U.S. Navy Tripoli Group Shifts F-35B Fighters From Pacific Drills to Middle East Combat Operations.

The U.S. Navy’s Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit completed a six-month deployment on July 22, 2026, after shifting from Western Pacific exercises to combat-support operations in the Middle East. The mission showed how forward-based amphibious ships, aircraft, and Marines in Japan can rapidly project combat power across the Indo-Pacific and into U.S. Central Command.

According to the Navy, the force conducted precision strikes, logged more than 1,600 combat-aviation flight hours, moved 800,000 pounds of cargo and 5,000 personnel, and supported the refueling of over 300 aircraft. These operations demonstrated the group’s ability to sustain air missions, move forces, and provide flexible sea-based support across distant theaters.

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USS Tripoli, USS New Orleans and USS Rushmore returned to Okinawa after a six-month deployment with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, combining F-35B airpower, amphibious lift and crisis-response forces across the Indo-Pacific and Middle East (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

The group consisted of USS Tripoli, an America-class amphibious assault ship; USS New Orleans, a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock; and USS Rushmore, a Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship. The three designs perform different functions. Tripoli is a 43,745-long-ton aviation ship with a crew of approximately 1,204 and accommodations for 1,687 Marines, with surge space for another 184. Unlike most U.S. amphibious assault ships, it has no well deck. The space was reassigned to a larger aircraft hangar, additional JP-5 aviation fuel, expanded maintenance facilities, and more aviation stores. New Orleans, displacing about 24,900 long tons, can carry 720 Marines and operate two Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercraft or one Landing Craft Utility. Rushmore displaces 15,939 tons and has a well deck sized for four LCACs. This distribution allows Tripoli to concentrate on aviation while the two dock ships move vehicles, engineering equipment, ammunition and landing forces ashore.

Tripoli’s installed weapons are defensive rather than intended for long-range naval strike. The ship carries two Mk 49 launchers, each normally holding 21 RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles, two Mk 29 launchers for Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, two Mk 15 Phalanx close-in weapon systems and seven twin .50-caliber machine-gun mounts. ESSM provides the outer shipboard layer against aircraft and low-altitude anti-ship missiles; its 622-pound missile uses radar updates and semi-active terminal guidance and carries a 90-pound blast-fragmentation warhead. RAM is a lighter, supersonic, fire-and-forget weapon using radio-frequency and infrared guidance against missiles, aircraft, and small surface threats. Phalanx is the final layer, using an autonomous radar-directed 20 mm M61A1 Gatling gun firing up to 4,500 rounds per minute from a 1,550-round magazine. New Orleans adds two 30 mm Mk 46 guns, two RAM launchers and ten .50-caliber machine guns, while Rushmore carries RAM, two Phalanx mounts, two 25 mm Mk 38 guns and six .50-caliber weapons. None of the three ships has the radar coverage, missile inventory or vertical-launch capacity of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, so the group requires escorting surface combatants and supporting aircraft when operating within range of modern anti-ship missiles or submarines.

The group’s offensive reach comes primarily from the Marine aviation element embarked aboard Tripoli. Public imagery from the deployment identifies F-35B fighters from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 and aircraft from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 Reinforced, including MV-22B Ospreys, AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms. The Navy did not disclose the number of aircraft carried, the number of strike sorties flown, the targets engaged or the weapons expended, limiting any independent assessment of the intensity of combat operations. The F-35B nevertheless gives the force a low-observable aircraft able to conduct air defense, surveillance, target identification and precision attack without requiring a conventional aircraft carrier. Its available armament includes AIM-120 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles, GBU-32 1,000-pound GPS-guided bombs, GBU-12 500-pound laser-guided bombs and an externally mounted GAU-22/A 25 mm cannon. The AH-1Z complements the fighter with a three-barrel 20 mm M197 cannon, AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, 70 mm rockets, Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System guided rockets and AIM-9 Sidewinders.

The MV-22B provides the movement capacity that converts ship-based aviation into usable combat power ashore. It can carry 24 combat-equipped Marines, cruise at approximately 240 to 255 knots, and has a commonly cited assault radius of about 325 nautical miles without aerial refueling or auxiliary tanks. That range allows an amphibious force to launch raids, reinforcement missions, personnel-recovery operations, or noncombatant evacuations without positioning the ships directly off a defended beach. During the deployment, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment supplied the ground element, VMM-265 Reinforced formed the aviation element, and Combat Logistics Battalion 31 supplied transport, maintenance, engineering, medical support, fuel distribution, and explosive-ordnance-disposal personnel. The result is a force able to insert infantry by air, land vehicles and supplies by LCAC, provide armed helicopter or fighter support, establish a temporary command node ashore and recover the force without permanent access to a regional base.

Its contribution to U.S. power projection is therefore based less on the firepower of the ships themselves than on mobility, access and command flexibility. From bases in Japan, the group can move through the South China Sea and Indian Ocean into the Arabian Sea without negotiating new basing arrangements for every mission. It can place F-35Bs, assault aircraft, a reinforced infantry battalion and logistics personnel within operational distance of a crisis while remaining outside another state’s territory. It can also divide into smaller elements: Tripoli can maintain aviation operations while New Orleans or Rushmore supports a separate landing, evacuation or logistics mission. This flexibility has costs. Splitting the ships reduces mutual protection, and sustained flight operations consume fuel, spare parts, weapons and maintenance capacity rapidly. The group is best suited to crisis response, raids, limited strikes, evacuations, maritime interception and reinforcement missions; it is not independently configured to conduct prolonged operations against an opponent possessing layered air defense, submarines and long-range anti-ship missiles.

Maintenance after deployment directly determines whether this capability remains available. Tripoli’s flight deck, aircraft elevators, arresting barriers, aviation-fuel system, gas turbines, radars and missile launchers require inspection after sustained operations. New Orleans requires work on its diesel propulsion, well-deck machinery, ballast system, LCAC interfaces and vehicle spaces. Rushmore presents a larger readiness risk because the Whidbey Island class entered service in the 1980s and depends on four diesel engines, aging electrical equipment and extensive ballast machinery to lower the well deck for landing-craft operations. Corrosion, heat damage, hydraulic leaks or deferred engine work can remove an entire mission area even when the ship remains able to sail.

This is not a theoretical concern. GAO reported in March 2026 that 16 of the Navy’s 32 amphibious warfare ships had been assessed in unsatisfactory condition. Of ten depot-maintenance periods beginning in fiscal years 2022 through 2024, only one finished on schedule; the other nine accumulated more than 3,000 days of delay and approximately $400 million in costs above their original contract values. An earlier Navy review also found that seven of 13 amphibious-fleet readiness incidents recorded in 2023 were linked to LSD diesel-engine problems associated with deferred maintenance. The Tripoli group’s return should therefore be followed by funded inspections, parts replacement and depot work rather than another immediate operational cycle. Without that work, the Navy may retain the nominal number of amphibious ships required by law while lacking enough materially ready ships to assemble and deploy three complete amphibious ready groups when required.

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