Numbers game: more amphibious ships are needed, Marines contend.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: IN FOCUS: DEFENSE AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS

* PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- Marine Corps leaders have stepped up pressure on the Navy to increase the size of the amphibious vessel fleet. They contend that the Navy is not buying sufficient numbers of ships to meet the Corps' future needs.

Amphibious vessels, say officials, are essential to the Marine Corps' ability to respond to contingencies worldwide and to ensure that troops can reach war zones from the sea.

The warships are employed to land and support ground forces on enemy territory. While they resemble aircraft carriers, the role of an amphibious assault ship is fundamentally different. Its aviation facilities have the primary role of hosting helicopters to support forces ashore rather than to support strike aircraft.

The Navy currently operates 28 amphibious ships, and two are under construction. Navy officials believe a fleet of 30 ships would be sufficient for future expeditionary operations. However, the Marines say they need 34 to properly carry out their missions.

To support the deployment of two Marine expeditionary brigades in 2015 will require 17 ships for each brigade, Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, told a National Defense Industrial Association expeditionary warfare conference.

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Although the Corps has determined that it needs 34 ships, the Navy's longterm plan calls for 31 ships. According to the Navy, that is all it can afford.

"There are some cases where the ship mix varies from the desired force structure, largely due to the resource constraints under which the Navy must operate," said Lt. Clay Doss, a Navy spokesman.

But the budgeted 31 ships is the minimum number needed for amphibious assault, Marine officials insist, because all the ships wouldn't be available all the time.

"You need 33 or 34, because you have to apply an 85 percent availability factor against that," said Conway.

"If we had to fight today ... we'd have to take all our amphibious ships," said Capt. Edward Barfield, head of the Navy's amphibious warfare branch. "I think we're going in the wrong direction in amphibious ships. We need to be going the other way--we need to be going up instead of down," he told conference attendees.

With fewer ships, Marines would have to cut back on the equipment they take to war, officials said.

"When you go from 17 to 15, you're leaving about 38,000 square feet of equipment on the pier side," said James Strock, director of the sea basing integration division at the Marine Corps...