This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
U.S. Army units have shipped out for a lot of wars. What’s different now is that the tanks—like these loading at Antwerp, Belgium, last November—will stay on board until needed. Prepositioning afloat will get them to the next war sooner.
The U.S. Army, responding to new joint doctrine emphasizing the need to project decisive force in response to regional crises, is putting afloat the equipment required for a heavy maneuver brigade—it will be on station late this spring.
During the Cold War, nuclear arsenals and a large forward-deployed force served as the cardinal tenets of flexible response. Rapid response by Army forces to an un
foreseen crisis was limited to air-deployed light forces, and strategic mobility, while key to reinforcement, took a back seat. Times have changed; based on the need to project overwhelmingly decisive joint force rapidly, strategic mobility has become the linchpin of the new National Military Strategy.
Smaller U.S. armed forces must seize the initiative quickly and avoid getting tied down in protracted conflicts that result in high casualties. Prepositioning equipment afloat can reduce the risk that an aggressor will be able to occupy key objectives: the ports and airfields needed to support our influx of forces from the continental United States or other potential centers of gravity.
Li
Recent war games show that the first two to three weeks of a crisis are critical, and the U.S. military can counter this early risk in various ways. In regions where the U.S. retains enduring interests, forward-deployed forces
can be stationed in or near allied countries that border potential aggressor states. These deployments include more permanent Army-Air Force ground presence, such as in- place forces and equipment stockpiles, or the more transient presence of the Navy’s amphibious ready groups with Marines embarked. Equipment and supplies prepositioned afloat are a means to complement these forward-presence options in more than one region.
All four services use afloat prepositioning, although with different objectives. The Marine Corps’ program is
probably the best known. The Marines store equipment for three Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEBs) on a total of 13 ships. The ships are assigned to three Marine Prepositioning Squadrons (MPSrons)—one per MEB—located at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, Guam in the Western Pacific, and in the Atlantic off the North Carolina coast. Each squadron carries the tanks, artillery, and other combat equipment and sustainment supplies to support an expeditionary brigade for 30 days.
The U.S. Air Force has four afloat prepositioning ships that carry ammunition primarily. The U.S. Navy maintains fleet hospital equipment prepositioned afloat on board a containership and fuel on board several tankers. The Army, which had used equipment afloat in the 1960s in the Vietnam War, reestablished an afloat prepositioning program in the mid-1980s that stored supplies and port operations equipment onboard four vessels.
When the Joint Staff in early 1992 established the requirement for the Army’s heavy brigade set of equipment, the new program spurred numerous questions from both supporters and detractors. Why is the Army getting into a new program that appears similar to the Marine Corps’ Maritime Prepositioning Fleet—especially in light of Senator Sam Nunn’s (D-GA) warning on redundancy in the military? How does this program complement the new power-projection strategy? What Army units will employ this equipment when a regional commander-in-chief calls?
The requirement for an Army heavy brigade prepositioned afloat was tied directly to the Joint Staff’s Mobility Requirements Study, mandated by Congress just as Operation Desert Shield exposed U.S. strategic mobility as a potential Achilles’ heel. There was insufficient fast sealift to move decisive forces quickly and the Ready Reserve Force did not perform to advertised standards early in the deployment.
The study’s recommendations, delivered to Congress in January 1992 with the concurrence of all services and commanders-in-chief, aimed to fix these and other shortfalls. Along with building new fast sealift and addressing the readiness and size of the Ready Reserve Force to ensure that appropriate force can deploy quickly, the study also addressed the early risk problem: the answer was an Army heavy brigade with prepositioned afloat equipment that can be combat ready within the first two weeks of a crisis.
Why use a heavy Army brigade rather than beefing up
the already existing Marine Corps program augmented by Army light forces? After all, the United States can project Army light forces—airborne or air assault—and Marine amphibious forces in a forcible-entry environment. The answer is that scenarios wargamed in Southwest Asia and Korea using such forces revealed their inability to defend against an armored attack along an inland axis of advance early in a crisis.
Once Army light forces and Marine amphibious forces have secured entry ports and airfields, a commander-inchief can seize the initiative by using the complementary capabilities of Marine MPS squadrons and the Army’s prepositioned heavy brigade. In many scenarios, these ground forces—in conjunction with early-arriving Air Force and naval forces—would be sufficient to protect key objectives while decisive forces move in.
90
Proceedings / May 1994
The Marine Corps, neither organized nor equipped for sustained land combat, must rely on resupply and support from the sea; hence, it can defend an axis of advance along the shore, but not inland. Army light forces can operate inland, but are not equipped to defeat a heavy armored at-
tack. Thus, an Army heavy brigade with adequate support to operate inland—prepositioned afloat to ensure early arrival—was deemed the answer. The Army brigade is neither a redundant nor a replacement force. Marine expeditionary brigades. Army light forces, the heavy brigade afloat, Air Force tactical fighter wings, and Navy carrier battle groups—all under the operational control of a commander-in-chief—are complementary forces that must be applied simultaneously to counter early risk in such a [scenario.
The Mobility Requirements Study established the requirement for the heavy brigade afloat; the Army had to resolve myriad details to make the leap from require
ment to reality. First was to determine the brigade force structure. The study recommended “. . . a brigade equivalent of approximately 120 tanks,” and the Army decided on a “2x2” brigade: two armor and two mechanized infantry battalions. The equipment of a “2x2” brigade allows commanders the flexibility to call for any of three heavy brigade-size units that exist in the Army:
► The armor-heavy (2x1) brigade
> The mechanized-heavy (1x2) brigade, or
>■ The armored cavalry regiment (with fly-in aviation squadron)
In addition to the maneuver units, the other units doc- trinally required to make the brigade a combat force are
included in the structure—an artillery battalion, engineer battalion, air defense battery, forward support battalion, and others. Possible requirements for multiple launch rocket systems early also were addressed. One battery— nine launchers—will be prepositioned afloat to provide long-range fires.
