Strategic Sealift Week

The Future of Sea Basing for U.S. Army Transportation

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Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Mike Canup, Tim Fitzgerald, and Tim Owens

Future conflicts will become more complex as the United States deals with near-peer competitors. The new U.S. Army Operating Concept, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, states that the Army will need to gain and maintain the initiative while maintaining global agility. Sea basing is the rapid deployment, assembly, command, projection, reconstitution, and re-employment of joint combat power from the sea.1 Operational sea basing provides the Joint Force Commander with flexible options to project and sustain combat power ashore. 

The Army faces challenges with sea basing due to its focus on land warfare. However, the Army has a long history of maritime operations, a critical element of projecting combat power around the globe. Strategic power projection relies heavily on Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS), Army equipment and material situated around the world on land and sea, that provide the ability to deploy combat power on numerous continents. 

Limitations to the APS model exist. Equipment is loaded to maximize space and lower cost versus loaded in a combat configuration. Vessels require adequate and secure seaports to be able to download equipment and receive and stage material for further movement in theater. The current configuration of the APS is not suitable to accommodate sea basing operations.2 Shrinking the gap between early entry forces and the buildup of more robust forces will require the Army to develop innovative approaches to surface and vertical sea basing connectors. Doing so will allow US forces to seize, maintain, and exploit the initiative. 

Sea Basing in Action

During the 1982 Falklands War, the British relied on sea basing to effectively sustain their combat operations. Operating 8,000 miles from the United Kingdom, the British had to figure out how to support a task force that included warships, aircraft, and Royal Marines. In order to sustain combat operations at sea, the British activated approximately fifty merchant ships for military service.

These vessels included container and roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ships and fuel tankers, which made up one third of the activated vessels. The British also developed an Intermediate Staging Base (ISB) on Ascension Island, approximately halfway between the Falklands and Great Britain. Over the course of the 60-day conflict, the British moved 5,800 personnel and over 6,600 tons of supplies through the ISB, highlighting the amount of logistics support necessary for a relatively small conflict.3

Sea basing proved to be absolutely critical for the British to sustain Operation Corporate, the codename for the UK’s Falklands campaign. Without sufficient merchant supply ships and a ideally-located strategic ISB, the British would have struggled to support their joint operations. 

Similarly, in the future the United States may find itself protecting vital territories or interests far from the continental mainland. Depending on the location, the US may not have the luxury of having access to forward seaports, airfields, and land bases to build combat power. In that case, sea basing would be a crucial requirement for projecting combat power into a theater of operations and sustaining it for an undetermined amount of time. 

Virtues of Sea Basing

Sea basing allows the Combatant Commander to use the sea as additional maneuver space and place vulnerable lines of communication outside of enemy action or influence. Visualizing the sea basing concept in terms of time, space, and resources highlights its true potential along five lines of operation: Close, Assemble, Employ, Sustain, and Reconstitute (CAESR).4

Close: The Army must rapidly and decisively close in on an area of operations to maintain a competitive advantage across the spectrum of possible operations. Whether responding to hostilities or a humanitarian assistance mission, the Army should maintain a posture that allows resources to arrive quickly in the right place at the right time. Embracing sea basing will allow Army transportation assets to close decisively in theater. 

Assemble: Assembly means the ability to put forces together in a way to achieve a common mission. Before the force itself can be assembled properly, the elements of the sea base need to know where and how to fit together in a logical way. Doing so will enable the smooth flow of resources and personnel from the assembly area into and out of the operational area. Army transportation assets should be built or modified with this concept in mind. The development of the Maneuver Support Vessel (MSV) family of Army watercraft must be able to connect with US Navy expeditionary support vessels and prepositioned stock afloat assets. 

Employ: Once the Army arrives in a theater of operations it must be able to command and control land forces in support of the Combatant Commander’s objectives. Throughout history, the U.S. Army has deployed forces in conditions ranging from uncontested landings to under direct enemy fire. During the buildup of forces in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield, U.S. forces arrived in a secure partner nation port with modern facilities to offload equipment. While this scenario may be possible again in the future, the Joint Force has to plan for the employment of forces in an austere environment under hostile fire. 

The Army is no stranger to employing forces from the sea, as evidenced on the beaches of Normandy and Inchon. These amphibious landing operations under intense enemy activity highlight the importance of integrated and rehearsed land and sea operations. Ensuring that the United States military has the capability to conduct such operations in the future, especially in the INDOPACOM theater, is essential. Critical maritime enablers, combined with the ability to operate and replenish a sea base, will enable the effective employment of land forces. 

Sustain: One of the most important aspects of military operations is the ability to sustain the force. Global sustainment of forces is the main reason that the United States can fight wars away from the homeland. As Great Britain realized in 1982, conflict may not always occur under ideal circumstances or in proximity to established supply bases. The Army needs to be able to resupply and refit forces in any operational environment efficiently and effectively. This ability largely relies on airlift and sealift capabilities to distribute supplies from the strategic enterprise down to the operational and tactical level. Joint sea base platforms will require the ability to operate at sea while sustaining forces further inland. 

