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With littoral warfare and brushfire contingencies taking on greater importance, DoD must reevaluate how to get ground combat forces to distant crises in a hurry.
The current drawdown in the U.S. military has triggered the usual internecine squabbles as each service tries to maximize its share of scarce defense dollars. The latest high-level debate has centered on the relative merits of long-range bombers versus carrier aviation, but we also should be concentrating °n the movement of ground forces to distant crisis areas. Experience has proved repeatedly that logistical limitations can determine the outcome of a battle or campaign, and our present lift policies are placing field commanders into just such a dangerous operational straitjacket.
In the aftermath of the aborted Iranian hostage rescue attempt at Desert One, the Department of Defense began to look seriously at the problem of rapidly projecting ground combat power halfway around the world. For its part, the Army established the light division, which can be moved entirely by strategic airlift. To achieve deployment speed, however, the new organization sacrificed armor, firepower, and sustainability. In addition, the C-5s and C- 141s needed to airlift the division require long, concrete runways, and the light forces need time after their arrival to get organized to fight.
The Marine Corps developed its own alternative: maritime prepositioning forces (MPF). These merchant ships, filled with enough equipment and supplies to enable a brigade to fight for a month, are stationed just a few days away from probable trouble spots. In a crisis, they can sail to the objective while airlifters or commercial passenger planes ferry the troops to a link-up point. The MPF promised greater combat power and sustainability, but it has its own limitations. In addition to requiring the same secure airfields, the ships need a port. Although the MPF squadrons have some capability to offload instream, that option is slow-moving and would sacrifice much of the time gained by Prepositioning.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Saudis provided
excellent airfields and ports for both types of U.S. quick- reaction forces. The Marine idea proved more suitable to that scenario, because the MPF brigades were better matched to the armor-heavy Iraqi threat. Their 30 days of supplies also were valuable; the Marines did not require continuous flight sorties to sustain them in the field. Based on that experience, the Army has begun work on a similar scheme to preposition assets afloat, although it has not abandoned the light-division concept.1
But there is a potentially dangerous flaw in both the MPF and light division concepts. One historical example
illustrates this shortcoming and highlights the mutual interaction of logistics and operations.
When the Allies planned the invasion of Europe in 1944, they made two critical assumptions. First, they decided that landing craft could not move enough supplies over the beach. Therefore, once the assault force gained a secure foothold ashore, its primary objective would be to seize ports in the Normandy and Brittany peninsulas. That choice directed the Allied forces to the southwest, away
from their strategic target of Germany, and it guaranteed longer overland supply lines once they turned their attention toward the northeast. The Allies poured 20,000 workers and a million tons of cement and steel into two artificial ports, to be used until combat units could seize the real harbors, and dedicated a large number of service units to the eventual repair and operation of the captured ports.
The second critical assumption was that Allied armies would advance across the continent at a slow, steady rate in the face of strong German resistance. That would allow service units time to install pipelines and rebuild railroads, the most efficient means of transport from the ports to supply dumps near the front lines. Planners made lavish provisions for men and material to accomplish these tasks. At the same time, they rejected a request for 240 truck companies equipped with five-ton vehicles, providing just 160 companies of standard two-ton trucks instead.
During the first few weeks after the 6 June 1944 landing, the Allies moved forward at an even slower rate than anticipated. On 25 July, however, the Americans finally breached the German line and the Third Army headed through the gap, southwest into the Brittany Peninsula. But it quickly became apparent that the German defenses were in a state of collapse; most Allied units were redirected to the east, and the offensive became a pursuit. Over the next seven weeks, the Allied armies seized ten months’ worth of ground.
This operational success ate up supplies at an alarming rate. The equally rapid extension of supply lines outstripped the capacity of service units to build rail and pipelines and drastically reduced the number of round- trips that each truck could make. Logisticians pressed all available trucks into the Red Ball Express, a continuous shuttle of convoys from the beaches to the front lines, now hundreds of miles away. The air forces also flew numerous sorties from England direct to the front. Even those drastic measures proved insufficient. By mid-September the pursuit ground to a halt as a result of a lack of supplies at the front.
Meanwhile, stiff resistance and the shift of Allied forces to the pursuit slowed the Allied capture of the Channel ports and a storm wrecked one of the artificial ports early in the campaign. The absence of these two linchpins ol the Overlord logistics plan proved irrelevant, however. Landing craft were delivering far more supplies across the beach than anyone had thought possible. Unfortunately, the draft-horse transport system was simply unable to move the supplies forward fast enough to keep up with a thoroughbred tactical force.
