Two If By Sea
Written by Peter Buxbaum
MLF 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 10 (November/December)
Is the positioning of larger equipment sets
at sea around the world viable and worth
the initial and sustaining costs?
The idea of seabasing is not a new one. Aircraft carrier groups, hospital ships and their supply vessels can each be considered seabases of a sort.
Tsunami relief provided in Indonesia in 2004 and humanitarian assistance operations in Bangladesh in the aftermath of the November 2007 cyclone were both seabased. So are the ongoing multinational antipiracy operations off the coast of Somalia.
What is relatively new is the emphasis that the Navy and Marine Corps have placed in recent years on enhancing capabilities for prepositioning equipment and material at sea, and on transferring vehicles and equipment from seabases. These efforts have included acquiring new vessels and inserting new technologies that promote these goals.
“Seabasing supports the application of joint, multi-national, and other government and non-government agency capabilities in regions where access is restricted or denied due to political sensitivities, threat, or lack of infrastructure,” explained Navy spokesperson Lieutenant Callie Ferrari. “Seabasing supports the maritime strategy’s core capabilities, including supporting forward presence, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, and maritime security operations, as well as power projection during conflict.”
The seabasing strategy seeks to improve access to mission hot spots—be they combat, peacekeeping or humanitarian—by transporting, employing and sustaining ground forces from ships at sea. “Seabasing is a naval capability that provides joint force commanders with the ability to conduct selected functions and tasks at sea without reliance on infrastructure ashore,” said a 2009 Marine Corps publication on the topic. Current seabasing plans are centered on the Navy’s Sea Power 21 vision, issued in 2002, and its Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future), and concepts defined in the Sea Basing Joint Integrating Concept (JIC) published by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Seabasing also allows sustaining the joint military forces without relying on a large footprint ashore. “More than 80 percent of the world’s capital cities are located and a majority of international trade takes place near the world’s coastlines,” noted Ferrari. “Seabasing contributes to the joint force having unimpeded battlefield access.”
While seabasing has important logistics implications, especially in the newer capabilities being developed by the Navy and Marine Corps, “seabasing is not purely logistics,” said Jim Strock, director of the Seabasing Integration Division at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va. “It spans all war fighting functions including command and control, fire, maneuver, ISR, and force protection.”
“Seabasing is an operational capability,” added Michael Quinlan, a senior military analyst in the Expeditionary Warfare Division of Alion Science and Technology. “In Vietnam, the Army came up the air cavalry concept to support and sustain troops in the interior. Seabasing involves getting extensive operational forces ashore and sustaining them for long periods of time from the sea.” Alion is supporting government efforts to develop seabasing concepts and priorities.
Seabasing is not tied to any particular vessel platforms or set of platforms. Any number of different kinds of vessels could be part of a seabase, said Strock. “Combatant commanders will pick and choose what they need to get the job done,” he added.
That said, there are a number of key platforms that are providing or will be providing the logistics capabilities the Navy and Marine Corps are seeking with seabasing. “The Joint High Speed Vessel is designed for intra-theater sealift,” said Ferrari. “It can transport equipment and personnel to a region of crisis and provide seabasing capability, while continuing logistics sustainment to supported forces and other small craft used to support maritime security operations.
“In addition to the larger vessels, seabasing also relies on the use of surface connectors,” Ferrari added, such as the landing craft utility (LCU) boat and the landing craft air cushion (LCAC) hovercraft, as well as aircraft, such as helicopters and tilt-rotor MV-22 Ospreys.
The T-AKE Dry Cargo/Ammunition Ship is another key platform that advances the logistics goals of seabasing, according to Strock. The configuration of the T-AKE allows cargo to be stored as pallets rather than in 20-foot ocean containers.
“T-AKE enables float pre-positioning by providing greater control over cargo,” said Strock. “It enables the selective offload of specific cargo required by warfighters.”
These capabilities are enabled by a series of flexible and multipurpose cargo holds, explained Steve Eckberg, vice president for the government ship programs at General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), which is building the T-AKE vessels.
“Each level could be used for chilled, frozen or dry stores,” he said. “The cargo matrix has been designed so that cargo is accessible without having to pull out multiple containers. There is also a large free stage area on the main deck so it can pull aside another ship to offload pre-staged cargo.”
