Marine Corps Seeks Nine More Amphibious Ships for MEU Presence

Shon Brodie, the Marine Corps’s deputy director of Maritime Expeditionary Warfare, told reporters on Wednesday that Navy and Marine Corps analysts now agree the inventory must grow from 31 ships — the congressionally mandated floor — to 40.

“The two analytical arms of both services have come to the conclusion that it takes 40 ships. That’s 13 big decks and 27 LPDs,” Brodie said, according to The War Zone and Defense One.

The target underpins Commandant Gen. Eric Smith’s push for a persistent 3.0 Amphibious Ready Group–Marine Expeditionary Unit presence: one ARG/MEU from the East Coast, one from the West Coast and one operating from Japan. Each ARG typically embarks more than 2,000 Marines with aircraft and landing craft, a model already visible when the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group made a confirmed port call in Puerto Rico.

Readiness Gap Drives Larger Fleet

Brodie said the plan was drawn up with Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James W. Kilby and Assistant Commandant Gen. Bradford J. Gering after months of work by the joint Amphibious Force Readiness Board.

Today’s mix, he said, is nine large-deck assault ships and 22 smaller dock ships. The Marines want 13 and 27. Statute still calls for 10 big decks, but the Navy has only nine after USS Bonhomme Richard was scrapped following the 2020 fire. Brodie flagged big-deck availability as the binding constraint on generating ARG/MEUs.

Amphibious ships, on average, spend more time in maintenance than under way. The War Zone cited a roughly 47 percent combat surge readiness rate for the amphibious fleet as of April 2026 in Kilby’s fiscal 2027 budget statement. Few Navy ships meet the service’s 80 percent readiness goal.

“If I’m sitting at 31 today, the only way for me to realistically increase that inventory is for me to build new ships and do a service-life extension on some of the ships that I currently have in the inventory,” Brodie told Defense One.

Shipbuilding and Congress

There is no published timeline or cost for reaching 40 hulls. Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Eric D. Flanagan said funding depends on future congressional appropriations, while a multi-ship procurement already under way covers San Antonio-class LPDs and the next America-class large deck — work tied to Huntington Ingalls Industries’ 2024 multi-ship award.

Ship-to-shore connectors remain part of the same expeditionary ecosystem; Clash Report previously covered Textron’s contract to deliver more LCAC 100 hovercraft to the U.S. Navy. Allied naval industry deals, including Türkiye’s push for joint MILGEM warships with Egypt, underscore how scarce hulls and yard capacity shape force design beyond the U.S. alone.

Brodie said Navy and Marine leaders plan to brief lawmakers this month. Hudson Institute analyst Bryan Clark has cautioned that operating and maintaining 40 amphibs would be expensive and suggested a smaller inventory in a recent fleet design study. Extended ARG deployments, Brodie added, still risk blowing maintenance forecasts if ships do not return on time.