FY2024 Budget: Navy Won't Buy Any More San Antonio Amphibs in the Next Five Years - USNI News

The Defense Department’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget request will not seek to buy any San Antonio-class amphibious warships in the next five years, exposing a continued fissure between Pentagon and Marine Corps priorities, USNI News has learned.

The $842 billion budget request, which the Defense Department will formally unveil on Monday, will not ask to buy LPD-33 in the FY 2024 Future Years Defense Program. That ship was previously scheduled for procurement in FY 2025. Lawmakers authorized and appropriated $250 million in advanced procurement funding for the LPD-17 Flight II warship last year in the FY 2023 defense policy and spending bills at the request of the Marine Corps.

The decision not to ask for LPD-33 stems from the so-called “strategic pause” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said the service is taking on purchasing amphibious warships, as reported by Defense News. Del Toro said the pause is so the Navy can perform evaluations on the numbers of amphibious ships it needs and the types of capabilities those warships should have.