High Speed Navy EPF Transport Vessel Could Deliver Tanks in Support of Amphibious Assault

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By Kris Osborn, President Center for Military Modernization

The Navy is quickly expanding its fleet of high-speed Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) vehicles to support maritime transit operations, unmanned operations, surveillance, medical missions and even amphibious assault combat missions. The service just finished acceptance trials and unmanned missions with the future USNS Apalachicola (EPF 13).

EPFs are super high-speed vessels able to transport 600 tons of troops, weapons, equipment, ammo and even a small fleet of seventy-ton Abrams tanks to war.

The service’s 12th Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) ship, the USNS Newport, completed Integrated Sea Trials last year, an assessment and demonstration exercise intended to prepare the ship for full-scale operations by conducting maneuvers, transport missions and some reconnaissance operations. By traveling at fast-speeds of thirty-five knots and over distances as far as 1,200 miles, the new ships bring new dimensions to the Navy’s increasingly expeditionary warfare strategy.

Most recently, the service has demonstrated an unmanned ability with the EPF ships, by conducting “uncrewed logistics prototype trials,” according to an interesting story in Naval Technology. The unmanned ship traveled from Mobile, Ala., to Miami Florida as part of an early prototype demonstration of unmanned operational potential.

While classified as “non-combatant” ships, the EFP ships are not themselves armed with weapons but engineered for fast humanitarian transport, disaster relief and other high-speed missions. However, make no mistake, the ships are planned for major combat operations as well, as they can “roll-on/roll-off” armored vehicles, large numbers of armed soldiers or marines and, if needed, a group of drones.