As the Marine Corps moves to build its new Light Amphibious Warship to transport Marines in the Pacific, five shipbuilders have emerged as the leading contenders for the program: Austal USA, Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Bollinger Shipyards, TAI Engineers and VT Halter Marine.
Those five companies received concept design contracts with options for preliminary designs, Navy spokesman Capt. Clay Doss told Inside Defense. Those preliminary design options were exercised last month, Doss said.
Doss said the upcoming request for proposals for the LAW’s detail design and construction will be “full and open.”
But the preliminary design contracts suggest the five companies are the most likely contenders for the contract.
The Navy had hoped to award a lead-ship contract in FY-22 when the service issued 15 companies industry studies in 2020. Doss said the service did not request the funding needed to issue that contract this fiscal year.
However, the Marine Corps has stressed the need for the LAW to execute its expeditionary advanced base operations concept. The LAW is a key part of the service’s pivot from ground wars in the Middle East to a more mobile force in the Pacific.
Bryan McGrath, a retired naval officer and managing director of the FerryBridge Group which consults on defense issues, told Inside Defense the Marine Corps needs the LAW to operate the way it wants to in the Pacific.
The LAW offers inter-island mobility and enables Marine Littoral Regiments to shape the maritime campaign from the land, McGrath said.
“There’s a whole degree of things the Marines wish to do that they are unable to do in the absence of a more mobile platform to move them around,” he said.
Funding the LAW
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said in Decemberthat the Marine Corps needs the LAW “as fast as possible.” Berger said he has been asked to buy fewer of the traditional amphibious ships in order to fund the LAW.
The general said the service needs the funding for both traditional amphibious ships and the LAW.
“Like, no: This is a new way we have to be able to operate,” he said.
McGrath said he agrees that the Marine Corps should not harvest the funding for the LAW from the amphibious force structure.
“Amphibious ships -- the LHDs, LPD-17 and LPD Flight II program -- are among the most useful and required ships in the day-to-day business of what the Navy and Marine Corps do around the world, that is reassuring allies and deterring potential adversaries,” he said. “Harvesting that force structure to build the Light Amphibious Warship is robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
McGrath said he is intrigued by the Marine Corps’ EABO and littoral operations in contested environment concepts, and believes the service needs the LAW. But the Marine Corps also needs its amphibious ships, he said.
“I want a proper large amphibious force, and I want the additional mobility of the Light Amphibious Warship,” he said. “The Navy and Marine Corps have to make better arguments, and stop being content with making arguments that enable them to spend a declining amount of money on things that they want.”
The Navy is conducting a force structure study for amphibious ships that is set to be completed by the end of March.
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who focuses on Navy issues, said this study is examining the needs of the amphibious force in light of the constrained budget and evolving Marine Corps’ operating concepts.
Berger has made it clear large-scale amphibious assaults are not part of the service’s future, Clark said.
“The question is, what do we do with the large amphibious ships that are the bread and butter of the Marine Corps?” Clark said. “The thought is, you would still have Marine Expeditionary Units . . . to do crisis response, things like noncombatant evacuation or disaster relief. But that doesn't necessarily get you to the numbers that the Marine Corps traditionally has had in terms of amphibious ships.”
Revising the force structure numbers of amphibious ships down will free up funding for the LAW, he said.
LAW Competition
McGrath said all five of the companies that received design contracts have the capability to build the platform.
“Those companies are sort of a sweet-spot size and capability for this kind of ship, and from an industrial base standpoint, it makes sense for them to be in this game,” he said.
Clark said he believes Austal and VT Halter Marine are the leading contenders for the LAW.
“They've got the most experience in building this size of ship that’s armed, that's a military ship,
and building it for Navy and Coast Guard customers,” he said. “Whereas the other shipyards have less of that kind of track record.”
Larry Ryder, Austal’s vice president of business development and external affairs, told Inside Defense in January he believes the steel line the shipyard is building positions the company well for the LAW.
“We have an efficient facility,” he said. “It’s the modular production, and [the company has] the ability to build on time and on schedule.”
Clark said Austal has a good track record building the LCS and Expeditionary Fast Transport ship and has a newer shipyard.
“They’re well-positioned to do it from a managerial and organizational perspective,” Clark said. “They, of course, don’t have a huge amount of experience with steel shipbuilding, but that will be secondary.”
VT Halter Marine has built similarly sized ships for the Navy and foreign militaries, Clark said, including salvage and towing vessels for the Navy and the Coast Guard’s Polar Security Cutter.
“They've got a good cost structure because they're pretty lean, and they have a track record of building these kinds of ships,” he said.
Fincantieri Merchant Marine, Bollinger and TAI declined to comment for this story, and VT Halter Marine did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Fincantieri won the Navy’s competition to build the FFG(X) Constellation-class frigate in April 2020. Clark said he believes Fincantieri is less well-positioned than Austal due to their worse performance delivering the LCS on time and the attention building the frigate will require.
“Between the frigate, the Multi-Mission Surface Combatant, and then if they were to build the LAW, that's a lot on their plate,” Clark said. “It's not a big shipyard, and it's landlocked.”
Bollinger has a long track-record of building similarly sized ships for the Navy and Coast Guard, Clark said, including the Coast Guard’s Offshore Patrol Cutters and Navy towing ships and T-AGOS ships.
“In addition to having a lot of history with this size of ship . . . their costs are going to be cheaper than what you might get from a larger shipyard,” Clark said. “So, they might be able to undercut Fincantieri and also Austal in their prices.”
While TAI has built similarly sized ships, like offshore support vessels for the oil industry, they are a new player for the Navy, Clark said.
“They’re less of a known quantity for this kind of ship,” he said.
The Navy will likely expand LAW production to multiple shipyards after building the first batch of LAWs at whichever company receives the initial construction contract, Clark said.