美国两栖舰队问题多多，状况非常糟糕

The Navy’s amphibious fleet is in such a sorry state that half of the ships are declared to be in “poor condition” and not on track to serve for the entirety of their service lives. In addition, the sea service will struggle to maintain a fleet of at least 31 amphibs into the 2030s as required by law.

海军的两栖舰队状况极为糟糕，甚至有一半的舰船被宣告为“状况不佳”，并且无法在其整个服役期内继续服役。此外，海军将很难保持至少31艘两栖舰艇的规模，以满足其要求，直到2030年代。

Those are some of the grim findings of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the state of the Navy’s 32 amphibious assault ships (LHD/LHA), dock landing ships (LSD) and amphibious transport docks, (LPD), which come together to form Amphibious Ready Groups (ARG) that transport Marines, their aircraft and other vehicles across the seas.

这些是美国政府问责办公室（GAO）报告中的一些严峻发现，报告指出海军32艘两栖攻击舰（LHD/LHA）、船坞登陆舰（LSD）和两栖运输船坞（LPD）的现状，这些舰艇共同组成两栖应急分队（ARG），将海军陆战队员、他们的飞机和其他车辆运输到海上。

Without these ships, which are based in San Diego, Little Creek, Virginia, and Sasebo, Japan, Marines can struggle to deploy or train, and Tuesday’s GAO report lays out how bad the fleet has gotten, and how hard it will be to get it back on a proper course.

没有这些舰艇（它们分别驻扎在圣地亚哥、弗吉尼亚州的小溪以及日本的佐世保），海军陆战队将难以执行部署或训练。而周二的GAO报告详细阐述了舰队的糟糕状况，并指出要将其恢复到正常状态将面临的困难。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

The GAO highlights a host of longstanding problems that have afflicted the entire fleet to varying degrees, including chronic maintenance delays, competing budget priorities, ill-planned early-retirement efforts that went forward without required congressional approval, scarce spare parts, shoddy contractor oversight and other issues.

政府问责办公室（GAO）指出了长期困扰整个舰队的众多问题，具体包括长期的维护延迟、预算优先事项冲突、未经国会批准就推进的早期退休计划、零部件短缺、承包商监督不力以及其他问题。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

But the report does not address the Marine Corps’ original Force Design 2030 vision, which involved sweeping changes to the Corps to ready Marines for a fight in the Pacific. Under the original proposed doctrine, far less emphasis would be placed on large-scale beach landings centered around a few dozen amphibious ships and more would be put into Marines operating in smaller groups, and possibly from smaller amphibious vessels, distributed across a vast battle space. This put the future of traditional amphibs in doubt, but that vision has since been watered down due to competing interests, including the demands of Congress, and the amphibious assault vessels have remained a priority for the Navy and the USMC.

然而，报告并未涉及海军陆战队的原始《2030年部队设计》愿景，该愿景涉及对海军陆战队进行广泛改革，以准备迎接太平洋地区的战斗。在最初的提案中，重心不再放在依赖少数几艘两栖舰进行的大规模滩头登陆上，而是转向让海军陆战队员在较小的团队中行动，可能使用较小的两栖舰艇，并分布在广阔的战区内。这使得传统两栖舰的未来充满不确定性，但由于利益冲突，包括国会的要求，这一愿景已经被削弱，两栖攻击舰仍然是海军和海军陆战队的优先事项。

Two-high profile amphib failures this year showcased the real-world consequences of the fleet’s ongoing issues. The Boxer ARG, composed of USS Boxer (LHD-4), USS Somerset (LPD-25) and USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49), all experienced maintenance delays and were unable to deploy as planned in September 2023. Boxer couldn’t go until April 2024 and had to turn around and return to San Diego just days into its Pacific cruise due to a starboard rudder issue. After that, Boxer didn’t resume its deployment until July 2024, 10 months after it was supposed to head out.

