Ships' cost could sink plans for floating military bases.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

The success of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps forward-looking concept of deploying bases at sea relies heavily on the development of a new class of cargo ships. But as the Navy juggles ship acquisition programs in a tight budget environment, lawmakers and contractors wonder how the service will pay for these floating warehouses, which are called Maritime Pre-positioning Force Future ships, or in short MPF-F.

Sea basing envisions future landings of Marine Corps units conducted, supported and sustained from ships at sea. Although the entire fleet would play a role in the sea base, the most important platforms would be amphibious ships and future maritime pre-positioning vessels, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Amphibious ships would continue to carry the first wave of troops in any expeditionary operation. The MPF-F ships would contain most of the material needed to sustain that force in the first 20 days of operations. They would also hold all of the equipment for the follow-on assault units that would be transported to the war zone by aircraft or high-speed vessels.

"The MPF-Fs are the linchpin of the sea base," said a CBO report entitled, 'The Future of the Navy's Amphibious and Maritime Pre-positioning Forces.' "Without them, the Navy and Marine Corps would not be able to implement that new approach to amphibious warfare or forcible-entry operations."

The MPF-F ships are intended to replace the current fleet of approximately 16 pre-positioning vessels, but the Navy and the Marine Corps have not settled yet on a design.

The Navy's program office for support ships, boats, craft, sealift and special mission ships has laid out an experimentation plan for MPF-F technologies, said program manager Capt. Pat Sudol.

But of the approximately $90 million the Navy requested for MPF-F research, Congress released $28 million, said Sudol.

"We are working hard to pull together money to invest into research and development," she said at a recent expeditionary warfare conference that was organized by the National Defense Industrial Association. "We intend to make some investments as money is released by Congress."

Some of the key technologies include integrated landing platforms, as well as mobile landing platforms, for heavy-lift helicopters, so-called skin-to-skin technologies to connect ships during cargo transfers and automated cargo handling, said Sudol.

Probably the most important feature is the selective cargo offload that would allow...