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Archives by date > 2015 > February > 1st

The US Navy’s Mobile Landing Platform Ships (MLP)

Feb 01, 2015 00:27 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The U.S. Navy reports that the first mobile landing platform, the NSNS Montford Point, ran through a series of purpose-proving evolutions, including the loading of vehicles onto landing crafts air cushion (LCACs). Their release includes some good images of the different types of available ship interactions, although some of them are at least 15 months old.Initial LCAC interface tests were completed in June 2013, and the ship has managed to avoid the news since, which is likely a good thing.The second ship, the John Glenn, is already in Navy hands, but is to undergo further construction in Oregon. The third of the series, the Lewis B. Puller, also designated an Afloat Forward Staging Base with additional logistics, command and aviation capacity, was floated in November and is still under construction.A second AFSB variant was ordered by the Navy in December 2014, to be built again by General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, a contract worth $498 million.
MLP concept

MLP concept

The Montford Point Class Mobile Landing Platform is intended to be a new class and type of auxiliary support ship, as part of the US Navy’s Maritime Prepositioning Force of the Future (MPF-F) program. They’re intended to serve as a transfer station or floating pier at sea, improving the U.S. military’s ability to deliver equipment and cargo from ship to shore when friendly bases are denied, or simply don’t exist. That’s very useful in disaster situations, and equally useful for supporting US Marines once they’re ashore.

It’s an interesting and unusual concept, one closely connected to the au courant concept of “seabasing”. The final MLP design changed substantially from the initial requirements, which lowered the platform’s cost along with its capabilities. Time will tell if the initial choices and tradeoffs were well-conceived or not. With contracts to build the ships underway, the remaining question is whether the ships can be built to meet the more limited promises that are being made now.

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