Reconstitute: At the conclusion of operations or for survivability, the sea base may have to disperse and refit for future operations. Joint Forces must have afloat enablers and watercraft postured for the rapid assembly and disassembly of a sea base to ensure critical assets remain protected and available for subsequent operations. 

The Army’s Role in Sea Basing

The Army developed and established units to conduct amphibious combat and sustainment operations in a variety of theaters. This allows the Army to utilize sea basing with the equipment currently in its stock. The Army’s primary watercraft are the Landing Support Vessel (LSV), the Landing Craft Utility 2000 (LCU), and the Landing Craft Mechanized 8 (LCM). These vessels ferry equipment and supplies from the Roll On/Roll off Discharge Facility (RRDF) to either an established pier or the Trident Pier, a multi-pronged floating dock with the ability to offload cargo from ships of various sizes and discharge onto the shore. 

The Army also owns the modular causeway system—a floating set of piers that can be configured for loading and unloading Army watercraft. The RRDF and the Trident Pier are designed to offload equipment and supplies from Military Sealift Command and Army watercraft vessels. The RRDF is used as a floating pier in open water for offloading equipment from RO/RO ships to smaller watercraft such as the LSV, LCU and LCMs. These systems and capabilities are integral pieces of the sea basing concept, enabling the Army to remain relevant in joint operations in a littoral environment. to perform the employment and sustaining lines of operations of sea basing. 

The downside to the current Army equipment is the inability of Army vessels to interface directly with Military Sealift Command (MSC) vessels, therefore requiring access to the RRDF to offload equipment. To fix this issue the Army is currently developing the MSV family of watercraft, which will allow the loading and offloading of equipment directly from MSC vessels without the need for additional equipment. These ships will eventually replace the current Army fleet and will enable quicker movement from a sea base in the beginning of an operation. 

Another issue is that current amphibious landing equipment is largely under the control of the Army Reserves. Reserve Component forces do not respond and mobilize as quickly as Active Component forces can. This may put a joint operation at a disadvantage in the beginning as Reserve forces mobilize, train, deploy, and arrive in theater. This is precious time lost in a humanitarian response or direct action mission set. Some mitigation measures can allow the Reserve Component to get into position faster. 

Prepositioned stocks of Army watercraft and floating causeways are located in Kuwait and Japan. Causeway material in these locations is stored on land and takes time to organize and employ. Positioning a floating causeway company’s worth of systems onto APS afloat vessels would improve the speed of deployment. In conjunction with moving causeway systems onto strategic sealift craft, Reserve operators can regularly train to employ this equipment across the world. This will ultimately improve response time and make a sea base viable with equipment already afloat.

Sea basing enables the U.S. Army to execute and sustain joint combat operations in unestablished theaters around the globe quickly. Platforms that can operate across multiple domains need to be a focus for the Joint Force in developing capabilities to ensure sea basing can be executed. Developing and refining doctrine and conducting training starting with the current force structure will make sea basing an executable capability in the long term. The Army must look at the APS stocks and reconfigure them to contain more JLOTS equipment to expedite the ability to execute this concept. In the near future, the Army is going to have to move across the sea, configured in a scalable task force, and possibly without much notice. Exploring, funding, and fielding assets capable of sea basing will ensure that the Army can go where it’s needed, when it’s needed, ready to fight.

Major Michael Canup currently serves in the Operations Section of the U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) Headquarters located at Fort Bragg, NC. He previously served as the Division Transportation Officer (DTO) of the 25th Infantry Division in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

Major Timothy Fitzgerald is currently stationed at Fort Drum, NY, as the 277th Brigade Support Battalion Executive Officer. He was previously the Brigade Logistics Officer for the 210th Field Artillery Brigade in the Republic of Korea.

Major Timothy Owens is currently a U.S. Army Interagency Fellow at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). He previously served as the Division Transportation Officer (DTO) of the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, NY.

Endnotes

[1] U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sea Basing Joint Integrating Concept (JIC), Version 1.0. Washington, DC: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 01 August 2005.

[2]  Colonel Michael G. Morro, “Sea Basing: Logistical Implications for the US Army”, Air Force Journal of Logistics, Volume 23 Number 2, 2009, page 14.

[3] Office of Program Appraisal. Department of the Navy. Lessons of the Falklands. Summary Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Navy, February 1983.

[4]  United States Marine Corps. The Maritime Expeditionary Warfare Report 2017. Washington, DC: U.S. Marine Corps, July 2017.

