The U.S. Navy has jolted the shipbuilding world by choosing a foreign blueprint as the foundation for its next amphibious workhorse, the new Medium Landing Ship. Instead of a homegrown hull, the service is turning to a Dutch Landing Ship Transport, a move that signals both urgency and a willingness to disrupt long standing industrial habits. The decision caps years of debate over how to move Marines around contested archipelagos and whether the United States can afford to wait for a bespoke design.
At the center of the shift is the Damen LST 100, a proven export vessel that will now underpin a class of American Landing Ship Mediums, or LSMs. The choice reflects a broader rethink of amphibious warfare concepts, from the original Light Amphibious Warship idea to a more robust, survivable platform that still stays small enough to slip inside an adversary’s weapons engagement zone.
The foreign hull that beat U.S. concepts
The Navy has effectively admitted that speed to fleet now outweighs the prestige of an all domestic design by selecting the Dutch LST 100 as the basis for its new Medium Landing Ships. Reporting on the program makes clear that the LST 100 from Dutch shipbuilder Damen will be adapted into an American class of LSMs, with the U.S. Navy expecting to field the first operational ship on an aggressive schedule. In December, the Navy confirmed that this foreign hull would be the design basis for the Landing Ship Medium program, locking in a path that leans on an existing commercial military hybrid rather than a clean sheet.
The choice is even more striking given how closely the Navy and Marine Corps had guarded the original Light Amphibious Warship concept. Earlier planning described how Navy and Marine wrestled with requirements for what was first dubbed the Light Amphibious Warship for dispersed operations, before the effort evolved into the Medium Landing Ship. That evolution opened the door to foreign designs, and in December the Navy formally aligned the LSM program with the LST 100, a decision later summarized with the phrase In December the Navy selected the LST as the design basis for its Landing Ship Medium, or LSM, program.
Why Marines pushed for a different kind of ship
The Marines have been the driving force behind this unconventional procurement, arguing that traditional big deck amphibs are too scarce and too vulnerable for the island hopping campaign they envision in the western Pacific. Their Force Design 2030 construct, referenced in Washington coverage that noted an Image of a medium landing ship from a Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, report, calls for smaller, more numerous ships that can shuttle small units and missiles between austere beaches. The Landing Ship Medium, formerly known as the Light Amphibious Warship, is meant to be that connector, able to beach itself, unload, and then disappear before an adversary can target it.
Earlier planning documents described a class of 18 to 35 LSMs, with a draft proposal explaining that the class of 18 Landing Ship Medium hulls would ferry elements of Marine units in support of a modern campaign of island hopping. That same proposal underscored that the LSM, or Landing Ship Medium, had to be affordable enough to buy in numbers, which helps explain why a relatively simple LST 100 hull, already in service abroad, became so attractive. The Marines’ insistence on quantity, beachability, and low signatures created a requirement set that a foreign commercial style design could meet faster than a bespoke American warship.
How the program was retooled around Damen
The Navy did not start out planning to import a Dutch design. Earlier in the effort, the service had intended to develop and build a bespoke LSM, but that plan collapsed when industry struggled to meet cost and schedule targets. Over the summer, coverage of the program noted that navy had originally to develop and build a unique LSM design, only to abandon that approach in late 2024 in favor of an accelerated acquisition timeline. That pivot set the stage for a competition built around existing hulls, where Damen’s LST 100 emerged as the front runner.
Once the foreign hull was chosen, the Navy reorganized the program to keep control of the overall architecture while letting industry handle detailed production. Reporting on the restructuring described how Navy Retools Landing 100, with a Vessel Construction Manager appointed to Lead Design Process, according to Sam LaGrone’s account of the shift. That structure allows the Navy to standardize combat systems and survivability features across multiple yards, even as each shipbuilder adapts the LST 100 baseline to its own production procedures.
Industrial shockwaves and political framing
The industrial implications of this decision are as significant as the operational ones. By anchoring a major amphibious program to a Dutch hull, the Navy has signaled that U.S. yards will have to compete on cost and schedule even when the underlying intellectual property comes from abroad. A December announcement highlighted that US Navy’s Naval, or NAVSEA, selected Damen Shipyards’ Landing Ship Transport 100 design for the Medium Landing Ship program, noting that an operational ship existed before the selection. A separate statement from Damen emphasized that the Damen Landing Ship initiative would be adapted for American production, with Damen Shipyards Group stressing that the design had already proven itself in service.
U.S. shipbuilders are not being cut out, but they are being asked to build to someone else’s blueprint. A Navy statement framed as Navy Selects Damen to Build New Medium Landing Ship explained that the program would still support domestic yards while freeing resources for the high end surface combatants that the fleet needs. At the same time, industry voices like Robert Kunkel, a Contributor and President of Alternative Marine Technologies, have argued that U.S. shipbuilding must adapt its tactical strategy because it has to, pointing to programs like the LSM as evidence that the Navy is willing to break with tradition to get hulls in the water.
Strategy, messaging, and the “Golden Fleet” era
The Medium Landing Ship decision is also being woven into a broader political narrative about naval modernization under President Donald Trump. A social media post framed the announcement with the phrase 🚨 NEW, declaring that the Medium Landing Ship choice was a MAJOR modernization move as part of Trump’s naval agenda, highlighting its ability to operate inside an adversary’s weapons engagement zone. Another report on defense plans under Trump’s “Golden Fleet” bid noted that Jen Judson wrote for Bloomberg that The US Navy announced plans to build a new class of warship as part of President Trump’s broader push to expand and modernize the fleet, placing the LSM alongside other initiatives aimed at increasing hull numbers.
Inside the Pentagon, the program is being sold as a pragmatic answer to operational problems rather than a vanity project. A Facebook video transcript cited how Phelan announced on December 5th that the United States Navy and Marine Corps had selected Dutch Damen’s LST 100 design, stressing that each shipbuilder’s specific production procedures would be integrated into the program. That message aligns with earlier descriptions of how the Damen Shipyards Landing Ship Transport 100 would be tailored for U.S. needs, and with the broader narrative that the LSM is a workhorse platform meant to support the Marines’ Force Design 2030 concept rather than a prestige vessel.
What this means for future U.S. ship buys
The Medium Landing Ship program is already being treated as a test case for how far the Navy is willing to go in importing foreign designs to close capability gaps. The fact that Navy planners were willing to anchor the Landing Ship Medium, or LSM, program to a Dutch LST 100 suggests that future auxiliary and logistics ships could follow a similar path. At the same time, the early history of the effort, when the Light Amphibious Warship dispersed operations was still a clean sheet concept, is a reminder that the Navy would still prefer to shape its own designs when time and budgets allow.
For now, the Medium Landing Ship stands as a rare example of the U.S. fleet embracing a foreign hull to solve a pressing operational problem. The decision by The US Navy, as noted by The US Navy coverage of Trump’s Golden Fleet ambitions, to fold the LSM into a larger modernization push, and the acknowledgment by analysts like Supplyl commentator Robert Kunkel that U.S. shipbuilding must change because it has to, both point to a future in which foreign partnerships are no longer the exception. If the LST 100 based LSMs perform as advertised, the shock of backing a foreign design may soon look less like a gamble and more like a template.
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