The Navy is transitioning to medium landing ship design

Navy Secretary John Phelan announced a major strategic shift in naval shipbuilding on Friday, announcing the selection of a design for the Medium Landing Ship program after previously eliminating four ships from the troubled Constellation-class frigate program.

“We are fundamentally changing the way the Navy builds and deploys its fleet,” Phelan said on social media. “Today I am taking the second major step in that effort: selecting the design for our medium landing ship, an operationally focused, fiscally disciplined decision that puts fleet performance on a responsible schedule.”

Phelan selected the LST-100 landing ship designed by Dutch shipbuilder Damen for the program. He described it as a ship weighing about 4,000 tons with a range of more than 3,400 nautical miles. The same design is used by Australia's new Heavy Landing Craft, built by Austal in Australia.

The announcement comes as the Navy grapples with increasing delays in several shipbuilding programs. Last week, the service announced it was canceling four Constellation-class frigates at Fincantieri Marinette Marine's shipyard in Wisconsin that had not yet begun construction, citing serious scheduling issues that pushed delivery of the lead ship from April 2026 to April 2029 – a delay of three years.

The Medium Landing Ship program, formerly known as the Light Amphibious Warship program, calls for the procurement of 18 to 35 new amphibious ships to support Marine Corps operations, particularly to implement the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept developed with an eye toward potential conflict scenarios with China in the Western Pacific.

Under this concept, the Marine Corps envisions reinforced, platoon-sized units maneuvering through the theater of operations, moving from island to island to fire anti-ship cruise missiles and conduct other missions alongside Marine forces. The LSMs would be instrumental in these operations by embarking, transporting, landing, and then reboarding these small Marine Corps units.

Phelan added that the Navy will competitively appoint a shipbuilding manager to oversee the LSM program.

The LSM program could be built by multiple U.S. shipyards, with the Navy generally preferring a single shipyard to build all ships, although multiple shipyards could be used to implement the program more quickly and cost-effectively.

The grounding of the four Constellation-class frigates is the latest in a series of cancellations or significant changes to the federal shipbuilding program under the current administration. Previous decisions included scrapping the U.S. Coast Guard's planned 11th Legend-class National Security Cutter at Huntington Ingalls and partially canceling the troubled Offshore Patrol Cutter program at Eastern Shipbuilding.

Those decisions reveal a growing pattern of cuts in several maritime programs, even as U.S. Navy and Coast Guard leaders warn that the country's shipyards and industrial base already lag far behind China's.