The maritime preposition force ship 2010

Abstract

A systems engineering approach to the design of a ship that will satisfy the requirements for a Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) for the year 2010 and beyond is presented. This ship, the MPF 2010, will provide the means by which the United States Marine Corps will be able to successfully employ the tenets of Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS) and the Ship-to-Objective Maneuver (STOM) against an objective. The current Marine Prepositioning Ship (MPS) suqadrons are used to preposition supplies, vehicles, and equipment throughout the world for use by a Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) of Marine Expeditionary Force - Forward, MEF (FWD) size, in times of crisis. However, these squadrons presently require that a secure airfield and port (or beachhead) be available so that the prepositioned MPS assets can be offloaded and married with arriving MAGTF personnel ashore. As such, the current MPS squadrons do not support the concepts of OMFTS and STOM. The MPF 2010 will provide the capability to embark a MEF (FWD), marry the MEF (FWD) with its prepositioned equipment while en route to the objective, and then act as sea base from which it will be able to employ air, ground and amphibious assets to project power ashore.