How much time will a “mini aircraft carrier” remain parked before its inability can be noticed? The US amphibious assault ship USS Ivo Jima (LHD-7) is bound to a major availability maintenance period that would last until February 2028, in a BAE Systems contract worth between 204.1 million to 255.8 million. It is a repair and overhaul plus upgrade award- a one and two and three package aimed at adding back some bow from a class of ship long in active service and operating near the red line.
The Wasp-class LHD, the Ivo Jima, is one of the largest amphibious warships in the Navy which was designed to resemble a small aircraft carrier and yet had a well deck on which the landing craft could be launched. Big-deck amphibs serve as the core of an Amphibious Ready Group, transporting a Marine Expeditionary Unit consisting of an aviation mix that may include helicopters, tiltrotors and short-takeoff fighters. Ivo Jima is set up as a sea-control ship, and can be used as a “Lightning Carrier,” capable of carrying 20 F-35Bs- an eye-catching capability that keeps the LHDs in the operational discussion long beyond the ship-to-shore capability.
It is precisely because of that flexibility that making a ship go offline to years is never a simple decision to make in the schedule. The latest employment pattern that Iwo Jima has also depicts the balancing act by the Navy. With the 22nd MEU, the ship has been conducting operations in the Caribbean in its ARG and has come back after a hiatus during which an ARG / MEU gulf had gone months long. Neither was readiness work waiting with a shipyard window. Throughout the deployment, a sailor-and-civilian crew member of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center conducted two weeks of repair timeline that encompassed structural and access-point operation in addition to “non-destructive testing” to verify the fleet remained to the standards.
Senior Navy leadership has been explicit about the consequences of letting amphibious maintenance slip. “I’m committed to getting our amphibious maintenance done on time so the Marines can embark and we can deploy as scheduled for the global force management process,” acting chief of naval operations Adm. Jim Kilby told the House Armed Services Committee in June. The focus is indicative of a greater preparedness issue that has already been reported beyond the lifelines of individual vessels. An audit conducted by the Government Accountability Office quoted in a watchdog summary determined that 50 percent of the amphibious fleet of 32 ships had maintained a “poor” condition, and that over a few years, some ships have been unavailable, which fairly directly reduces training cycles in the Marine, and predictable deployment.
Below such readiness statistics are industrial and technical factors. The Wasp-class ships are based on the outdated steam-powered systems and watchdog reporting has highlighted obsolescence of parts and declining expertise in non-nuclear steam propulsion. The consequence is a fleet in which the “big deck” amphibs are not only in the center of the day to day demand, but also demand lengthy, more cautiously arranged availabilities to make them economical. Meanwhile, new amphibs procurement programs have their own schedule and manpower pressures, according to Congressional research on LPD-17 Flight II and LHA programs, and have less margin of error when legacy ships are in extended maintenance.
Although the ship is about to go into a long yardage, the recent deployments undertaken by Ivo Jima have also highlighted a human aspect in addition. The amphibious warship was the first to have a USO recharge center aboard, and this realization that big-deck amphibs can routinely carry thousands of Sailors and Marines aboard and serve as self-sustained, self-contained communities weeks or months at a time. The projected readiness makes USS Ivo Jima continue its cycle of fleet availability: not of the individual ship, but of the force that delivers Marines into the future: the way the Navy replenishes usable days at sea.
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