San Antonio
Class 21st Century Amphibious Assault Ships
- LPD 17 Transforming America's Expeditionary Force
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It's more than just a word. It is a mindset…a way of
operating that has its roots in the birth of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine
Corps over 225 years ago. And it is the foundation for 21st-century
peacetime forward deployments, responses to crises world wide, the War on
Terrorism, and warfighting to protect America's citizens, friends, and vital
interests wherever and whenever they might be at risk. It is the essence of
naval operations from the sea - anytime…anywhere.
"The operational commanders will be standing up and cheering
when the day arrives that we can finally get these ships in the fleet."
-- Admiral William J. Fallon, VCNO, SASC Seapower
Subcommittee, 24 July 2001
San Antonio Class Ships
LPD 17 LPD 18 LPD 19 LPD 20
LPD 21 LPD 22 LPD 23 LPD 24
LPD 25 LPD 26 LPD 27 LPD 28
Production photograph of LPD-22
(Apr 6, 2010)
The Navy and Marine Corps have put in place a well-crafted
vision to ensure that the nation has the naval expeditionary forces - ships,
aircraft, weapons, and systems - to carry out a full
spectrum of roles, missions, and tasks in the new century. The
projected 12 San Antonio (LPD 17)-Class amphibious
assault ships are vital elements of this Sea Power 21 and Naval Vision 21
and are a top expeditionary warfare priority.
Operating forward, from the sea, America's Amphibious Ready
Groups (ARGs) and their Marine Expeditionary Units (Special Operations
Capable) [MEU (SOC) s] are multimission crisis-response "tools." They are a
mix of highly mobile air and ground firepower with self-sustainable forces
that can quickly project compelling power, withdraw rapidly, and then
reconstitute to redeploy for follow-on missions. In the Sea Power 21
concept, Expeditionary Strike Groups, combining expeditionary warships,
surface combatants, submarines, and Littoral Combat Ships will serve as Sea
Strike and Sea Shield force multipliers, operating from Sea Bases worldwide.
The LPD 17 Class will be a fulcrum for these future naval expeditionary
operations.
Emerging visions - the Navy's Forward…From the Sea, and the
Marine Corps' Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS) and its tactical
implementation plan, Ship-to-Objective Maneuver (STOM) - have defined the
requirements for the 21st- century warfighting environment and the
capabilities needed to succeed in the littoral battlespace. Designed from
the keel up for littoral crises and conflicts, the LPD 17 Class will support
sustained and continuous operations in this challenging environment. Sea
Power 21 built upon these requirements to focus forces and Sea Warriors to
innovative employment and operational strategies to best serve our national
security. Enhanced amphibious capabilities and advanced warfighting systems
make these WARSHIPS the right tool for the expeditionary warriors in the
21st century.
Enhanced Warfighting
Designed to fight, the San Antonio Classwarfighting
capabilities include a state-of-the-art command and control suite,
substantially increased vehicle lift capacity, a large flight deck, and
advanced ship survivability features that enhance its ability to operate in
the unforgiving littoral environment. The deployment of LPD 17s will provide
each naval expeditionary force with greatly enhanced operational
flexibility. The LPD 17 can operate as part of an Amphibious Task Force -
the "workhorse" of a three-ship ARG - organized to accomplish a broad range
of military objectives; or as an element of a "Split-ARG" that has the LPD
17 detached and operating as a single ship, supporting lower-risk
operations. Furthermore, it has the warfighting potential to fully operate
within an Expeditionary Strike Group or perhaps serve as a mother shipto
planned Littoral Combat Ships. This mission flexibility fully expands the
ARG's or ESGs area of influence by providing an improved capability to cover
multiple areas of responsibility, while responding to several crises
simultaneously.
Improved LIFT - strategic and tactical - is critical to the
sustainment of power projection operations. The San Antonio Class is the
functional replacement for four Classes of less capable amphibious ships
equipped with 1970's and early 1980's technology, including its predecessor,
the USS Austin (LPD-4) Class. Each LPD 17 has 25,000 square feet of vehicle
storage space, more than the larger Wasp (LHD-1)-Class multipurpose assault
ship and double that of the LPD-4. When the required twelfth ship (LPD-28)
reaches the fleet, the Navy's amphibious force will have the enhanced lift
it needs to support forward presence operations and successfully implement
the OMFTS and STOM concepts.
The LPD 17 is the first amphibious ship designed to
accommodate the Marine Corps' "mobility triad" - Advanced Amphibious Assault
Vehicles (AAAV), Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC), and the Marine Corps' new
tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey - for high-speed, long-range tactical-lift
operations. Just as "littoral" has come to mean operations that begin well
"over-the-horizon" (OTH), some 600 miles from an adversary's coastline, the
"mobility triad" will ensure our ability to "reach out and touch someone"
200 miles inland, at revolutionary speeds.
Built Tough & For a Dangerous World
America's warships are designed and built to operate in
harm's way. Even in peacetime, the threat of attack always lurks in the
shadows. The multi-mission San Antonio Class is designed and engineered to
operate either as a critical part of a group, or alone, operating forward,
in hostile waters. The LPD 17 has a reduced vulnerability in the littoral
environment by minimizing radar cross section signature using a streamlined
topside design. Combining this significant improvement with state-of-the-art
command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities and upgraded self-defense systems
significantly improves the ship's ability to defeat airborne threats. The
LPD 17 design reflects a revolutionary emphasis on shipboard survivability
through an organization that will support both traditional manning and
core/flex approaches, a focus on vulnerability reduction, and 21st-century
survivability features. Never before has a design meshed these attributes
into such a comprehensive approach to optimizing ship survivability.