今年两次高调的两栖舰失败展示了舰队持续问题的现实后果。由USS Boxer（LHD-4）、USS Somerset（LPD-25）和USS Harpers Ferry（LSD-49）组成的博克斯应急分队（ARG）都经历了维护延迟，未能按计划在2023年9月部署。博克斯号直到2024年4月才能启航，并在太平洋巡航开始几天后因右舷舵问题而被迫返回圣地亚哥。之后，博克斯号直到2024年7月才恢复部署，远远晚于原定的出航时间。

ARG leaders later highlighted the training they were still able to do on deployment, but the GAO notes that, with Boxer unavailable, “the Marine Corps was unable to deploy the full 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit and lacked the capabilities provided by F-35 fighter aircraft.”

应急分队的领导者后来强调了他们在部署过程中仍能进行的训练，但GAO指出，由于博克斯号无法出海，“海军陆战队未能部署完整的第15海军陆战远征部队，且缺乏F-35战斗机提供的能力。”

The USS America (LHA-6) ARG was unable to patrol as a full group this year due to a lack of the three ships required for a full ARG, resulting in the Navy and Marine Corps missing exercises and creating a presence gap in the group’s assigned area of responsibility, the report states.

报告还指出，USS America（LHA-6）号应急分队由于缺少执行完整任务所需的三艘舰艇，未能作为完整的编队执行巡逻任务，导致海军和海军陆战队错过了演习，并在该分队的责任区内出现了存在空白。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

The Navy has also been down an additional amphib since a 2020 port fire, and bungled response, destroyed the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6).

海军自2020年港口火灾及其糟糕的应对措施摧毁了USS Bonhomme Richard（LHD-6）以来，还少了一艘两栖舰。

Such readiness issues are not new in the fleet, according to the GAO, which cites Marine Corps records showing that the Navy had to extend 71 percent of its amphib depot maintenance periods from 2010 to 2021, and that this cost the Marines nearly 29 years in lost training and deployment time.

根据GAO的报告，这种准备状态问题在舰队中并不新鲜，报告引用了海军陆战队的记录，显示从2010年到2021年，海军不得不延长71%的两栖舰维修周期，这导致海军陆战队损失了近29年的训练和部署时间。

Marine Corps leaders have diplomatically expressed frustration with the Navy’s inability to get its amphib house in order, even as the two services continue to hammer out an amphibious fleet plan for the future that will help mitigate such shortcomings.

尽管两军仍在制定未来的两栖舰队计划以弥补这些不足，海军陆战队领导人已表达了对海军未能理顺两栖舰问题的外交性沮丧。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Then-Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith told reporters in July 2023 that four of the last five ARG deployments had failed to go on time.

时任海军陆战队副指挥官的埃里克·史密斯将军在2023年7月告诉记者，过去五次中的四次两栖应急分队（ARG）部署未能按时进行。

“Did they have their full amount of training days? Did they have their full integration period? And did they deploy together as an ARG-MEU? If they couldn’t do that [then] we have a readiness problem,” Smith, who is now the Marine Corps commandant, told Breaking Defense’s Justin Katz.

“他们是否获得了足够的训练天数？是否有足够的整合期？是否作为一个ARG-MEU（两栖应急分队-海军陆战队远征部队）一起部署？如果他们不能做到这一点，那么我们就存在准备状态问题，”史密斯将军（现为海军陆战队指挥官）对《Breaking Defense》的贾斯汀·凯茨说。

Navy Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said at an event at the Stimson Center think tank Tuesday that the Navy was eventually able to deploy the Boxer, and that the deployment was extended so that the Marines could get through their training requirements.

海军作战部长丽莎·弗朗切蒂海军上将于周二在斯廷森中心智库的一次活动中表示，海军最终能够部署博克斯号，并且部署期限被延长，以便海军陆战队完成其训练要求。

She said the services are working to understand how they can work through maintenance challenges without impeding Marine training or certifications, and that the Navy has funded the purchase of new amphibs.

她表示，海军和海军陆战队正在努力了解如何克服维修挑战，同时不妨碍海军陆战队的训练和认证，并且海军已经为购买新型两栖舰提供了资金支持。

“We’re committed, locked shields, in everything we do,” she said, adding that such ships are “a capability we need all around the world, every single day.”

她说：“我们承诺，肩并肩，做好我们的一切工作。”并补充道，这些舰艇是“我们全球每一天都需要的能力保障。”

Two Navy reviews commenced this spring and in 2023, when Franchetti was vice chief of naval operations, seeking to get a full picture of “the wide range of problems affecting readiness in the amphibious fleet,” but the GAO notes that the sea service “has made little progress in addressing these challenges.”

