(The Center Square) — The outlook of the Navy’s amphibious fleet for transporting Marines and their equipment, such as vehicles and aircraft for critical missions, remains bleak as half of the fleet remains in poor condition, a new report shows.
A $1 billion per ship price tag was given to correct the issues.
The Navy is required to maintain a fleet of 31 operational ships, though, to save money, reportedly canceled critical maintenance and retired some ships early, leaving the military to rely on ships with neglected maintenance needs.
Currently, this fleet has 32 amphibious warfare ships, one more than the minimum required.
The Government Accountability Office published a report evaluating the condition of the warships, stating that some of the ships had been unavailable for years. As of March 2024, half of the amphibious fleet was in poor condition, and these ships are not on track to meet their expected service lives.
The report was conducted from April 2023 to December 2024.
Some of the issues revealed in the report contributing to the fleet’s poor condition are the challenge of spare parts, reliability of ship systems and canceled maintenance.
Marine Corps officials from the First Marine Expeditionary Force stated that the “lack of available amphibious assault ships makes it difficult to train Marine Corps aviators who must maintain certifications by landing on amphibious ships.”
Navy officials said they no longer planned to cancel the maintenance on certain ships before completing the process. However, it still has to update its maintenance policy to reflect that decision.
“Updating the policy would help ensure ships the Navy plans to divest do not miss maintenance if Congress restricts funds for divestment,” according to the report.
The Navy is considering extending the service life for some ships, according to the report, to meet the 31-ship fleet requirement, costing a total of $1 billion per ship.
Both the Navy and the Marine Corps need to agree on a ship availability goal. Still, with no such metrics-based analysis done to support a goal, the ability of the Marine Corps to utilize these ships is jeopardized.
The Navy also uses amphibious ships to retrieve NASA spacecraft.
The Navy was given new recommendations for the amphibious warfare fleet to ensure that ships were available for marines.
GAO has made four recommendations, including that the Navy use metrics to define amphibious ship availability goals and update its policy to clarify that it should not cancel maintenance when divesting ships before completing the waiver process.
The Navy concurred with three of the four recommendations.
The report stated that the Navy “partially” agreed with updating its policy but noted the actions it will take to address the recommendation.
GAO maintained in the report that documenting such actions is needed.
