The U.S. Marine Corps is in the midst of a major force redesign aimed at making it more relevant to the rising military challenge posed by China in the Pacific
Stressing China allows the Marine Corps to return to the tactical setting where it is most comfortable, i.e., attacking from the sea.
The Marine Corps generally plans to have three such readiness groups forward deployed at any given time, each consisting of three vessels—an amphibious assault warship hosting aircraft and landing craft, and two “transport docks” carrying similar equipment in lesser quantities. Collectively, the three vessels in an amphibious ready group thus host around 3,000 Marines, comprising the most capable and self-sufficient amphibious warfighting forces in the world.In order to sustain three ready groups forward with a total of nine vessels, the Marines actually need three times that many in order to cover training, transit and maintenance times.
You can make a case for coming down to only the 31 vessels in the fleet today because the latest generation of amphibious warships is far more capable than what came before. The Biden estimates also included 24-35 light amphibious warships, but those are not suitable substitutes for the large amphibious warships and no such vessels are currently in the fleet or under construction.
The dozen or so Whidbey Island vessels average 30 years of age, are in poor material condition, and don’t begin to approach the capabilities of the more modern San-Antonio class, which has been further refined for the task of replacing the older ships.