两项海军审查工作分别于今年春季和2023年启动，当时弗朗切蒂还是海军作战副部长，旨在全面了解“影响两栖舰队准备状态的各种问题”，但GAO指出，海军在解决这些挑战方面“进展甚微”。

Ship age and other factors means the Navy will have a hard time meeting its statutory requirement to have at least 31 amphibs going forward, the GAO report states. The service currently has 32 amphibs in its fleet and is mulling service-life extensions to keep the fleet at 31 vessels, but the GAO found that such work will cost up to $1 billion a ship, and that six ships will need such extensions in the next 30 years “amid rising ship construction costs and maintenance backlogs.”

船龄及其他因素意味着海军将难以满足其法定要求，即在未来保持至少31艘两栖舰，GAO报告指出。海军目前拥有32艘两栖舰，并正在考虑延长这些舰艇的服役期以保持舰队规模在31艘，但GAO发现，这一工作每艘船的费用可能高达10亿美元，且未来30年将有六艘船需要进行此类延长，“与此同时，船舶建造成本上升和维修积压的情况也在增加”。

The GAO also notes that the Navy maintaining at least 31 amphibs does not mean these ships are good to deploy or train: “In some cases, ships within the amphibious warfare fleet have not been available to support Marine Corps operations and training for years at a time.”

GAO还指出，海军保持至少31艘两栖舰并不意味着这些舰艇可以随时投入部署或训练：“在一些情况下，两栖舰队中的舰艇已有多年未能支持海军陆战队的操作和训练。”

Several amphibs cited in the report highlight these ongoing issues.

报告中列举的几艘两栖舰突显了这些持续存在的问题。

USS Wasp (LHD 1), the oldest LHD class ship in the fleet at 35 years, is struggling to get parts for its conventional steam propulsion system. This is doubly concerning as the Navy mulls the possibility of extending the service lives of its LHDs beyond their 40 years to maintain fleet size.

USS Wasp（LHD 1），舰队中最老的LHD级舰艇，已有35年舰龄，正面临难以为其传统蒸汽推进系统找到零部件的问题。这一问题令人更加担忧，因为海军正在考虑是否延长其LHD舰艇的服役期，超出40年以维持舰队规模。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

“However, officials stated that replacing steam propulsion plants is not currently a part of this effort, so the Navy will need to continue maintaining them on LHD ships,” the report states, adding that the Navy is “taking some measures to address obsolescence issues with the machinery control systems” on LHDs LHAs starting this fiscal year.

报告指出：“尽管官员们表示，替换蒸汽推进系统目前并不在此项工作计划之内，海军仍将需要继续对LHD舰艇上的蒸汽推进系统进行维护。”报告补充说，海军“正在采取一些措施来解决LHD和LHA上的机械控制系统的老化问题”，从本财政年度开始进行相关工作。

New amphibs aren’t immune to travails, either. Less than three years into its service, the USS Fort Lauderdale (LPD 28) “is already facing limitations with its use in part because of poor equipment design,” according to the GAO. Ship and maintenance officials reported that the USS Fort Lauderdale faced challenges with the knuckle boom crane and the mechanical arm used to launch rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB), which had high failure rates coupled with increased costs and ordering delays for parts.

新的两栖舰也并非没有困难。根据GAO的报告，USS Fort Lauderdale（LPD 28）服役不到三年，“由于设备设计不良，已面临部分使用限制”。船舶和维修官员报告称，USS Fort Lauderdale面临着起重臂和机械臂的问题，这些设备用于发射刚性船体充气艇（RHIB），但故障率高，并且零部件的成本增加、订购延误。

What’s more, fuel and ballast tank level indicators were improperly calibrated and unreliable, and sailors didn’t have the information needed to calibrate the ship’s tank level indicators, resulting in the Navy having to fly in contractors every time a part needed recalibrating.

此外，燃料和压载舱的液位指示器校准不当且不可靠，船员无法获得所需信息来校准舰船的液位指示器，导致每当需要重新校准零部件时，海军不得不飞来承包商进行维修。

“The ship and maintenance officials stated that some LPD system sextion choices involve proprietary parts that prevent the ship’s technicians from being able to maintain certain items, such as the fiber optic navigation lights,” the report states.

