A new Navy panel is studying whether the military should use the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) for more than transporting troops in theater.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus joined Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) in a Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee hearing Wednesday in praising the JHSV, which is built by Austal USA in Mobile, Ala.
“Given the…ship’s speed, cargo-capability, and ability to maneuver in the shallow waters, would it not be prudent for the Navy to look at expanding the Joint High Speed Vessel mission beyond theater transport?” asked Shelby, the ranking member of the full Senate Appropriations Committee.
Greenert replied that he “just assigned a three-star panel to do exactly what (Shelby) said, to expand the concept of operation, working with the Marine Corps to find out if we can do this.”
Greenert called the JHSV a “vessel with a lot of potential,” and Mabus dubbed it one of the service’s “most-flexible platforms.”
The JHSV is a 338-foot-long aluminum catamaran. It has a mission bay of roughly 20,000 square feet and can move 600 tons of cargo at more than 35 knots while carrying over 300 combat-ready Marines.
The Navy already has begun to expand the JHSV’s role into theater cooperation, Mabus noted.
For “everything from transporting Marines, soldiers, and their equipment for either combat or training or lift throughout the vast distances of the Pacific, for example, to doing partnership engagements to other missions,…as we get these ships into the fleet (and) see their capabilities, we can expand,” Mabus said.
Military Sealift Command accepted delivery of its first JHSV last December.