U.S. Navy Amphibs 'Combat Ineffective': Pentagon Report
A recently leaked Pentagon evaluation called the U.S. Navy's San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships used to transport U.S. Marines and position them for beach landings "combat ineffective."
The Navy, however, says the process to correct the ships' shortcomings is already well underway and officials insist the ships are "warfare capable."
The Pentagon isn't saying much more than what its top test and evaluation official told Bloomberg News in a story posted online in late October. The Northrop Grumman-built San Antonio class, the news service quoted Michael Gilmore as saying, is "not effective, suitable and not survivable in a combat situation."
The ship, designed to transport Marine Corps forces to points offshore where those forces can move in separate vessels and aircraft toward a beachhead, is capable of operating "in a benign environment," Gilmore said.
The story cited Gilmore saying that the ships' hulls are "improved" compared with earlier classes of ships it is designed to replace. But Gilmore, the story said, told Pentagon officials in August that the class showed "poor reliability with critical equipment and control systems," an "inability to defend itself against a variety of threats" and an inability to "maintain or rapidly recover mission capability" after being hit by likely enemy weaponry. Another shortcoming: "persistent engineering deficiencies" in its anti-missile system.
The Pentagon declined to provide Defense News with the Pentagon's specific conclusions on the survivability of the beleaguered ship class. "The details of the study are classified," said Cheryl Irwin, a spokeswoman. "However, we have said that this ship is more survivable than the one it is replacing."
Navy spokeswoman Lt. Callie Ferrari told Bloomberg that "the majority of corrective actions
are in process." Later, the Navy softened that response, saying it's taking steps to "improve the ships' survivability in a combat situation," Lt. Courtney Hillson said. Hillson declined to discuss specifics.
The original study on which the conclusions were drawn is somewhat dated. Navy and Marine Corps evaluators intermittently examined the war-fighting capabilities of the class under the direction of the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation between February 2007 and December 2008, Hillson said. Irwin said Gilmore drew his conclusions from the services' findings and his own.
Five of the ships have been commissioned. Four ships are under construction; a total of 11 ships are planned.
