USS Tripoli Operating in CENTCOM, USS Gerald R. Ford in Croatia
Big deck amphibious warship USS Tripoli (LHA-7) and its embarked Marines are now operating in U.S. Central Command, the Pentagon announced Saturday.
Tripoli reached the theater Friday after transiting the Strait of Malacca and making a stop in Diego Garcia, according to the USNI News Fleet & Marine Tracker.
“U.S. Sailors and Marines aboard USS Tripoli (LHA-7) arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, March 27,” CENTCOM posted on social media website X.
“The America-class amphibious assault ship serves as the flagship for the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group / 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit composed of about 3,500 Sailors and Marines in addition to transport and strike fighter aircraft, as well as amphibious assault and tactical assets.”
The Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group includes Tripoli, USS New Orleans (LPD-18) and elements of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. Tripoli is the Navy’s forward-deployed amphibious assault ship based out of Sasebo, Japan. USS Rushmore (LSD-47), which is also based in Sasebo, is expected to meet up with the ARG/MEU, USNI News understands.
The Pentagon tasked Tripoli to the Middle East earlier this month amid the ongoing U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. It’s unclear what missions the ARG/MEU will perform in the region, but these units have historically conducted non-combatant evacuation operations in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is now in Split, Croatia, after making a port visit to Souda Bay, Greece, earlier this week. The carrier left the Red Sea last week for Crete after suffering a laundry fire in mid-March that damaged numerous berthing spaces, USNI News previously reported.
“While in Souda Bay, Forward Deployed Regional Maintenance Center personnel, including structural engineers, naval architects and other subject matter experts, conducted a repair assessment, and military and federal civilian law enforcement continued investigations into a fire aboard the ship originating in the ship’s laundry facilities,” reads a news release from U.S. 6th Fleet. “Ship’s force personnel and local industry partners supported the rehabilitation of seven berthing compartments affected by the fire.”
The carrier’s commanding officer said in a statement that the crew will get “some well-deserved liberty” in Croatia.
Ford deployed in June 2025 from Norfolk, Va., and had its deployment extended in early February before the U.S. and Israel launched the ongoing offensive against Iran on Feb. 28. The carrier had been operating in U.S. Southern Command and supported the American raid in Venezuela that captured its former president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores.
As of Saturday, Ford has been deployed for 277 days. Should Ford remain deployed through mid-April, it will break the post-Vietnam War 294-day record for carrier deployments that USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) set in 2020. If the carrier stays out until early May, it would rival the 300-day-plus deployments that carriers conducted during the Vietnam War to the Gulf of Tonkin.
The USNI News carrier deployment data uses an internal database that does not include certification cruises, training exercises or other qualification underways. The data only includes operational carrier deployments focused on national tasking as a measure of U.S. combat power and does not account for the time sailors are away from home.
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, USS Nimitz (CVN-68) was underway for just under a year due to restriction of movement orders and rules around limited port visits that were meant to reduce the spread of the virus. The carrier was deployed for national tasking for 263 days.
