The Navy is breaking up the deployments of amphibious ships and surface combatants formerly known as expeditionary strike groups, part of a top-down review that could have far-reaching consequences for how sailors and Marines spend time at sea.
For the past six years, ESGs paired a big-deck amphib and two small-deck gators with two or three surface combatant escorts. Now, the gators and warships will go separately.
While the Navy will, of course, reunite them for specific missions, they will lack the familitarity that continual deployment provides. I had argued for a Marine Expeditionary Battle Force concept some years ago, which was similar to what the ESGs were.
And our stealth carrier fleet can't take off without proper escorts, of course.
I can't say I like this decision.
