Aboard is a crew complement of twenty-six made up of both Navy and Coast Guard personnel.
The overall design of the ship of utilitarian in appearance with the stepped bridge superstructure offset to the portside of the bow. The main bridge section is seen at the lower level with the flight command center fitted on the overhead deck. A landing deck area takes up most of the ship's exposed horizontal surfaces. The deep hull can house a variety of military equipment useful in amphibious operations. It is of a modular design to better react to changing mission scopes. The hull design is unique and based around the Small-Waterplane-Area Twin-Hull (SWATH) concept - similar in theory to a catamaran with minimal cross-section but useful in minimizing drag/surface area at the water's surface. In this way, much of the ships displacement can be held under the waves (unlike a catamaran which features its bulk above the waterline). The hull is constructed largely of lightweight, yet strong, aluminum alloys.
Two helipads take up the flight deck of the ship and can serve medium-lift types line the USN's "Seahawk" series. In addition to this, there is full support for some of the service's small- and medium-sized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
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