{"id":46745,"date":"2022-06-20T16:58:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T16:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/06\/20\/marines-still-have-big-plans-for-seabasing-ships-as-2-head-for-mothballs\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T08:36:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:36:33","slug":"marines-still-have-big-plans-for-seabasing-ships-as-2-head-for-mothballs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2022\/06\/20\/marines-still-have-big-plans-for-seabasing-ships-as-2-head-for-mothballs\/","title":{"rendered":"Marines still have big plans for seabasing ships as 2 head for mothballs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A sweeping slate of proposed ship retirements that would take nine littoral combat ships offline also would end the career of two unconventional seabasing vessels that have less than a decade in service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Marine Corps seabasing<\/a> is far from a failed concept, current and former Marine officials said, and similar ships remaining in service are poised to take on new missions<\/a> \u2015 including support of unmanned surface vessels \u2015 in the near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recently released fiscal 2023 defense budget proposal calls for the retirement of both the Navy\u2019s expeditionary transfer docks: the Montford Point and John Glenn. Initially called mobile landing platforms, these ships were based on civilian Alaska-class oil tankers and designed to fill a gap left by a scarcity of pricey amphibious warships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a flat, submersible center deck, the expeditionary transfer docks could stage and transfer Marine Corps equipment and launch it shoreward aboard landing craft air cushion hovercraft; the ships were sometimes called a pier at sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\t