How much ocean shipping of troops do we expect, though?
I think there are lots of real concerns about fleet construction, and fleet construction capacity [1]; but if the troop carriers we have work well enough, and we generally airship troops, I don't think we need to be building new ocean going troop carriers with any urgency. As these age out, it may not make sense to replace them.
[1] In WWII, existing shipyards retooled to make warships (as well as replacement cargo ships), and new shipyards were built. In 2025, there are few shipyards in the US and building new shipyards would be challenging... most of the suitable coastal properties are developed.
> How much ocean shipping of troops do we expect, though?
How much ocean shipping of tanks is expected? How much ocean shipping of trucks is expected? How much ocean shipping of jeeps is expected? How much ocean shipping of artillery is expected? How much ocean shipping of ammunitions is expected? How much ocean shipping of fuel is expected?
How much ocean shipping of food is expected? Because how many commercial carriers will want to sail into an active war zone?
Troop transports are kind of a red herring here. The issue isn’t moving troops, it’s moving their equipment. You can pretty easily move a division’s worth of troops by air (activate CRAF and requisition a few dozen 777s, boom, done), but it’s a lot harder to move their equipment (tanks, helicopters, artillery, air defense, ammo, etc.) that way. If the troops don’t have pre-positioned equipment in the battle area, then it really needs to get there aboard ships.
I’m of two minds about re-creating the logical and industrial capabilities of World War II (or, at least the subset of them needed to fight a major conflict with a near peer). On the one hand, I’m pretty sure that enough money could and would be thrown at the problem to solve it. On the other hand, I’m not sure any direct confrontation with a near-peer military would last long enough for that to matter.
> On the one hand, I’m pretty sure that enough money could and would be thrown at the problem to solve it.
I'm skeptical that this is the case. Supply chains for goods have become much more intricate than they were a hundred years ago and America has completely ceded them to China.
At the same time by ceding these supply chains America has let manufacturing skill sets completely atrophy and with it has seen the evaporation of institutional knowledge necessary to train new generations of blue collar workers necessary to scale up manufacturing.
This isn't even a 'nine people can't make a baby in one month' type scenario, this is more like 'we just plum forgot how to make babies' scenario which is disconcerting to say the least.
> On the other hand, I’m not sure any direct confrontation with a near-peer military would last long enough for that to matter.
Hasn’t Ukraine shown us the opposite? Drones of all typees covering the battlefield have reset military doctrine once again. That war has been anything but quick.
I think there are lots of real concerns about fleet construction, and fleet construction capacity [1]; but if the troop carriers we have work well enough, and we generally airship troops, I don't think we need to be building new ocean going troop carriers with any urgency. As these age out, it may not make sense to replace them.
[1] In WWII, existing shipyards retooled to make warships (as well as replacement cargo ships), and new shipyards were built. In 2025, there are few shipyards in the US and building new shipyards would be challenging... most of the suitable coastal properties are developed.