U.S. Navy Expands Landing Craft LCU 1700 Fleet With $280M Push for Pacific Amphibious Operations.

The U.S. Navy is expanding production of its LCU 1700 landing craft, awarding $280.52 million in prototype agreements to Conrad Shipyard, Master Boat Builders, and Saronic Technologies to build seven vessels across three American shipyards. The investment strengthens the Navy’s ability to move troops, vehicles, ammunition, and supplies ashore where ports or other fixed infrastructure may be unavailable.

The LCU 1700 provides heavy ship-to-shore lift that could become increasingly important across the Indo-Pacific, where U.S. forces may operate from dispersed islands and coastal positions. Building the craft at multiple shipyards could also expand production capacity and reduce dependence on a single industrial site for delivery of amphibious logistics vessels.

Related Topic: Austal USA launches first Landing Craft Utility LCU 1710 ship for U.S. Navy to boost deployment power

The U.S. Navy is expanding LCU 1700 production across multiple American shipyards to increase heavy-lift capacity for moving vehicles, ammunition and supplies from amphibious ships to shore. (Picture source: Austal)

Announced on September 15, 2026, the agreements require each shipyard to build two or three LCU 1700 prototypes and refine manufacturing plans for potential high-rate production, with deliveries beginning in late 2028 and continuing through 2029. The U.S. Navy says the $280,521,389 initial obligation will expand parallel production lines while validating that several American shipyards can successfully manufacture a common, production-ready design.

The requirement is urgent because the U.S. Navy is replacing LCU 1610-series landing craft that average more than 50 years of active service. The Department of the Navy has continued funding service-life-extension work on those older craft so they can remain operational until sufficient LCU 1700 replacements enter the fleet. Every delay in replacement production therefore prolongs dependence on landing craft that have already served far beyond their original expected lifespan.

The LCU 1700 is a steel-hulled Landing Craft, Utility designed to transport personnel, armored vehicles, heavy equipment and bulk supplies between amphibious warfare ships and the shore or between coastal locations. Master Boat Builders says the craft can carry up to 152 light tons of cargo and uses a bow ramp and stern gate to move military vehicles and equipment through the cargo area. Unlike faster air-cushion connectors, the LCU emphasizes heavy payload, endurance, and repeated logistics missions, allowing commanders to deliver substantial quantities of equipment directly to beaches without requiring developed port facilities.

That capability is increasingly relevant in the Indo-Pacific. U.S. Marine Corps force design is increasingly oriented toward smaller, more mobile formations operating across the first island chain and other dispersed locations, while the Department of Defense continues to identify China as the pacing challenge shaping U.S. military modernization. In a high-end conflict, large ports and fixed logistics hubs could face surveillance or long-range attack, increasing the need to move ammunition, fuel, engineering equipment, and vehicles through multiple smaller coastal locations. The connection to China is strategic context, not a stated purpose of the September LCU 1700 contract.

More LCU 1700s would give the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps additional ways to sustain amphibious and expeditionary forces without relying entirely on aircraft or major ports. Trucks, engineering vehicles, ammunition pallets and other heavy loads can be carried from amphibious ships directly onto an unimproved shoreline, while additional landing craft allow logistics movements to be spread across more locations. For contested Pacific operations, that dispersion can make sustainment less dependent on a limited number of predictable logistics nodes.

The $280 million effort is therefore also a major test of American shipbuilding capacity. Instead of concentrating future LCU 1700 construction at one yard, the U.S. Navy selected Conrad Shipyard in Orange, Texas; Master Boat Builders in Coden, Alabama; and Saronic Technologies in Brownsville, Texas, to build the same design in parallel. The U.S. Navy describes the approach as creating a resilient second source of landing-craft supply while expanding maritime industrial-base capacity.

Master Boat Builders has provided the clearest public breakdown of the award, confirming it will construct three LCU 1700s in Alabama, with an option for an additional craft, and work continuing through 2029. The agreement is also the company's first defense shipbuilding contract as a prime shipyard. The U.S. Navy has not publicly specified how the remaining four initial prototypes are divided between Conrad and Saronic or disclosed the separate dollar value of each agreement.

The new yards join Austal USA, which delivered LCU 1710 on August 14, 2026, the first completed LCU 1700-class landing craft the U.S. Navy accepted. The delivery was also Austal USA's first completed steel vessel for the U.S. Navy, giving the service an existing production baseline as Conrad, Master Boat and Saronic prepare to manufacture additional craft.

Saronic's selection is particularly significant for the U.S. defense industrial base because the company is better known for autonomous maritime vessels and is now entering conventional crewed U.S. Navy shipbuilding. Conrad and Master Boat bring established Gulf Coast commercial and government vessel-building experience, meaning the U.S. Navy is deliberately combining established workboat yards with a newer defense manufacturer rather than relying exclusively on traditional major naval shipbuilders.

Behind that strategy is a second experiment: whether the LCU 1700 design itself can move efficiently between shipyards. The U.S. Navy wants the three builders to use actual construction to validate the production-ready Technical Data Package, exposing any problems in drawings, specifications, manufacturing instructions or configuration control before higher-rate production begins. If several independent yards can produce equivalent LCU 1700s from the same technical baseline, the U.S. Navy could expand output without requiring every new builder to redesign the craft or recreate production knowledge from the beginning.

That model could matter beyond the seven prototype craft because additional defense spending alone does not immediately create shipbuilding throughput. American shipyards require skilled workers, production space, qualified suppliers, and mature manufacturing processes. A design that can be transferred successfully between several qualified builders would give the U.S. Navy more flexibility to use available American industrial capacity when fleet demand exceeds what one production line can deliver.

The $280.52 million LCU 1700 effort consequently links three U.S. Navy priorities: replacing landing craft that have served for more than half a century, strengthening amphibious and contested logistics for Indo-Pacific operations, and expanding the number of American shipyards capable of producing military vessels. If Conrad, Master Boat, and Saronic can build the same LCU 1700 reliably alongside Austal USA, the program could provide the U.S. Navy with both more heavy-lift landing craft and a broader production base for sustaining forces across a contested Pacific theater.

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Written by Alain Servaes – Chief Editor, Army Recognition Group
Alain Servaes is a former infantry non-commissioned officer and the founder of Army Recognition. With over 20 years in defense journalism, he provides expert analysis on military equipment, NATO operations, and the global defense industry.