Featured Image: U.S. Army Soldiers from the 10th Transportation Battalion (Terminal) assigned to Joint Base Langley-Eustis prepare to load a Humvee onto a landing craft mechanized (LCM) during a Logistics Over-the-Shore (LOTS) training at Joint Expeditionary Base-Little Creek. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Anthony Nin Leclerec)

Strategic Sealift Week

Don’t Overlook the Medical Fleet in Distributed Maritime Operations

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Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Misty Wilkins

The medical fleet is often overlooked in discussions about Distributed Maritime Operations (DMOs). The goal of DMO is to keep warships in the fight and use all available means necessary to prevail in a modern conflict against a near-peer adversary. But what happens when all available means are simply not enough and fleet assets suffer losses? How will the U.S. Navy get personnel out of the water, into the appropriate medical care, and back in the fight when faced with an impermissible environment and large numbers of potential casualties? Austal was awarded a contract to construct two Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPFs) vessels to be used as “ambulance ships” in such scenarios. Due to the limitations of the EPF designs, however, converted Offshore Supply Vessels (OSVs) are also required to create the well-rounded medical fleet needed for modern day maritime conflict.

EPF Limitations

EPFs are based off a commercial design used for ferries in various parts of the world. They are designed to be fast and transport a moderate amount of cargo. The EPF design also incorporates a military flight deck, potentially capable of operating with all fleet rotary-wing aircraft, to include MV-22s. However, this can only be done if the sea state is favorable; higher sea states drastically impact EPF seakeeping ability and can significantly hinder flight operations. EPFs also have light, shallow draft hulls, which allow them to reach high speeds and access more ports. This choice of construction materials, however, has led to issues with hull longevity and structural defects. The catamaran hull design adds to their high speed and shallow draft advantages, but it also detracts from their seakeeping ability. Their lack of underwater hull volume means that for their size and footprint, their internal volume is limited, giving them comparatively less room for mission equipment. Overall, the EPF design lends itself to high speed “sprint” operations, but little else.

OSV Hull Designs

OSVs, on the other hand, are designed to transport cargo to and from oil rigs and other offshore installations. Their ability to move large payloads makes them valuable assets for a vast array of other purposes as well. Like EPFs, OSVs have shallow draft hulls to access more ports. Unlike EPFs, however, some OSVs are equipped with bilge keels to improve seakeeping ability, increasing operational limits and the types of missions that can be conducted in adverse weather conditions. The only area in which EPFs design outperform OSVs is speed; most OSVs are limited to around 13 knots. However, some designs are optimized for greater speeds with a different thruster configuration. The OSVs modifiability and adaptability makes it the ideal platform to work in combination with EPFs to improve the capability of the medical fleet.

U.S. Triage System

Mass casualties can be overwhelming for hospitals when trying to provide individual patients their required level of care. The Emergency Severity Index (ESI) of the patient determines which triage group they belong to. The U.S. military currently uses a 5-level triage system: ESI 1 is severely unstable and needs to be seen immediately; ESI 2 is potentially unstable and needs to be seen in 10 minutes; ESI 3 is stable and should be seen promptly within 30 minutes; ESI 4 is stable and may be seen non urgently; and ESI 5 is stable and may be seen non-urgently, and therefore does not need any immediate testing or procedures. These levels can be split into three groups: ESI 1 and 2 are red, ESI 3 is yellow, ESI 4 and 5 are green.

Mass Rescue Operations

The U.S. Coast Guard utilizes a Mass Rescue Operations (MRO) model when a casualty happens at sea. They use all available means necessary to get to the scene of the casualty even if Coast Guard assets are not available or in range. Coast Guard personnel alert nearby commercial vessels via maritime communication circuits, including VHF and satellite circuits, and notify shore-side facilities to execute their role in the response. In the MRO concept, there is a designated triage area land-side where first responders will be staged to wait for casualties. Importantly, the MRO concept is for peacetime casualties at sea. Wartime casualty response presents significantly greater challenges.

Wartime Triage Operations

In wartime, The U.S. Navy is not guaranteed to have the luxury of working with nearby commercial vessels or shore-side facilities when a casualty happens at sea, especially not in a conflict area. Personnel recovery, primary triage, and medical care will have to be conducted by afloat assets such as EPFs. With greater speed, EPFs have the ability to rapidly arrive on station and commence initial rescue operations. However, with an augmented crew of rescue personnel and medical care providers, the EPF platform will quickly run out of room for rescued personnel, and any serious injuries will likely exceed the medical treatment capability that can be realistically operated aboard an EPF. This is where modified OSV-style platforms can be leveraged to provide additional capability. Once rescue and triage are accomplished, the personnel can be transferred from the EPF to one of several OSV-style platforms operating in the theater.

Many rescued personnel may be uninjured or in good condition, requiring little in the way of medical care. All personnel assessed as a level “green” patient will then be transported to the “green” OSV. This OSV will be an adapted “floatel,” which is a mobile accommodation vessel commonly used to house large numbers of personnel on offshore projects. These ships usually have a gangway incorporated into the Dynamic Positioning (DP) system that helps them to maintain position relative to another vessel or installation and allows for safe personnel transfers. They also have a large accommodation area on their deck that can be modified to accept aviation assets commonly used throughout the fleet to conduct personnel transfers and search-and-rescue operations. This is where the green casualties will stay. There will be psychologists and therapists onboard to respond and clear rescued personnel to either be returned stateside or transferred to other positions in theater, via aviation assets or in a friendly port.