NASSCO has delivered eight T-AKEs to the Navy thus far; four are currently being constructed, and two more are under contract. NASSCO is also at work on a preliminary design study for the Mobile Landing Platform, another potentially important seabasing vessel, after landing a $3.5 million contract earlier this year. “The study is looking to optimize between requirements, platform flexibility and costs,” said Eckberg. “MLP could become the lynchpin seabasing platform by allowing for the transfers at sea of vehicles, equipment, personnel and landing craft.”
The MLP is a new class of auxiliary ship for the Navy’s Maritime Prepositioning Force of the Future (MPF(F)) program. The ship is intended to serve as a transfer station or floating pier at sea, improving the U.S. military‘s ability to deliver equipment and cargo to areas where port access is limited or unavailable. Early requirements of the ship include the ability to land helicopters, a facility for the operation of air cushioned landing crafts (LCACs), and the capability for ship-to-ship transfer of equipment from large-draft pre-positioning ships to other vessels, including T-AKE ships.
The MLP will provide the vehicle transfer system that permits transferring personnel and equipment from a large, mediumspeed, roll-on/roll-off Ship (LMSR) to the MLP and smaller craft to facilitate delivery of forces from the seabase in support of reinforcement missions. Each MLP will have berthing to accommodate brigade forces during the employment and reconstitution phases of the operation.
A contract for the detail design and construction of up to three MLPs could be awarded next year. The first MLP is expected to be delivered in 2015.
Amphibious assault ships are also part of the Navy’s seabasing constellation. The Navy’s newest class of large-deck amphibious assault ships, LHA 6, will be replacing the aging Tarawa-class. Its design “represents a conscious decision to increase the aviation capacity of future big deck amphibious ships in order to maximize the Navy‘s investment in future aircraft,” said Margaret Mitchell- Jones, spokesperson for Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, which is constructing the vessels.
The lead LHA 6 ship, America, is currently under construction at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., and is expected to be delivered to the Navy in 2012.
America will have no well deck but will have an enhanced aviation capability in the form of an enlarged hangar deck, expanded aviation maintenance facilities, increased stowage for aviation parts and support equipment, and increased aviation fuel capacity. LHA 6 will be able to launch the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, cargo and attack helicopters, the AV-8B Harrier, and the short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) variant F-35B Lightning II Strike Fighter.
Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding is also building the LPD 17 San Antonio class vessel, another new addition to the Navy‘s amphibious assault force. The 684-foot-long, 105-foot-wide ships carry a crew of 360 and transport and land 700 to 800 Marines, their equipment, and supplies by landing craft, assault vehicles, and rotary wing aircraft.
“The program of record is for nine ships. However, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps have identified a requirement for 11 ships to support Marine Corps expeditionary strike group missions,” said Mitchell-Jones. “The LPD ships will replace the functions of nearly 40 ships in four different classes.” The first four ships of the San Antonio class have been delivered and five more are in various stages of construction.
The multipurpose amphibious assault ship LHD, also provided by Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, is the centerpiece of an Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG). Larger than the LPD, these ships are are capable of transporting, deploying, and supporting a Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2,000 U.S. Marines and sailors in wartime. “In times of peace, these ships have ample space for noncombatant evacuations and other humanitarian missions,” said Mitchell-Jones.
The ship is equipped with a 13,600-square-foot well deck, which opens to the sea for rapid deployment of landing LCAC craft, rotary wing aircraft, and other equipment. The last of eight ships to be delivered under this program, Makin Island (LHD 8) is currently under construction.
The Navy and Marine Corps have also been hard at work researching and experimenting with a variety of technology enhancements designed to improve seabasing logistics. These include, according to Strock, float-on/float-off technologies as well as the development of new cargo cranes that provide greater stability at high sea states. They also include the development of skin-to-skin cargo transfer capabilities and automated cargo handling systems.
These enhancements, “will improve float pre-positioning and selective offload capabilities,” said Strock, “and will, in the future, better enable the seabase to become a functional node within the greater theater logistics network.
“Whatever platforms are in the seabase have to do two things,” he added. “Number one is to sustain and support forces ashore. Number two, and equally important but with a new nuance, they must be able to receive replenishment themselves while at sea.”
Perhaps the watchwords for the new seabasing concepts ought to be efficiency, flexibility and precision. “It will make it easier to get the job done,” said Strock. “It will be better than having a lot of people on shore walking guard on your unopened containers.”
Meanwhile, forces on shore will be able to get what they need and when they need it. “A gunnery sergeant on a hilltop doesn’t want to take delivery of some 20-foot container,” said Strock. “The Marines want to operate at the pallet level with pinpoint deliveries to warfighters.” ♦