Warships off the Shelf

This is something I've advocated for other vehicles, but Strategypage says the Marines are considering it for amphibious shipping:

The U.S. Navy wants to save money by building its amphibious ships to merchant ship standards. This is something Europeans are already doing with some of their smaller warships. The thinking is that these ships, when hit by an anti-ship missile, are not going to be any better protected by the more expensive (double welds on seams, etc) techniques usually used for warships.

But here's the catch:

Part of the problem is that the shipbuilders don't want to do anything that would require short term sacrifices for long term gain. The shipbuilding companies are obliged, by the stock markets, to keep those quarterly results up.

Congress would probably be against it if the old legacy shipbuilders are. Jobs means votes and votes means more than National Security to Congress.