All personnel assessed as “yellow” or “red” will go to the “yellow/red” OSV once an EPF has run out of space in its 100 Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This vessel will be equipped with extensive trauma-oriented medical facilities geared towards stabilization of injured personnel. Patients requiring medical treatment can be stabilized here before transfer, either to the “green” OSV after successful treatment, or to shore-side facilities or afloat medical assets operating outside of the conflict area. The back deck and accommodation area can be modified to house machines for conducting MRIs, CAT scans, and X-Rays, as well as other facilities and additional physicians required to quickly stabilize injured personnel.

While the EPFs will have two operating rooms onboard, it is likely there will be an overflow of red patients during a mass casualty. These red patients can be stabilized aboard the OSV and prepared to be transported by aviation assets to the Mercy-class hospital ships, which must operate outside of the “danger area” in which the majority of combat losses would be expected to occur, or to shore-side medical treatment facilities. Such transfers would likely require the use of MV-22 aircraft due to the distances involved, so the vessel would have to be modified with an appropriately rated flight deck. The yellow/red OSV will also be equipped with additional operating rooms, blood banks, patient movement equipment, and other facilities needed to address serious trauma cases.

The “Golden Hour” is a concept that shows how the amount of time it takes for an injured person to get treatment directly effects the life or death outcome. Once patients are triaged, getting them stabilized and to the medical care needed in a timely manner increases their chances of living.

OSV Skeleton Fleet

There is no shortage of OSVs available for the medical fleet. Due to the oil downturn in 2014, multiple companies have laid up, sold, or reflagged their ships. This “stacked” fleet of laid-up OSVs are ready to be used and ripe for repurposing to meet Navy, Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force needs. These vessels could be converted at relatively little cost and would likely be available much sooner than the time needed to construct and test the EPF ambulance ship concept. In the meantime, if needed, these OSVs could operate without EPFs, with the caveat of increased response time. These OSVs could also be used to store medical supplies, provide additional accommodations for medical personnel, and meet other auxiliary needs for medical and rescue missions.

From a manpower perspective, U.S. Military Sealift Command (MSC) has a long history of operating Navy hospital ships and other auxiliary vessels, and merchant mariners who work for MSC are often proficient in operating with naval forces in contested environments. There are also a large numbers of mariners familiar with OSV operations that are available to hire due to drastic crew cuts in the Gulf of Mexico during the oil downturn. Placing the repurposed OSVs under the control of MSC, while initiating an aggressive targeted hiring plan, would easily provide the requisite number of merchant mariners to man a significant number of OSV style platforms, which are designed to be operated by smaller-than-normal crew as it is.

Conclusion

While the Austal EPF ambulance ship concept has its merits, it also has significant limitations that cannot be fixed within the constraints of the vessel’s base design. However, by leveraging the strengths of built-for-speed EPFs in combination with converted OSVs, the medical fleet will be capable of rescue operations and wartime casualty response in a modern day maritime conflict. For the minimal investment necessary to repurpose these available, surplus commercial products, a vast increase in capability needed for Distributed Maritime Operations can be obtained.

Misty Wilkins has worked on OSVs for three years and is currently sailing as a 2nd Mate. A 2018 graduate of the Texas Maritime Academy, she is also a Lieutenant Junior Grade in the U.S. Strategic Sealift Officer program, where she serves most of her active duty time as a Tactical Advisor (TACAD). She has written multiple papers on the employment of OSVs in support of naval forces and plans to write more.

Featured Image: Austal EPF Medical Concept. (Austal photo)

Strategic Sealift Week

Strategic Sealift’s Merchant Mariner Problem

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Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Geoffrey Brown

The first time I heard about Strategic Sealift was during my orientation as a civilian employee at U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), three months after I started the job, thanks to COVID-19. The orientation highlighted sealift as the unique differentiator between the U.S. military and its rivals, the reason for our global position, and a signal of our commitment to our allies abroad. Sadly, neglect over the last decades has seen this pillar of U.S. military strength begin to crack. At present, the dominant topic of conversation surrounding sealift is recapitalization of the fleet. According to Army General Stephen R. Lyons, “Our sealift fleet is able to generate only 65 percent of our required capacity, and is rapidly approaching the end of [its] useful life.”1 Furthermore, this issue is part of a larger downward trend, as noted by former U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) official Rear Admiral (Rear Adm.) Buzby in 2020: “Last year, there were 81 ships in the commercial fleet. Today there are 87, but that’s still down from the 106 ships available in 2010.”2 Compounding the problem, China is adding the equivalent of an entire U.S. Maritime Security Program (MSP) fleet every year.3