报告指出：“船舶和维修官员表示，部分LPD系统选择涉及专有零件，这些零件阻止船舶技术人员对某些设备进行维护，比如光纤导航灯。”

Aboard the USS Essex (LHD 2), shoddy contractor work and poor Navy oversight resulted in welds having to be redone because of a lack of quality assurance oversights, resulting in “extensive rework and delays to the repair period.”

在USS Essex（LHD 2）上，由于承包商的糟糕工作和海军监督不力，焊接需要重新进行，因为缺乏质量保证的监督，导致“大量返工并延迟了维修周期”。

Part of the amphibious fleet’s poor condition stems from a prior Navy decision to cancel maintenance for a sizable portion of the fleet. The Navy planned as recently as 2022 to divest 10 of its LSDs, nearly a third of the fleet, before the end of their respective service lives.

两栖舰队状况不佳的一部分原因来源于海军此前决定取消对大部分舰艇的维修。海军曾计划在2022年之前，将其近三分之一的LSD舰艇出售，甚至在它们的服役期限结束之前就进行处置。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Congress came back in December 2022 and prohibited the Navy from spending money to divest a portion of those ships, so the Navy had to continue operating them, “even though it had already canceled the required maintenance periods,” according to the GAO.

根据GAO的报告，国会在2022年12月介入，禁止海军花费资金出售这些舰艇中的一部分，因此海军不得不继续运营这些舰艇，“尽管海军已取消了所需的维修周期”。

“As a result, these LSD class ships fell into further disrepair, which compounded the amount of work the Navy needs to complete in future maintenance periods,” the report states. “In 2023, the Navy found that seven of 13 incidents that affected amphibious fleet readiness were lixed to LSD diesel engine problems resulting from deferred maintenance.”

报告指出：“因此，这些LSD级舰艇进一步陷入了恶化，增加了海军在未来维修周期中需要完成的工作量。”报告继续提到：“2023年，海军发现，影响两栖舰队战备的13起事件中，有7起与LSD柴油发动机问题有关，这些问题源于延迟维修。”

Canceling these maintenance plans created a backlog of maintenance work that the Navy cannot realistically complete, the report adds.

取消这些维修计划导致了维修工作的积压，海军无法实际完成这些工作。

GAO also found that, in some cases, deferring maintenance resulted in the Navy having to retire amphibious ships earlier than planned. The USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43) was retired in 2021, six years before the end of its service life, and Navy maintenance officials described the vessel as “a poorly maintained ship that had accumulated a significant backlog (i.e., approximately $146 million) of deferred maintenance at the time of divestment.”

GAO还发现，在某些情况下，推迟维修导致海军不得不提前退役两栖舰艇。USS Fort McHenry（LSD 43）于2021年提前六年退役，远早于原定的服役期限，海军维修官员将该舰描述为“一艘维护不善的舰船，退役时积累了大量未处理的维修任务（大约1.46亿美元）。”
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

The Navy also struggles to meet its amphibious availability goals because maintenance does not happen on time, a problem that has plagued the Navy overall for years. Just three of 14 depot maintenance periods undertaken between Fiscal Years 2020 to 2022 were done on time, resulting in more than 1,200 days of cumulative delays.

海军还面临着达成两栖舰艇可用性目标的困难，因为维修未能按时进行，这一问题已经困扰海军多年。在2020财政年到2022财政年期间，海军进行的14次工厂维修中，只有3次按时完成，导致累计延误超过1200天。

“Maintenance delays can result in cascading delays to training and, ultimately, deployment,” GAO states. “Additionally, in total, the maintenance periods cost $400 million more than the original contract value for the efforts.”

GAO指出：“维修延误可能导致训练的连锁延迟，最终影响部署。”此外，“总的来说，维修周期的费用比原始合同金额多出4亿美元。”

GAO had identified such problems in late 2022 as it pertained to generating carrier strike groups. The watchdog recommended the Navy identify measures of success and performance in its ready-ship producing processes, but that recommendation remained unresolved as of September 2024.