The Allies selected a logistic system with certain capabilities and discovered only too late that those choices placed severe constraints on the operational latitude of field commanders. We must not ignore similar limitations inherent in maritime prepositioning forces and the light divisions. First, the need for ports and airfields severely limits the options for U.S. commanders in most scenarios. There might be hundreds of miles of coastline in an objective area, but only one or two complexes capable of handling the nontactical insertion of forces. In an environment less benign than Saudi Arabia or Somalia, that could make MPF and the light division almost useless. To
employ them, the United States would have to seize an airfield/port complex using the 82nd Airborne or deployed Marine expeditionary units—the only combat units capable of executing a forcible entry on short notice.
Unfortunately, neither force boasts significant firepower. The expeditionary unit brings with it organic mobility and sustainability, but these advantages are offset by its small size. An enemy aware of this weakness could concentrate his defenses on a few critical sites in preparation for the landing force, thus negating the flexibility of an airborne or expeditionary unit.
The fact that most ports and airfields tend to be located in urban areas aggravates the problem. As U.S. forces witnessed in Somalia, cities are perfect terrain for a defending force short on technology but strong in manpower willing to die for a cause. The utility of U.S. aerial firepower also would be severely degraded. It would be hard to pinpoint troops and weapons and harder still to justify leveling a town filled with civilians. A comparatively ragged opponent like the Serbian Army could defeat an assault by a Marine expeditionary unit or an airborne unit under those conditions; the number of B-2 bombers or carrier planes available would not change that outcome. A Marine expeditionary brigade or force could be used to seize the port of entry, but they do not offer the quick response that prepositioning forces and the light division were created to provide.
With littoral warfare and brushfire contingencies taking on greater importance in national strategy, the Department of Defense must reevaluate how it will get ground combat forces to distant crisis areas in a hurry. To achieve maximum flexibility in the future, we need to look for new methods that will allow us to break out of the shackles of ports and airfields for the movement of initial waves into the objective.
One potential solution is a major upgrade to the capability of maritime prepositioning forces. If the troops could marry up with the ships at sea and conduct a tactical offload over a beach, most of the inherent weaknesses in the MPF system would disappear. A field commander could select his landing site from a wide swath of the enemy’s coastline, without immediate concern for the location of ports or airfields. The brigade also would arrive on shore ready to fight instead of requiring a protective shield as men offloaded equipment and prepared it for use. Finally, the enemy would have to defend everywhere, thus presenting a much weaker threat at any landing site.
A tactical maritime prepositioning force (TMPF) squadron would require a new ship type with a well deck and the vehicle stowage space of a RO/RO. Interior ramps would enable vehicles to reach the well deck from any other location. A small flight deck would support a few helicopters or MV-22s. A detachment of permanently embarked personnel would perform periodic checks and preventive maintenance, to ensure that equipment always would be ready for use. The TMPF squadron also would possess the requisite number of LCACs and displacement landing craft to transport a brigade to the beach. Everything would be combat loaded, to allow for tactical movement from ship to shore.
Unlike an amphibious ship, a TMPF vessel would not
S SHIPBUILDING
need the extensive facilities associated with a large contingent of embarked troops: no mess decks, no berthing compartments, and only limited command-and-control spaces. Combat units would spend no more than one day °n board, just enough time to fall in on their equipment and make last-minute preparations for the landing.
The next aspect of TMPF is getting the troops to the ships. Units could be flown to the TMPF stations, but that would delay the sailing of the ships and force the troops 1° spend more than one day on board. A better solution would be special troop transports devoted entirely to housing a large number of Marines or soldiers for several days. They would have a well deck, a small flight deck, and a command-and-control suite, but no provision for equipment stowage. The transport’s final attribute would be speed. A cruise liner theoretically could be converted for this role, but a new ship might not cost much more and it could be tailored to exact requirements.
One additional ship would be necessary to provide the brigade with a full range of combat power: an aviation Platform carrying an appropriate mix of helicopters and V-22s. The now-retiring LPH assault helicopter ship might fit this need, as would a new aviation ship (which would cost much less than an LHD amphibious assault ship, because it would not require a well deck or troop facilities beyond those for the embarked air unit). To make this aspect of the brigade effective, it probably would be necessary to rotate aviation squadrons out to the TMPF, thus keeping the air component fully manned at all times. Frequent TMPF exercises, coupled with support of Marine expeditionary unit operations and other activities, Would allow the flyers to remain sharp during their six- month tours on board the ship.
One tactical maritime prepositioning force ship ''°u need vehicle stowage space and a well deck for LCA s an displacement landing craft but few facilities for troops, who would arrive on board special transports.
In a hypothetical scenario in the Middle East, the cargo and aviation ships of the TMPF squadron stationed at Diego Garcia would depart for the crisis area immediate y upon receipt of an order from the U.S. Central Comman . The nearest Marine expeditionary unit would sail in the same direction, if it were not already on the scene, the same time, the designated brigade (and associated support forces) in the United States would begin preparing for deployment. Airlifters and planes from the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet would take the troops to Diego Garcia, where they would transfer to the transport. With its higher rate of speed, the troop ship would arrive in the objective area soon after the other ships.