Recapitalization is clearly an urgent issue, vital to readiness and future national security in a multipolar future. However, this long-term neglect of sealift goes further than the ships in the fleet; the readiness of the Merchant Marine is also in question. Rear Adm. Buzby stated publicly that the Merchant Marine is at least 1,800 officers short of what would be necessary in wartime.4 Furthering the problem is the lack of places on a dwindling number of ships, leaving 1,100 merchant marine academy graduates worrying about their future job prospects.5 Given that the average age of a merchant mariner is 47, it is clear that this manpower problem will only get worse if left alone. Undoubtedly, having enough sailors to man sealift ships is an issue just as critical as the recapitalization of sealift ships, and any effort that ignores merchant mariners will likely fail in the end.

Merchant Mariners are Essential Personnel

The underlying problem with manpower and readiness in the Merchant Marine is that neither U.S. Congress nor the Department of Defense (DoD) recognize merchant mariners as essential personnel. The mariners who operate the merchant fleet sustain both the American population at home and our troops abroad. They are essential to the American economy and warfighting enterprise. Currently, there is major congressional acknowledgement of the need to recapitalize the sealift fleet to be able to transport enough troops and materiel to sustain combat operations overseas. But while Congress has allocated money to buy used ships and build new ones, it has made no effort to acknowledge and bolster the labor force required to man and operate these ships.

The three main issues merchant mariners face because of this lack of recognition are: 1) unequal work status when compared to Navy or federal civilian employees; 2) non-existent training for wartime scenarios; and 3) burdensome bureaucratic procedures to obtain all required licenses, documents, passports, and training. The various departments involved in these procedures (State, Transportation, Defense, and Homeland Security) have different renewal timelines, medical requirements, training courses, etc. The overwhelming complexity of these procedures can result in mariners losing out on job opportunities and income, which in turn can lead to dissatisfaction among the ranks. If the dissatisfaction is enough, mariners leave the Merchant Marine to seek employment in another industry—or worse, to sail foreign flag.

This dissatisfaction is causing dangerous reductions in manpower and readiness, not only for the Merchant Marine, but also the Navy as a whole. Merchant mariners crew the auxiliaries of the Navy, supporting the military at sea and on land with fuel, ammunition, and supplies. They crew 61 ships in MARAD‘s Ready Reserve Force and MSC‘s Sealift Force, and a further 60 commercial ships in the MSP. To further emphasize their contribution, MSC’s 5,383 mariners crew 20 percent of the 301 ships in the U.S. Navy. Sealift operations require approximately 30 commercial and/or military ships daily to move DoD freight around the world. With expectations that nearly 90 percent of military equipment would be deployed via sealift in a major conflict, the importance of merchant mariners would be even higher in wartime.6 Merchant mariners are the foundation of our nation’s ability to deploy and sustain our military abroad, and their expertise is irreplaceable. 

Diverse Group, Diverse Problems

At the most basic level, merchant mariners can be divided into licensed or unlicensed mariners. This divide is akin to enlisted or officer in the military. Licensed mariners typically come from the maritime academies or worked their way up as unlicensed mariners—known as hawsepipers—serving significant time at sea and passing certain training courses. Beyond these ranks, mariners are classified based on their work to support the DoD enterprise, as Civil Service Mariners (CIVMARs), Contract Mariners (CONMARs), or Strategic Sealift Officers (SSOs). CIVMARs make up 80 percent of MSCs workforce, and their main role is to support the Navy. CONMARs are hired by private companies and contracted by the U.S. government to man government-owned or contracted ships. SSOs are licensed mariners who join the Navy with the purpose of having a cadre of reserve merchant officers ready for mobilization in the event of war. Generally, the idea is for SSOs to serve as advisors to civilian crews and ensure proper coordination between merchant vessels and the Navy during wartime operations. It is worth noting that SSOs can also be CONMARs and CIVMARs. All three groups of mariners have their own roles to play, which presents unique challenges to manpower and readiness planning.  

Each of the three mariner groups have their own structural hurdles that bear on on their recruitment and retention. For example, a CIVMAR‘s deployment schedule is not set. Instead, they are given a minimum four-month requirement to sail with an almost guaranteed extension for their billet. Every billet is manned to 1.3 personnel instead of the industry standard of 2.0 personnel. The result is constant deployments with little to no opportunity to take leave, delays in relief for crews (in some cases up to 90 days), and possibly losing overtime pay for taking ten or more consecutive days of leave at any time during deployment (see COMSCINST 12451.1 of 3 Mar 2020, section 4a). Meanwhile, normal federal civilian employees enjoy flex work schedules, weekends at home, have holidays off, and can schedule days off in advance, while Navy sailors typically do not face back-to-back deployments. Pay, leave, and work conditions for CONMARs are set by the private sector. While this generally means their schedules are better than CIVMARs, they are reliant on state of the U.S. maritime industry, which currently suffers from criticism of the Jones Act and unions, as well as the loss of subsides for shipyards.

