![]() "We can move very quickly and get into the area and get that initial help flowing," he added.Ĭol. Martin Robertson, the commander of Amphibious Squadron Eight, told reporters that the ability for Marines to base off of amphibious ships is "a very important capability" that allows the two services to not only extract Americans from harm's way but also offer foreign humanitarian assistance and disaster response "if we're deployed forward somewhere." In the fleet, Navy leaders seem to agree.ĭuring a recent Marine-sponsored trip to the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, Capt. "That's the best chance you have of responding to a crisis immediately, and there needs to be one in the Pacific and one in Mediterranean, Africa, area 12 months a year," Berger told Congress. embassy in Khartoum have provided clear examples for Berger of the value of always having a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) nearby. ![]() ![]() The devastating earthquake that struck Turkey in February and killed more than 50,000 people and the more recent civil conflict in Sudan that prompted the evacuation of 70 people from the U.S. Pentagon leaders told reporters at the time that they felt that the current array of amphibious ships was "sufficient." Meanwhile, reporting from USNI in March revealed that the pause in buying more LPDs didn't come from the Navy but rather from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. "We have some LSD platforms, for example, that cannot be made operationally available to fulfill the requirements that we need," Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said in the same hearing. In this year's budget proposals, the Navy suggested that it would drop its amphibious ship numbers below that 31 ships threshold by retiring older dock landing ships, or LSDs, while pausing orders of the replacement San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships, or LPDs.
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