In late 1970 I was serving onboard the U.S.S. Westchester County LST-1167 and we were on the LST ramp at Chin Hae South Korea when we got orders to pick up a Marine rifle company, a motor –T platoon and their vehicles, and an LVT platoon and their vehicles in Okinawa and deliver them to Subic Bay. With our crew that was over 500 men. The squadron said not to worry, because we would still be back in Yokosuka in time for Thanksgiving. A similar message was repeated throughout November, December, January, February, and into March when the U.S.S. Fredric finally showed up in the Tonkin Gulf to join the Amphibious Ready Group it was supposed to leave the west coast with. This was the first 1179 class LST to deploy and broke down in every port from the west coast to Vietnam.
The great advantage to me was I got qualified as an Officer of the Deck for Fleet Steaming, since we operated with other ships in formation. At 25 of course I did not see it that way at the time.
I noticed that a lot of Air Force planes seemed to break down in Las Vegas, Australia, London, etc. They almost never got delayed for maintenance in Iceland, Greenland, or the middle east.
I see what you saying but the problems with San Antonio have been going on for over five years now with no end in sight. I seems to be beyond the expected teething problems of a new ship class.
On the side, I can’t imagine seeing the Newport-class as the new guys on the block. I was on Bristol County (LST-1198) in the mid-80s and decommissioned San Bernardino (LST-1189) in ‘95. I got my OOD underway letter on the latter because they were trying to run as many JOs through EOOW as possible before decommissioning. Had an entirely enlisted bridge/CIC watch team.