As reservists, the SSO community struggles more with readiness than manpower. For example, SSOs often work as CONMARs or CIVMARs for their regular job. If war breaks out and a CONMAR SSO is filling a critical position on a commercial ship, keeping the supply of essential cargo coming into the United States during wartime, pulling them will leave that ship worse off. In the case of war, many of the mariners with the necessary skills, sailing experience, and licenses needed to man sealift ships are already doing necessary work and are unavailable. It is possible to send mariners slotted in relief positions to crew sealift ships, but this would only be viable short-term, as it would take away the opportunity for mariners to rotate ashore. Unions, MSC, and the SSO community itself are responsible for their own numbers, and the overlap between positions is not considered. The U.S. Coast Guard database is the best place to find the true numbers of available mariners, but the bureaucratic Gordian Knot of who is responsible for them and in what context remains a significant challenge.

Burdensome Bureaucracy

The most important actors involved in the readiness of the Merchant Marine are MARAD and the U.S. Coast Guard. MARAD is in charge of all maritime academies, their curriculums, and advocating for mariners (though they have faced criticism in this role6). The Coast Guard is responsible for licensing, certifications, and safety. Since the Coast Guard moved from the Department of Transportation to Homeland Security, it has grown to incorporate additional security aspects, such as background checks. But the Coast Guard still treats mariners as transportation workers, requiring them to have Department of Transportation (DoT) drug tests, medical screenings, and identification cards called a TWIC, all in addition to DoD requirements. This made sense when the Coast Guard was part of DoT, but it is not anymore; mariners work for either the DoD or private industry, not DoT (i.e. MARAD). Unless things change, mariners will continue to be subjected to redundant requirements.

Finally, even when enough mariners are available to man sealift ships, training remains a challenge. Merchant mariners would greatly benefit from training in damage control, secure communications, serpentine routes, avoiding mines (Q-routes), and joining a convoy before they arrive on sealift ships. However, any chance for them to take these important courses disappeared when DoT shut down the Global Maritime and Transportation School (GMATS) that offered them. This means that, outside of the military training SSOs receive from the Navy, merchant mariners are missing vital skills that would help them survive and be effective in wartime. Undoubtedly, this means that the readiness of merchant mariners for war is questionable. While some might argue they are noncombatants and do not need it, WW2 proves otherwise. The Merchant Marine suffered a higher death rate than any of the other service branches in WW2.5

This gets to the heart of what the Merchant Marine has faced since its inception and continues to face today. Merchant mariners are not valued or treated the same way as members of the U.S. Navy, even when they face the same challenges and threats during war. The mariners of WW2 waited 40 years until in 1988 before they were recognized as veterans through a lawsuit.1 However, this did not change anything for the mariners that came after them.  So what do we have to offer them in return when we ask them to go to war? If they are injured or die in military operations, what is in place to support them and their families? With the exception of SSOs, who receive support and benefits as U.S. Navy Reservists, the answer is unclear. 

Readiness Numbers and New Efforts

The most recent data available on merchant mariner readiness is disturbing (see graphic below). Mariner readiness was rated as amber in 2016 and 2017, which means the Merchant Marine is suitable for initial activation, but not for sustained operations. However, viewing mariner readiness in terms of percentage, a 15 percent increase in manpower would have been needed in 2016 to achieve wartime readiness, while a mere 1.4 percent drop would have meant the United States was no longer capable of an initial sealift activation. 2017 was even worse. Despite adding 488 mariners for 10 new ships that year, the Merchant Marine was only 0.8 percent from falling into the red. It is important to note that both ship numbers and the number of mariners considered in this math are constantly in flux. Still, the thin margin between amber and red is concerning. The Merchant Marine is a voluntary service, and there is no existing legal authority or mechanism to conscript people into service as mariners.8 Therefore, real doubt exists about how many would be willing to sail in wartime. A margin of 0.8 percent is unacceptable. 

A graphic from a 2016 MARAD presentation. Reproduced with permission. (Click to Expand)

The good news is that MARAD is painfully aware of the situation. According to MARAD’s USTRANSCOM Liaison, John Reardon, the direction for MARAD from the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act is to develop a strategy for mariner training and retention.9 This effort is in its early stages and being spearheaded by DoT’s Volpe Center in consultation with USTRANSCOM, MSC and a host of other stakeholders. Furthermore, MARAD’s Office of Maritime Labor and Training will be updating mariner figures twice a year, every year going forward. These are two two steps in the right direction, but more still needs to be done to rectify sealift‘s merchant mariner problem, starting with a clear understanding of who is responsible for carrying out reforms.