GAO在2022年底曾发现类似问题，特别是在生成航母打击群方面。监管机构建议海军在其备战舰船生产过程中确定成功和绩效的衡量标准，但截至2024年9月，这一建议仍未解决。

Like the Marines’ Force Design 2030 vision, some outside analysts question if the Navy even needs such a sizable amphibious fleet, given the fact that those large ships are unlikely to be landing huge numbers of Marines under fire during a peer fight in the Pacific.

与海军陆战队的《2030年力量设计》愿景类似，一些外部分析人士质疑海军是否仍然需要如此庞大的两栖舰队，考虑到这些大型舰船在太平洋的对等战争中不太可能在敌火中进行大规模的登陆作战。

When it comes to the China threat, it’s highly unlikely that the kind of amphibious force provided by an ARG would be used to conduct an amphibious invasion, given Beijing’s targeting and weapons delivery systems, according to Bradley Martin, a retired surface warfare officer who spent two-thirds of his 30-year career at sea.

关于中国威胁，退役水面作战军官布拉德利·马丁（Bradley Martin）表示，由于北京的靶向和武器投送系统，ARG提供的两栖力量在进行两栖入侵时的使用可能性非常低，而他自己有30年的海上服役经验，其中有三分之二的时间在海上度过。

“That’s not gonna happen,” Martin, now a policy researcher at the RAND think tank, told TWZ.

布拉德利·马丁（Bradley Martin）如今是兰德研究所的政策研究员，他在接受《TWZ》采访时表示：“这不可能发生。”

Still, he noted that ARGs and MEUs can provide a variety of useful missions elsewhere in the world, including seizure of advanced bases, raids, reconnaissance, sea basing, supporting lower-intensity conflicts, and non-combatant evacuations, including in areas where China and Russia have major interest.

尽管如此，他指出，两栖攻击舰和海军陆战队远征单位（MEUs）可以在全球其他地区提供多种有用的任务，包括占领先进基地、突袭、侦察、海上基地支持、低强度冲突支持和撤离非战斗人员，包括在中国和俄罗斯有重要利益的地区。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Amphibious assault ships upgraded to carry F-35 fighter jets could play a role in a China fight by serving as part of the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) construct, which would involve keeping China guessing as to where such aircraft are operating from. Go here to read TWZ’s past coverage of EABO.

升级为可搭载F-35战斗机的两栖攻击舰在与中国的对抗中可能发挥作用，成为远征先进基地作战（EABO）结构的一部分，这将涉及让中国无法确定这些飞机的具体出发地点。点击此处阅读TWZ对EABO的往期报道。

The Navy and Marines would benefit from better defining and scoping the missions they want an ARG and its embarked MEU to take on, according to Martin.

马丁认为，海军和海军陆战队应更好地定义和确定它们希望两栖攻击群（ARG）及其远征单位（MEU）承担的任务。

“This will allow more focused attention on real-world needs,” he said. “This could lead to better definition of readiness and force structure requirements.”

他说：“这将使我们能更有针对性地关注现实世界的需求，这可能会有助于更好地定义备战状态和部队结构要求。”

Whether the Navy is planning how to use its ARGs in a China fight remains unclear. The GAO report gives a quick mention to “a modernization effort intended to increase the ship’s relevance in the future operating environment by expanding weapons, radar and other capabilities,” that could portend readying that fleet for such a contingency, but the Navy is in the early stages of planning for this effort and had not developed budget estimates for the effort.

是否海军正在规划如何在与中国的冲突中使用其两栖攻击群仍不清楚。GAO报告简要提到了一项“现代化努力，旨在通过扩展武器、雷达和其他能力，增加舰船在未来作战环境中的相关性”，这可能预示着该舰队为应对这种突发情况做好准备，但海军仍处于规划的初期阶段，且尚未制定该努力的预算估算。

GAO’s latest report lays bare the extent of the amphibious fleet’s problems. How the Navy, Marine Corps, the Pentagon and Congress will respond to these problems, and their myriad of causes, remains to be seen.

GAO的最新报告揭示了两栖舰队问题的严重程度。海军、海军陆战队、五角大楼和国会如何回应这些问题及其众多根源，仍有待观察。