The US Marine Corps has a well-known requirement for organic 'shore to shore' mobility to ensure insertion and sustainment of the new Marine Littoral Regiment that are central to the Stand-In Force concept.

The USMC insists on a requirement for 35 Landing Ships Medium (LSM), separate and additional to the Congressionally mandated, enshrined-in-law requirement for 31 Amphibious warships (10 LHAs and 21 LPDs). The LSM is not intended as an amphibious warship, but rather a Connector (thus more akin to LCUs and LCAC landing craft) that provides a unique capability to rapidly move small Stand-In force packages from island to island, shore to shore, primarily in the Pacific threatre. Reinforced-platoon-sized Marine Corps units, heavily armed with long range fires and sensors, are meant to maneuver around the theater, moving from island to island, to fire anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) to turn sea denial tactics against the Chinese and, in turn, disintegrate the adversary’s own Anti-Access, Area Denial 'bubbles'.

The USMC has leased the civilian offshore supply vessel Resolution, from Hornbeck Offshore Services, to begin experimentation during the Spring of 2023. It is also proceeding with the lease of second stern landing vessel, a 73 metre ship currently in build at an undisclosed shipyard for the Australian company Sealease, sister company to Sea Transport Group. Delivery is expected in January 2025.

A third ship is also planned for lease, with complete delivery in Fiscal Year 2026, but those are seen as essential for experimentation purposes and will not satisfy the urgent need for mobility in the near term. The Littoral Regiments are already forming and shaping up, along with their specific capabilities in terms of Long Range Fires and organic air defence batteries, but they are missing the critical sealift needed to achieve the mobility desired.

The LSM will not arrive anywhere near fast enough to satisfy that urgent requirement either, so the Commander, General Eric Smith, writes in his Planning Guidance document that there’s a need to “exploit existing commercial and military capabilities that require minimal modification and can provide sustainment and littoral mobility until the LSM is fully procured”. The solution is still elusive.

The USMC had first written in 2022 that it would seek to bridge the gap exploiting Expeditionary Transfer Dock (ETD), Expeditionary Fast Transport (T-EPF), Landing Craft Utility (LCU) and 'leased hulls'. The experiments ongoing with the RESOLUTION in part help understand why the LSM will probably not be quite as simple as originally described, and helps understand the increased cost the US Navy expects to pay.

The RESOLUTION has been fitted with a complex, large landing ramp that can lift up or down 14 degrees, to enable embarked elements to drive on and off over unvean beaches, complex coastal terrain or right over a quay wall, to open up more areas of operation and make insertions less predictable. The RESOLUTION is fitted with four pylons, or 'landing spuds' which are lowered onto the seafloor to stabilize the ship for ramp operations. It’s not clear whether these will be part of the final LSM design. The ships that will follow the RESOLUTION will probably be much more representative of the final shape of the LSM. Leasing a ship still in build is allowing the USMC to have it 'built from the ground up' for the role.

Under the Navy’s FY2025 budget submission, the first LSM would be procured in FY2025 at a cost of $268.1 million, the second LSM would be procured in FY2026 at a cost of $200.0 million, the third and fourth LSMs would be procured in FY2027 at a combined cost of $349.5 million (i.e., an average cost of about $174.7 million each), the fifth and sixth LSMs would be procured in FY2028 at a combined cost of $305.1 million (i.e., an average of about $152.5 million each), and the seventh and eighth LSMs would be procured in FY2029 at a combined cost of $311.5 million (i.e., an average of about $155.7 million each).

Contract award for LSM Ship 1 is expected in March 2025 with delivery in February 2029.

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