This would be very useful:
Turkey has established a military base in Mogadishu, Somalia to train the local forces of that country. With the HMS Ocean, Turkey could remotely deploy aviation assets to those bases without having to build extensive infrastructure on-land and/or deploy integrated infantry, armour and aviation forces. Overall, LHDs would be a valuable means to connect and support overseas bases.
The price is a bargain.
An off-shore base would be more secure from terror attacks. This type of off-shore support for power projection is the mission I thought a modularized auxiliary cruiser could perform.
Although a lot of Africa is well away from the shore, admittedly, I did offer the possibility of offloading shipping container-based modularized facilities for temporary bases ashore in support of local forces.
Although given the threats rising in Africa, perhaps the Navy will prioritize Africa for the traditional amphibious warfare assets. My assumption behind The AFRICOM Queen was that the Navy had higher priorities than Africa for those scarce assets.
If so, there's always The SOUTHCOM Queen. Talk about a low-priority theater (until Venezuela or Cuba implodes).
