4. Department of Defense · Notable · Needs Congress
Develop and produce light amphibious warships
Printed page 117 4. Department of Defense
“Develop and produce light amphibious warships (LAWs) to support more distributed amphibious operations, especially in the Pacific.”
What has happened
- Partially done
The program is funded but not on contract as designed. CRS reports that the Navy's original LSM design "plan was abandoned in late 2024 when industry bids far exceeded the allocated budget" and that the Navy is now pursuing a revised acquisition strategy based on accelerated procurement of a commercial or non-developmental design; the Navy's FY2026 request sought $1.96 billion for an initial nine LSMs against a Marine Corps requirement CRS puts at 35 ships for three Marine Littoral Regiments.
- Partially done
Congress appropriated procurement money for the ship. Section 20002 of the reconciliation act (P.L. 119-21) provides $160,000,000 in advance procurement and $1,803,941,000 for procurement of the Landing Ship Medium - the program's current name; the Light Amphibious Warship of the Quote was redesignated LSM before the window - plus $295,000,000 for a second Landing Craft Utility shipyard and additional LCUs as the bridging capability. Money for the buy is enacted; no ship has been delivered.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
The naming change is the search problem: “light amphibious warship” returns zero hits in every enacted instrument in the window, while “Landing Ship Medium” returns the appropriation above. LSM is the term that finds it.
- The ask needs an act of Congress; it is partial on the ladder for such asks (enacted in part - the procurement appropriation - but no ship produced).
- Action
- create
- Object
- light amphibious warships (LAWs)
- ID
- 228