Floating Bases Enhance Capacity For Quick Strikes

From The Wall Street Journal:

Within the president's defense-budget plan is funding for an intriguing new item: a floating drone base that also could be used as a launching pad for commandos.

The vessel—called an "afloat forward staging base"—would be a platform that could be configured to carry and refuel small patrol boats, helicopters or pilotless aircraft.

It would also give the U.S. military the ability to stage a small strike force offshore—without obtaining a permission slip from another country for access to a land base.

Details are still emerging, but the project offers insight into how the Obama administration envisions a military that in some ways is more lethal even as it contracts.

Plans for the specialized vessel fit neatly with the Obama administration's plans to grow special-operations forces, while slimming down conventional forces such as the Army and Marine Corps.

Senior officials want to provide military commanders with affordable sea-base options without necessarily sending a big-deck aircraft carrier and a full complement of escort ships.

A defense official said the floating staging base was more like a freighter that would be outfitted for different kinds of missions, from countering mines to launching remotely piloted aircraft. It also could be used as a platform for launching commando operations.