(Washington, D.C.) The Marine Corps is taking a large new step with its new heavily armed, island-hopping maritime vessel called the Light Amphibious Warship, a new platform intended to bring the Navy’s evolving ocean warfare strategies into new dimensions.
The concept with LAW is to enable multi-domain land-sea integrated operations, particularly in coastal or island areas where ship to shore weapons transport and attack may be of crucial importance.
The new ship has primarily existed in the world of concept but is now moving into a new phase of development to include a Navy move to award five “concept design” contracts to shipbuilders.
Many have taken note that the chosen shipbuilders are smaller companies potentially positioned to flex production and deliver high value at a lower cost than some of the large ship building companies might be able to do.
The Navy awarded deals to an Italian firm Fincantieri, Australia’s Austal USA, TAI Engineers, VT Halter Marine and Bollinger Shipyards.
While smaller and lighter than existing big-deck amphibs, the LAW will likely be heavily armed.
Ground Based Anti-Ship Missile (GBASM) and Naval Strike Missile
The Corps is now testing an emerging multi-domain weapons concept called Ground Based Anti-Ship Missile (GBASM), wherein the ship-fired Naval Strike Missile is configured to fire from land.