Although LPD 17 is not flagship-configured, it does contain
enhanced command and control features and a robust communications suite that
greatly improve its ability to support embarked landing forces, Marine Air
Ground Task Forces, Joint or friendly forces. The ship's Combat Information
Center, Marine Tactical Logistics Center, mini-Intelligence Center, and
Troop Operations command and control spaces are equipped with large screen
displays and dedicated computer consoles. Removable "smart bulkheads"
integrate these spaces to create synergy and the shared knowledge needed to
improve operational agility. A separate mission planning space provides the
assets for crisis action planning critical to Special Operations Capable
missions.
The heart of the ship's defensive
capability is a quick reaction Ship Self-Defense System (SSDS) that
correlates sensor information, provides threat identification and
evaluation, assesses own-ship defense readiness, and recommends optimal
tactical defense responses against anti-ship missile and aircraft attacks in
a cluttered conflict environment. Information flow
will be equally state-of-the-art, as the LPD 17 is the first U.S. Navy ship
to be equipped with a fiber-optic Shipboard Wide Area Network (SWAN). The
SWAN connects all ship systems, combat systems, sensors, and command and
control nodes with the ship's warfighting consoles to provide the essential
real-time decision-making information required for fighting the ship
effectively.
Employment of the "mobility triad" affords LPD 17, current
ARGs, and future ESGs with an OTH maneuver capability that extends their
operating range and improves threat reaction time. Highly capable air- and
surface-search radar systems, the revolutionary
Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), the Rolling Airframe Missile system,
and the Mk 53 Nulka Decoy Launching System present an impressive array of
self-defense capabilities. An upgrade path has been defined to accommodate
future advanced radar systems for long-term horizon-search and fire-control
requirements on LPD 17 in the 21st century.
The ship will carry two high rate-of-fire Mk 46 Mod 1
automated 30mm Close-in Gun System mounts. The Mk 46 provides long-range
lethality while engaging small, high-speed, surface targets. The LPD 17
design also reserves space and weight for adding improvements such as a
Vertical Launcher for the Evolved Sea-Sparrow Missile System to boost future
capability.
Innovative, Affordable Design
The San Antonio Program has been structured to ensure
seamless integration of Navy and Marine Corps assets. With the decision to
involve the war fighter from the keel up, the LPD 17 Team embraced a "Design
for Ownership" philosophy to interact with the fleet's operating forces -
the Navy and Marine Corps operators, maintainers, and trainers who will
ultimately use the ship. This unique engineering approach injected
warfighter inputs into the development process early on, shaping every
element of the ship's program, while simultaneously addressing the warship's
fundamental functionality to fine-tune its design and meet the warfighters'
needs.
The LPD 17 Program also took advantage of numerous "Smart
Technologies" and optimized-manning initiatives to achieve significant cost
avoidance in the operating and support costs of this 12-ship Class.
Addressing manning and human-systems integration issues early in the
developmental process was absolutely essential, since some 60 percent of a
ship's total ownership costs - cradle-to-grave - are linked directly to its
operating and support expenses. In response, the LPD 17 was designed for a
significantly reduced crew size the projected manning of 361 men and women
is 14 percent less than that of the smaller and far less-capable LPD-4 ships
that the LPD 17 Class replaces.
The San Antonio design reflects a focus on reducing
workload. Its all-electric auxiliaries eliminate existing
maintenance-intensive steam systems to achieve significant support savings
by reducing crew workload over the ship's 40-year lifetime. To further
reduce maintenance support requirements, corrosion-resistant materials are
used throughout the ship, high solids paint is used on the well deck
overhead and ballast tanks, and the ship's interior decks are covered with
wear-resistant tile. The ship's design with its hull-length overboard
discharges and elimination of cuppers will avoid the repeated painting of
running rust down the ship's side.
Enhanced Quality of Service
The Design for Ownership approach led to changes that will
enable every Sailor and Marine to focus on warfighting and associated
training and less on routine facilities management and own-unit support. The
LPD 17 also provides the latest quality-of-life features to help reduce some
of the rigors of life at sea. Newly designed gender-neutral living spaces
will have "sit-up" berths and adjacent head and lounge facilities. All
crewmembers and Marines will be able to access e-mail and Internet services
within their berthing spaces via the SWAN.
The SWAN also advances the art of onboard training on the
LPD 17 Class. The ship's training department will employ a Total Ship
Training System to develop lesson plans, conduct training, and document
results. Dedicated training spaces include the Learning Resource Center and
Electronic Classroom, and even the ship's chapel has been designed to
convert into a Classroom. The ship is designed to support Marine training
needs by providing space for an indoor simulated weapons range, as well as
other weapons trainers in the well deck and vehicle stowage spaces. Crews
will be able to train in their Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicles as they
interact with the ship's Battle Force Tactical Trainer.
Meeting the Nation's Needs
America's naval expeditionary forces - particularly its
multi-mission ARG/MEUs and future ESGs - are at the leading edge of global
operations that protect important U.S. interests, allies, and friendly
nations. They help maintain peace and stability in troubled regions around
the world, provide the foundation for quick, effective response when crises
and conflicts erupt, and are expected to be at the leading edge in the War
on Terrorism.
When the first Sailors and Marines
step onboard USS San Antonio in 2004, they will bring forward a
history of expeditionary operations from the sea that began more than two
centuries ago. The 12 multimission LPD 17s are the
foundation needed for extending that tradition of expeditionary warfare
excellence well into the 21st century.
The twelve ships of the LPD 17 Class program will be the
replacement for three Classes of amphibious ships that have reached the end
of their service life -- the LPD 4, LSD 36, and LST 1179 Classes - and one
Class that has already been retired, the LKA 113 -- replacing a total of 41
ships.
With acknowledgement to NAVSEA.
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