The Navy is integrating the Littoral Combat Ship and the Expeditionary Sea Base into their operating concepts for moving Marine anti-ship assets around the Pacific.
Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener said last week that the LCS is already being eyed to support Navy-Marine Corps EABO operations, and their utility there would only grow as the ships are made more lethal.
“I talk a lot with [U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Bill Merz] out here, a big fan of LCS. If you look at the things we want to do in the 7th Fleet warfight, and you look at LOCE (Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment) and EABO and things like that, that’s what he wants to use them for,” Kitchener said.
“And there’s a lot of capability there. Every LCS now is getting NSM, the (naval) strike missile, so that’s a capability that we’re really excited about. … In the fight out here, that’s exactly what we’re looking at, is integrating there in the littoral, bringing that strike capability.”The new Light Amphibious Warships will be the primary ships conducting EABO, carrying groups of about 75 Marines as they maneuver around island chains and shorelines, stopping to conduct missions ashore and then heading back out to sea to evade targeting by the adversary. Though the Marines will carry some land-based anti-ship missiles with them, integrating LCS into that mission set would provide a sea-based strike capability for the Marines as they move around and conduct their missions.
Integrate those ships carefully. I'm more worried about the Chinese integrating those lightly armed ships into their target lists.
Add the LAW to the list of vulnerable ships:
I'm really not happy with how the proposed LAW ship class is unfolding. How is it possible to think a slow and unarmed vessel can survive, let alone complete their missions? If the threat environment is low enough to do both, the Navy (and Air Force) has already won control of the seas--or it is peacetime still.
If these are supposed to roam around planting small Marine detachments capable of fighting the Chinese navy, I think the World War II model should be the destroyer transport (APD), as I wrote about in Proceedings a few years ago.
But no worries, the LCS can protect them. I guess the battle fleet can do without their capabilities and numbers.
