![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/8202008.jpg.jpg\")
From September through December, <\/b>the Marines moved the 11th MEU command element from the West Coast into the Pacific.<\/b> Once there, these Marines had episodic access to EPF Brunswick, which allowed them to conduct naval campaigning missions and exercises with allies and partners throughout the region, including the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, according to Shon Brodie, the director of the Maritime Expeditionary Warfare Division at the Corps\u2019 Capability Development Directorate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because these Marines didn\u2019t have the full <\/b>Marine expeditionary unit capability onboard a full three-ship amphibious ready group,<\/b> they had to rely on external aviation assets to get to and around the theater. But, Brodie said in a Jan. 19 interview, it allowed the Marine Corps to have a deterrent force at sea ahead of Taiwan\u2019s Jan. 13 election, considered a period of heightened risk with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In another example, Brodie said, the Boxer ARG on the West Coast will deploy with the 15th MEU in phases. Due to ship maintenance challenges, all three ships are not ready to deploy as planned; instead, the Somerset will leave in the coming days, with Boxer and Harpers Ferry departing California in the March timeframe. This allows the Marines to have some forces at sea now, even if the full ARG is not ready to go just yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brodie said the Navy and Marines today try to achieve what\u2019s called \u201c2.0 MEU presence,\u201d meaning one ARG\/MEU team is always deployed out of Japan, and another is deployed from either the East Coast or the West Coast. The naval team used to sustain a 3.0 MEU presence, where the East and West coast fleets both had a ready ARG\/MEU team to supplement the one in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brodie said the Marines are seeking to ensure three MEUs are ready for operations at any given time, even if there isn\u2019t an accompanying ARG available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re working to do the best that we can do to get forces on a sea base; in the absence of that, we\u2019re looking at other ways to have Marines forward for a fleet commander,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gen. Christopher Mahoney, the assistant commandant, said Jan. 25 during a Hudson Institute event that having three MEUs at sea on three fully ready ARGs is unlikely today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat we will have is MEUs that are trained and ready,\u201d he said. If there\u2019s an urgent need to deploy them, \u201cthey may be conveyed by alternate means, they may be conveyed by the air. Not optimal, and not what they were designed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He added that if pushing Marines forward on alternate platforms becomes more of \u201ca predictable eventuality, we will change the training\u201d to reflect that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A U.S. Navy spokesperson told Defense News in a statement that the service is focused on fleet readiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe look forward to continuing to work with our industrial partners, the U.S. Marine Corps, as well as Congress, to ensure we continue to maximize readiness and are able to fight and prevail when and wherever called upon,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brodie said putting Marines to sea on alternate ships is \u201cfeasible\u201d but \u201cnot desired\u201d because the expeditionary sea bases and expeditionary fast transports, while spacious, do not have all the aviation support, ammunition storage and other features of an amphibious ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heckl noted the lack of ready amphibs remains \u201cmy single biggest point of concern.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Marines have a regular drumbeat of MEUs ready to deploy. Lacking ready amphib ships, though, they’re turning to other means of getting to sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":110193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"6":{"categories":["your-marine-corps","newsletters","daily-news-roundup","news"],"primary_category":"your-marine-corps"},"7":{"categories":["your-navy","news"],"primary_category":"your-navy"}}},"categories":[160,16,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3354],"class_list":["post-65891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-naval","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"OSDBDT53XJEQHPAHHJX6FFPX3A","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2024\/01\/25\/ship-shortage-forces-marines-to-consider-alternate-deployments\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/8202117.jpg.jpg\")