As of the end of FY2003, the Navy operated 36 amphibious ships, and the Military Sealift Command operated 16 maritime prepositioning force (MPF) ships for the Marine Corps. The Navy is currently building a new amphibious assault ship called LHD-8 and also is procuring new LPD-17 class amphibious ships. A total of 12 LPD-17s are planned; the FY2005 budget requests funding for the seventh. Current Navy plans call for procuring an additional amphibious ship called LHA(R) in FY2008, and for starting procurement of two new types of MPF ships, called MPF(F) and MPF(A), in FY2007 and FY2009, respectively. Two recent developments are causing the Navy to reconsider its current plans for procuring amphibious and maritime prepositioning ships. One is a new concept of operations for conducting expeditionary operations ashore, called enhanced networked sea-basing, or sea-basing for short. The other is a new concept for crewing and deploying Navy ships called Sea Swap. Navy and Marine Corps officials in recent months have suggested that these two developments will affect both the quantities and designs of amphibious and maritime prepositioning ships to be procured in coming years, but have not stated in detail what the resulting changes might be. Areas of uncertainty include the total number of LPD-17s to be procured, the design and cost of LHA(R), the procurement of so-called 'big deck' amphibious ships following LHA(R), the future total size of the amphibious force, and the numbers, designs, and costs of the MPF(F) and MPF(A) class ships. The unsettled nature of the Navy's plans for procuring amphibious and maritime prepositioning ships is creating business- planning uncertainty for the firms that build (or might build) these ships, and is making it potentially more difficult for Congress to conduct effective oversight of these programs. The issue for Congress is how to respond to the Navy's currently unsettled plans for procuring amphibious and maritime prepositioning ships.


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