that take priority.
I can think of one justification for the gator fleet and that is humanitarian assistance, which is not the job of the military. It can be good training, but not the military’s job.
I can think of one very good mission for a couple amphib ships right now. We’ve been playing footsie with Yemen rebels, knocking down their cheap drones with our expensive missiles. They have been able to severely hamper trade through the Suez Canal, and even got some bribes out of it.
Move in a brigade of Marines, and that stops RIGHT NOW. Marines get target practice, the freighters don’t have to go around Africa, and a bunch of enemies get their eternal reward. What’s not to like?