Washington: The US Navy and Marine Corps have chosen a ship design by the Dutch company Damen as the basis for a number of new vessels to be part of the Medium Landing Ship programme, senior leaders announced in a video posted on X.
“As I announced last week, we are fundamentally reshaping how the Navy builds and fields its fleet,” Navy Secretary John Phelan said, referring to the video he shared November 25 where he announced the cancellation of the Constellation-class. “Today, I’m taking the second major step in that effort, selecting the design for our Medium Landing Ship, an operationally-driven, fiscally-disciplined choice that puts capability in the fleet on a responsible timeline.”
Phelan said that he, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle and Marine Corps Commandant General Eric Smith selected the LST-100 Landing Ship Transport, “a roughly 4000-ton ship with a range of more than 3,400 nautical miles. That gives us the right balance of capability, affordability and speed to field,” he said.
The Medium Landing Ship (LSM) has gone through several iterations since its inception back in the first draft of Force Design 2030 in 2019. In general, the vessel is envisioned to help shuttle Marines and their equipment through places like the island chains in the Indo-Pacific. The Marine Corps’ official requirement for LSM is 35 ships — that number represents what the service believes is an ideal fleet size, but not a guaranteed outcome pending annual shipbuilding budgets.
“The Medium Landing Ships will enable our Marines to be more agile and flexible in austere environments where there are no ports providing the joint force the needed operational mobility within the adversary’s weapons engagement zone,” the commandant said in the video.
Last year, the Navy had to cancel an initial request for proposals associated with LSM when the responses were “simply unaffordable,” Caudle said in the video.
