The Marine Corps' Amphibious Ship Fleet

The latest DOD report on what amphibious ships the Marine Corps needs is classified. But, the Marine Corps' wish list is public:

Marine Corps officials have said their service needs a minimum of 31 amphibious ships: 10 big-deck amphibious assault ships and 21 amphibious transport dock ships. Congress agreed, and set that minimum number in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. It also required that the Marine commandant be consulted “on major decisions directly concerning Marine Corps aviation or amphibious force structure and capability.”

Marine officials have also said they need 35 of the future light amphibious warships, or LAWs. The LAW is key to the service’s Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept, and they would move the new Marine Littoral Regiments around the Pacific to counter or deny Chinese military activities, Gen. Eric Smith, the Corps’ assistant commandant, said at last year’s Sea Air Space conference.

The LAW is intended to complement the larger LHA and LPD amphibs, to be a more efficient way to transport Marines around the first island chain, Smith said.

But some argue that the comparatively slow and lightly armed LAWs would be so unsuited for combat that they throw the entire EABO concept into question.

The need for a modern day D-Day style amphibious assault is basically nil. 

But the military does need some way to transport soldiers and their gear to distant conflicts, and it could potentially need to use ships as a base of operations where there are no U.S. military bases (something more likely to come up in Latin America or Africa than in the western Pacific Ocean).