Carlos Del Toro, secretary of the U.S. Navy, speakings about the Vermont and it’s crew during it’s commissioning ceremony held at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut, Aug. 28, 2021. (U.S. Air National Guard photo/Ryan Campbell)
WASHINGTON — Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro says the Navy and Marine Corps’ joint amphibious ship study is in its “final stages” and he “hopes” it’ll make its way to Congress within the “next month or so.”
The final report is “being briefed to senior leadership,” he told reporters today on the sidelines of a private event hosted by the Center for Maritime Strategy and Naval War College Foundation.
The chief purpose of that study is to tell Congress how many amphibious ships the service needs in its fleet for the future fight. It’s a document Congress, always eager to discuss shipbuilding numbers, has been waiting months for — with what appears to be dwindling patience for the Navy’s delays on delivering.
“During your annual force posture hearing in May, we asked about the status of a study
you commissioned to analyze the number of amphibious ships needed in our Navy fleet,” Senate Armed Services Committee members Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., wrote in a Nov. 14 letter, first reported by POLITICO. “You told us that the study would be released ‘in the next several weeks.’ It has now been over five months since that hearing, yet the results of the study still have not been provided to either of us.” Wicker is expected to take the role of ranking member on the SASC in the new Congress, while Kaine is a member of the seapower subcommittee.
Regardless of when the study makes its way to lawmakers, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger has previously hinted at the results. “You will not be surprised at the outcome… It’s not less. It’s not fewer,” he told reporters at the Pentagon in May.
The long-standing number the Marine Corps has cited from previous studies is 38. But when Berger became commandant, he reconsidered that number and made the requirement 31 big deck amphibious ships in addition to new platforms such as the Light Amphibious Warship.
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