Conclusion

Merchant mariners are essential personnel to America’s economy and warfighting enterprise. While one could argue they are contractors, or mere transportation workers, and therefore do not deserve a more significant status, this argument ignores that merchant mariners operate up to 20 percent of Navy vessels. Furthermore, no contractor or transportation worker has paid the price that merchant mariners have paid in past wars and may pay again in future wars, or has a legal precedent that recognizes a time when they were veterans. Mariners feel they deserve more, they do deserve more, and the fact we cannot recognize them is a factor in how unattractive becoming a mariner has become as a career. Fixing some or all of these issues, removing some of these hurdles, will take a whole government approach. However, if we cannot fully crew the ships we have available, how can we crew the ships we need in war?

A special thanks to Nicholas J. Adema (U.S. Coast Guard Licensed Master, Unlimited, Upon Oceans and Lieutenant Commander, Strategic Sealift Officer, U.S. Navy Reserve), Joshua Morgan Hunt (Chief, Governance Branch, USTRANSCOM J4-PG), and John Reardon (U.S. DoT MARAD Liaison to USTRANSOM) for taking the time answer my questions and pointing me in the right direction for further research. This article would not exist without them.

Geoffrey Brown is an analyst in USTRANSCOM’s J1 Manpower and Personnel Directorate. Previously, he won USSTRATCOM’s 2019 General Larry D. Welch Deterrence Writing Award for his article on India’s Goldilocks Dilemma, later published in the Summer 2020 edition of the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs.

References

[8]https://www.maritime.dot.gov/sites/marad.dot.gov/files/docs/mariners/1026/mwwg-report-congress-finalr3.pdf

[9] Author’s personal correspondence with MARAD’s Liaison to USTRANSCOM, John Reardon.

Featured Image: An academic awards ceremony at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA photo via Facebook)

Strategic Sealift Week

Beyond MSC and Amphibs: Unconventional Sealift

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Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Benjamin DiDonato

As the Department of the Navy implements the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) and the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concepts, sealift and logistics plans must also adapt to support them. This process is already well underway with the development of the Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) and a range of drone efforts to deploy and sustain small, forward deployed units.

Unfortunately, the ability to support the numerous small positions, as envisioned by EABO, is limited more by the number of deployable hulls than the capacity of those hulls. Thus, while the new platforms will help, it will take time for them to arrive, and they will almost certainly not be enough to satisfy the demand for distributed sealift when they do.

This paper proposes a complementary solution which could be implemented immediately and continue to operate in parallel with these new platforms to further increase sealift capacity and flexibility. Simply put, warships can provide sealift support for EABO forces. This would naturally have to fit in with other tasking for these ships, so it generally won’t provide predictable resupply, especially when using high-demand assets, but it would still provide additional sealift capacity at essentially no cost.

The implementation details are naturally dependent on tactical, operational, and strategic plans which cannot be publicly discussed in full, and which will inevitably be further refined by experiments and wargames. That said, it should be readily apparent that supplies can come from shore facilities or large sealift ships operating farther back for safety, with fresh water being particularly relevant to this discussion since it can be generated aboard ships and transported ashore in collapsible bladders to minimize its impact on the ship. It’s also worth noting that keeping large sealift ships further from the front puts them closer to friendly shores, reducing their transit time and allowing them to deliver supplies at a higher rate.

With these basics established, we can move on to a brief overview of the opportunities each ship type presents.

Submarines

Perhaps the most familiar combat platform in this discussion is the submarine. The special forces community is very familiar with operating from submarines, and submarines are likewise familiar with hosting special forces. Therefore, it would be simple to task special forces with EABO-type missions using this deployment method. Naturally, the robust joint special operations community could easily use its existing pipeline to train Marines to deploy from submarines as well, so this offers an extremely covert and survivable, albeit low-capacity, sealift option.

It’s also relatively easy to improve the ability of submarines to support EABO forces by developing self-propelled cargo pods to bring supplies ashore. Such a pod might be as simple as a cargo tube with a motor and compass that drives in a pre-programmed direction until it beaches itself, and could be strapped to the side of the sub or carried in the new Virginia Payload Module (VPM) in addition to existing deployment options.

Finally, it may be worth revisiting the old amphibious warfare submarine concept in the future Large Payload Submarine to further enhance these resupply capabilities and split the underwater missile carrier role onto a drone.

Carrier Strike Groups and Traditional Surface Combatants

Aircraft carriers and traditional surface combatants merit discussion under the same heading because aircraft carriers are always escorted, relatively few traditional surface combatants operate independently, and yet escort vessels operating independently offer relatively similar opportunities to full carrier groups, just at a smaller scale.

Note that this section’s “traditional surface combatants” includes Ticonderoga-class cruisers, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, Zumwalt-class destroyers, and future Constellation-class frigates because all these ships offer relatively similar opportunities at this level of discussion.

