The Navy wants their new Light Amphibious Warfare ships to cost no more than $100 million. How can it not be made that cheaply given its modest capabilities?
To this purpose, LAW will be designed with a small crew of 40, and will carry and house a "reinforced platoon" of 75 Marines, along with as much equipment as can be crammed into 8,000 square feet of cargo space. It will likely have a shallow draft (no more than 12 feet), and a top sailing speed of 14 or 15 knots. Rather than launch beach landing craft to capture an island, the mothership itself would both beach and later depart from the beach. Mockups of the proposed vessel show that it will probably also include a helicopter deck, multiple .50 caliber machine guns, and perhaps a 30 mm chain gun.
I guess the helicopter deck corrects my complaint that the ship is an open-air vessel. But I still think that the class of ships should be based on a warship and not intended to beach itself.
As imagined the LAW doesn't seem like a "real ocean-going combat vessel" to me.