Ideally, the task force commander would select a landing site where he expected minimal enemy opposition. Using the speed and range of LCACs and V-22s, t e a rine expeditionary unit would achieve tactical surprise wi an over-the-horizon assault and secure a beachhead. Meanwhile, troops would transfer from the transport to the cargo ships, where they would fall in on their equipment.. Soo thereafter, the lead elements of the brigade would begin a tactical offload based on a standard, well-rehearsed pla . The primary goal would be to get the brigade ashore as quickly as possible, where it could either make prepar tions to meet a counterattack or move out toward designated objectives. The brigade, reinforced by a Marine expeditionary unit and supported by the air power of a Na y
carrier (or Air Force bombers), would constitute a significant combination of combat power on a hostile shore.
The creation of TMPF squadrons would require a lot of money, but the expense would be justified by the great increase in capability. It also is possible that the TMPF would create savings that might cover its cost. The Air Force’s airlift requirements would be reduced significantly if it no longer had to maintain the assets needed
A third ship would provide the brigade with an aviation platform carrying helicopters and V-22s.
to transport and sustain light divisions: getting one such division to the objective requires 400 sorties. Moving the troops of a TMPF brigade would require many fewer sorties, and all could be handled by the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet. The distances also would be shorter, thus allowing more round trips by each plane. (For some TMPF squadrons, there would be no need to fly at all. As an example, the troop transport for the Western Atlantic squadron could remain homeported near the Marine base at Camp Lejeune.) The decreased requirements might allow the deactivation of some airlift squadrons or the acquisition of fewer C-17s.2
The Navy is currently having difficulty funding new ships to meet the amphibious lift and sealift requirements dictated by national strategy.3 Since TMPF squadrons possess a tactical offload capability, they could serve double duty as reserve amphibious shipping. In a crisis, a TMPF squadron could deposit its brigade on shore, sail to a U.S. port, and load another brigade. That probably would be quicker than preparing nondeployed amphibious ships for the task. Alternatively, TMPF would provide much greater capability than the standard commercial shipping used for sealift, as the latter require ports. Thus, some of the money currently being directed to
ward new ships for the Gator Navy and sealift could be diverted to TMPF construction or conversion.
Inventive thinking might vastly reduce the cost of acquiring such ships. For example, the Russian Navy is preparing to decommission three of its Kiev-class carriers. These may have years of life left and might make excellent aviation platforms for the TMPFs.4 As the Russian government is already thinking about having the Philadelphia shipyard scrap old warships, it might not be too farfetched for us to purchase the carriers at bargain-basement prices.
The Army may be a major source of money, because it would likely switch its al- i located MPF funds to the new, more capa- • ble program. More important, the Army maintains three light divisions, mainly to meet the requirement to rapidly deploy forces by air. At least a portion of those units would become superfluous if the Army could transport heavy forces to a crisis area in the same amount of time. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the elimination of all three light divisions would save $14 billion over five years.5
The Marine Corps probably would have the least amount of money to contribute to the TMPF program; merely replacing an existing force would yield no savings. There would, however, be few increased costs to the Corps in shifting to TMPF. Some manpower would have to be allocated to create the on-board maintenance units, but that could be drawn from the current MPF onshore-maintenance facility, which would lose much of its mission. With regular maintenance being done on board the ships, there would be less need to periodically return to the United States for offload. The aviation squadrons could be drawn from the existing unit deployment program and other commitments. In turn, the air components of TMPFs could meet many of those prior obligations as part of regular training exercises conducted during their time at sea.
Tactical MPF is not a simple idea, nor will we be able to implement it overnight with inexpensive off-the-shelf components. However, the vast increase in capability is worth the effort. Budgets may be tight, but it does no good to buy forces that cannot get to where they are needed in time to affect the outcome. “It is better to be on hand with ten men than to be absent with ten thousand.”
'“Roles and Missions—Early Entry Issues,” Marine Corps Gazette, May 1993,
p. 2.
2“A Spacious Lack of U.S. Lift,” Navy Times, 21 March 1994, p. 30.
3Cdr. Glen White, “Fewer C-17s Buys More Lift,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1993, p. 72.
4“Decoms Strike Russian Navy, Too,” Navy Times, 7 March 1994, p. 36. '“Severing the Overlaps To Save Money,” Navy Times, 21 March 1994, p. 6.
Major Hoffman presently serves as a reserve field historian for the Marine Corps Historical Center. As an active-duty infantry officer, he made three deployments with Marine expeditionary units.