Finally, there was a requirement for a substantial combat service support element designed to sustain the brigade as it operated inland. This support element—comprised of line haul, maintenance, service and supply units—could be the brigade’s lifeline in undeveloped areas.
In rough numbers, more than 4,200 tracked and wheeled vehicles will provide a potent force for high tempo, day- night maneuver operations. Nearly 300 direct-fire tank killers, including 123 M1A1 tanks, 154 M2/3 Bradley
Fighting Vehicles, and 24 M109 155-mm self-propelled artillery pieces give this force its complementary character. Also on board will be ammunition, repair parts, rations, and other classes of supply to support the brigade for 15 days.
The study intended that the Army load this equipment on new fast sealift constructed in U.S. shipyards and delivered in 1994. Delays in contract awards slipped the delivery of the first vessels until late 1995. As a result, the Department of Defense decided on an interim program to make the capability available sooner and to take advantage of equipment from units being inactivated in Europe. This called for the activation of seven Ready Reserve Force roll-on, roll-off (RO/RO) vessels. The Maritime Administration, which manages these ships, oversaw dehumidification and other upgrades on these vessels in preparation for the long-term storage of Army equipment. Loading began on 16 November 1993 at Antwerp, Belgium, and has continued through the spring of 1994.
By May 1994, all seven RO/ROs should be loaded and prepositioned at a site in the Indian Ocean ready for employment. As the fast sealift construction and conversion program managed by the Navy develops, the Army plans to transfer the equipment to four of the new fast sealift vessels and return the seven RO/ROs to the reserve force.
As the Marine Corps can well attest, simply prepositioning combat equipment on board deployed ships does not provide anyone with a useful capability; numerous challenges must be met to make this program a complementary force within the new joint-force, power-projection strategy. The Army is committed to allocating the resources required to attain the established standard: a combat-ready brigade capable of sustained in-land operations in two weeks anywhere between Southwest and Northeast Asia.
The first challenge the Army faces is establishing doctrine for the program; the Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Virginia, has published FM 100-17-1, “Army Prepositioning Afloat Concept of Operations.” Using the Marine Corps’ manual on MPF operations as a point of departure, the Army reviewed the employment procedures from pre-alert training through equipment reconstitution after cessation of combat. Particular emphasis was placed on the tactics, techniques, and procedures required to off-load, account for, and prepare the equipment for combat. Marines were invaluable contributors during the writing and staffing of this document.
While FM 100-17-1 is a good start, its value will remain academic until procedures are validated by training and exercises. Although costly, the only way the Army will meet the employment objective is by exercising the equipment and refining procedures using the lessons learned. The Army is working to incorporate this program into both the Joint Exercise Program and the Army’s Sea Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise Program.
The Army must portray the capability and support requirements to the commanders-in-chief, who must be willing to allocate scarce strategic airlift to support the heavy brigade—if required—early in a crisis. The Army must define accurately the phased flow of soldiers who will
pick up equipment. In turn, the commander’s planners must then incorporate these units into the Time Phased Force Deployment List for a given plan. Once war plans align specific units against the afloat prepositioned equipment, identified units will make training for afloat prepositioning employment a top priority.
Modernization is yet another challenge. The Army made a conscious decision to preposition its most modem equipment on board the ships. Budget realities, however, will limit near-term Army modernization to its contingency- force units. The Army must either develop a program that will train units outside this force to employ the more modern equipment or plan to employ only contingency-force units. In the 1980s, the service faced similar problems associated with assets prepositioned in Europe. Units in the United States had first-generation M-l tanks, but the prepositioned tanks were MlAls. Training was the answer.
Taking advantage of the complementary nature of Marine and Army capabilities is important. The recent roles- and-missions report, for example, recommended that the Army provide armor support to the Marine Corps in certain scenarios, and a joint working group is reviewing lessons learned from the Tiger Brigade’s service while attached to the 2d Marine Division in Operation Desert Storm to establish standard procedures and support relationships. The Marine Corps recently asked the Army to provide multiple launch rocket system support as needed.
The Army’s heavy brigade afloat is a logical means of ad- | dressing these recommendations in future joint operations. 1
Most important is the challenge to adapt thinking to rapid force projection. Light units in the Army know , that combat is only a plane ride away, but armored units j stationed in the United States are conditioned to relatively c slow strategic sealift. Even under the most favorable circumstances, heavy units stateside could not be employed 1 in less than 30 days without prepositioned equipment; now that heavy equipment is prepositioned afloat, heavy forces ) can be available early in a crisis.
Such units are focusing a significant amount of re- I sources, time, and thought on deployment training. Heavy divisions in the United States have established division- 1 ii ready brigades, rotational duty that tickets a specific ' (
brigade per division for strategic deployment. In addition, , p the Army is putting several hundred million dollars into the infrastructure supporting deployment from key instal- i r lations. For the Army of the 21st century, deployment will t see joint employment as an imperative of both doctrinal c thought and execution reality. p
The Army afloat prepositioned heavy brigade is a new t capability on a commander-in-chief’s menu of immedi- : £
ate-response options. Never before in peacetime has there \ been the capability to project heavy force with sustained land combat capability so quickly. Forward-thinking t
programs like afloat prepositioning can help the nation 1
seize the initiative and achieve decisive results through ;
land dominance. I
Captain Pasquarette, an armor officer, is a staff officer in the War Plans Division of the Army Staff in Washington, D.C. Colonel Foster, a former tank battalion commander, is Chief of the War Plans Division.
Proceedings / May 1994
I