While aircraft carriers and, to a lesser extent, their escorts, are obviously not designed for amphibious warfare, there are clear similarities to amphibious warships. Most critically, they operate helicopters, and now the CMV-22B Osprey Carrier Onboard Delivery Aircraft, so they could easily utilize established amphibious warfare techniques to deploy personnel, supplies, and heavy equipment over long distances. Marines and smaller supplies could be distributed across the strike group, while heavy equipment could potentially be stored on the carrier’s hangar deck if space is available.

Alternatively, any version of the V-22 could be flown to the carrier for refueling, and then sent on its way to provide rapid, long-range deployment with no impact on the carrier’s air wing. This would protect vulnerable sealift ships through the relative safety of distance while still letting their aircraft reach their destinations, and could also facilitate staging from still more distant (and less vulnerable) shore facilities.

Finally, while it would probably be too risky to bring an aircraft carrier into boat range of the shore, supplies and personnel could be transferred to a smaller platform like LAW, an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV), a patrol ship, a Coast Guard cutter, a commercial vessel, etc. which do have the range to act as surface connectors for the carrier.

Independent surface combatants have a wider variety of options for unconventional sealift, although this flexibility is offset by the variety of missions they may be assigned and their more limited resources. For example, while they could stage V-22s or perform organic airlift with their H-60-family helicopters, this could conflict with ASW operations, especially if the ships’ aircraft are used. Alternatively, delivery ashore could be done by boat since these ships can afford to get closer to the coast than a carrier, especially if they are called on to provide fire support for EABO Marines. Nevertheless, the range and payload of a RHIB is still a limitation. The most attractive option is transferring cargo to a larger delivery platform as discussed above, but this may be difficult to accomplish in practice since these surface combatants weren’t designed to offload heavy cargo or personnel to a smaller vessel. Still, in spite of these limitations, the number of destroyers currently in service and future frigate plans makes surface combatants an important option for nontraditional logistics. Consequently, these platforms will probably offer the greatest return on investment as the Navy explores ways to implement this concept.

LCS

The misnamed Littoral Combat Ships would be particularly useful for nontraditional sealift. Since these ships are better described as drone carriers, they have the internal volume and launch capacity to deploy substantial equipment or carry specialist facilities to support other units in theater. Their high speed will also be useful for rapid forays into dangerous waters, and the reduced demand for other missions means they can more easily be tasked with these support roles.

On the specialist facilities front, the modular nature of these ships means it would be easy to build very capable medical, repair, C2, or intelligence facilities into their mission bays. This would provide much greater mobility and survivability for these support activities than island-based EABO installations, especially if additional air and missile defense capabilities like a Mk 56 lightweight vertical launch system for the RIM-162 ESSM are also added.

Lightly Manned Autonomous Combat Capability (LMACC)

While it’s easy to see the future LMACC as a simple corvette since it mounts heavyweight anti-ship missiles on a 600-ton hull, sealift is a core part of its design. Its survivability is greatly enhanced by blending into littoral clutter and it is intended to shoot targets spotted by other forces. This means it will preferentially operate in conjunction with EABO Marines so virtually every combat mission will be ideally tailored to provide sealift support for the Marines. Its very long range also provides operational flexibility to perform secondary lift between islands and act as a connector for larger vessels operating further back. The only major limitation is that its 11m RHIB can’t carry heavy equipment, but its very shallow draft and navigation sonar will let it get close enough to shore for Marines to swim if required.

Furthermore, LMACC is heavily armed for land attack and well equipped for missile defense, especially using electronic warfare, so it is uniquely suited to high-risk missions. When islands are contested and too dangerous for most platforms to approach, LMACC can reinforce or extract embattled Marines, provide fire support, and sink hostile warships. This means LMACC not only increases total sealift capacity, but provides unique capabilities not available anywhere else in the fleet.

Conclusion

In summary, the Navy’s existing fleet of warships offer opportunities to expand sealift capacity, and future platforms promise unprecedented new capability at minimal cost. These new distributed operating concepts synergize well with the numerous hulls but limited cargo capacity of these nontraditional sealift platforms to expand the reach of the American combat logistics system. Since these hulls already exist, the Department of the Navy can rapidly test and implement these concepts and continue them in parallel with current sealift expansion and recapitalization plans to improve overall capacity.

The use of warships as nontraditional connectors can also reduce risk to the logistics fleet by keeping these large, vulnerable ships further from the enemy. This obviously isn’t a silver bullet that will solve every problem, but it could be a useful piece of a future logistics system and help the Joint Force affordably meet overall needs.

Ben DiDonato is a volunteer member of the NRP-funded LMACC team lead by Dr. Shelley Gallup. He originally created what would become the armament for LMACC’s baseline Shrike variant in collaboration with the Naval Postgraduate School in a prior role as a contract engineer for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. He has provided systems and mechanical engineering support to organizations across the defense industry from the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) to Spirit Aerosystems, working on projects for all branches of the armed forces.

Feature Photo: USS Begor (APD-127) stands offshore, ready to embark the last U.N. landing craft, as demolition charges wreck Hungnam’s port facilities, 24 December 1950. (Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.