Fleet Managment: Army plan for pre-positioning eqpt

[JasonH]

Not sure if this has been asked but why not build another forword base on allied soil (Like Germany) again?

 

[DJL]

How about taking a page out of the Americans book, and instead of basing all this kit in Canadian port cities, put it into a large, climate controlled, RO/RO and have it forward based to either Diego Garica or Guam with a small skeleton crew?


I don't know what the logistic foot print would be for a Army battlegroup.....but The United States has eight ex commercial fast transports, with a dispalcement of about 55k tons each, when combined, these eight ships can carry an entire Armoured Division and war stocks (minus fuel) for 2-4 weeks....armed with that, a report I read that stated the three JSS combined could carry one of our battlegroups and a decent grasp of deduction and basic math, I would think that one (maybe two) large RO/ROs could transport an entire Canadian army battlegroup.

I give you the Watson Class Strategic Sealift Ships


http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/takr/

T-AKR 310 WATSON CLASS STRATEGIC SEALIFT SHIPS, USA
The Watson Class Strategic Sealift Ships were built for the US Navy by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) of San Diego, a subsidiary of General Dynamics. The 950ft RO-RO (roll-on, roll-off) vessels are designed to transport US Army tanks, helicopters and other large items of military equipment to any location. With a beam of 106ft, the ships are the largest vessels that can fit through the Panama Canal.

Following the Gulf War, a mobility requirements study for the United States of America Department of Defense resulted in $2.4bn being budgeted for an additional 19 sealift ships. Sealift ships are essential to military forces in the deployment of military cargo in both the prepositioning of forces for deterrence or coercion and also in the surge of military intervention. Responsibility for the US Army, Navy and Air Force sealift operations lies with the Military Sealift Command of the US Navy whose headquarters are based in the Washington Navy Yard. The mission of the Strategic Sealift Ships is the deployment of military cargoes to anywhere in the world. The ships carry the US Navy hull designations: T for Military Sealift Command and AKR for fast sealift ship, followed by the hull number.

NASSCO have built eight vessels under contracts for the US Navy under the Strategic Sealift program. Seven vessels - Watson (T-AKR 310), Sisler (T-AKR 311) and Dahl (T-AKR 312) Red Cloud (T-AKR 313), Charlton (T-AKR 314), Watkins (T-AKR 315) and Pomeroy (T-AKR 316) - have been delivered since 1998. The final ship Soderman (T-AKR 317 was launched in April 2002 and will be delivered in September 2002.

The ships of the US Navy's Military Sealift Command are not armed in peacetime.

CREW

The ship accommodates a permanent crew of 13 officers and 32 unlicensed personnel with berthing, living and mess areas, recreation and office facilities. Similar facilities are provided for the supercargo crew of two officers, twelve NCOs and 36 enlisted crew members. Other facilities include leisure and community areas, a hospital complex, a laundry and workshops.

CARGO

The ship has a cargo capacity of over 13,000t with 395,000ft ² of available cargo area. The ships provide self sustaining roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) capability, and lift-on/lift-off capability. The ship is optimised for roll-on/roll-off operations with all RO-RO decks fixed and a combination of fixed and hinged RO-RO ramps. The ship is equipped for the following operations: roll-on/roll-off and lift-on/lift-off for transport vehicles and transport containers, for cargo transfer onto a pier and in-stream up to Sea State 3. The ship is also equipped for lift-on/lift-off onto transport lighterage, i.e flat-bottomed cargo-transporting barges.

The ship has a centreline stern slewing ramp, a port and starboard sideport ramp system, two single pedestal twin cranes and cargo hatches in three holds. The cargo holds are equipped with environmental control systems, foam firefighting and de-watering systems. A list control system provides stability to compensate for arrangement of the cargo.

NAVIGATION AND COMMUNICATION

The Strategic Sealift Ships are equipped with a satellite navigation receiver with a global positioning system, the LORAN C long-range high-accuracy Cytac navigation system, RDF radio direction finding system, a Doppler speed log, Echo depth sounder and a comprehensive communications suite.

PROPULSION

There are two gas turbine engines, GE LM2,500, each with an output of 32,000bhp. There are two shafts with 24ft controllable pitch propellers providing 95rpm at full power. The ship's total service generating capability is 121,500kW and the emergency generating capacity is 2,000kW. The ship is equipped with bow thruster units.

The design speed, set at 90% of the maximum cruise rating and at design draft of 34ft, is 24 knots. The range at the design speed of 24 knots and at design draft of 34ft is 13,800 miles.

2.4 billion (US) for 19 of them, or about 130 million (US) per ship, which is about a 160 million CDN (I'm not sure how to adjust for inflation from the early 90s), and let's for the sake of argument, price them at about 250 million each.....four of these ships would cost us about 1 billion dollars (CDN), which is just under half the 2.1 billion dollars announced for the cost of the three JSS......with my fingers and toes, that would leave 1.1 billion dollars to purchase AORs for the navy........

Put that in your pipe and smoke it 

 

[McG]

Gaa!  Looks like WFM teething problems will be having people pull their hair out as we get closer to BTE.  It seems that with all the vehicles VMOed to CMTC, 1 CMBG is finding itself without enough (especially LAV III) to fully kit the PTA & STA.  And, units that are short are still being told to cough-up vehicles.

I'm sure solutions will be found in the short time left.  Just hope that not too much hair loss occurs before those solutions are found.

In the absence of any new kit (LAVs etc) do any of the "nay sayers" have a counter proposal?

I would have used the AVGP fleet to build the CMTC OPFOR.  This would not eliminate WFM, but it would reduce the number of LAV III & Bison that had to be stripped from operational units.  One could even put Stromia in AVGP and Tartan in M113A3.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

"It seems that with all the vehicles VMOed to CMTC, 1 CMBG is finding itself without enough"

This lowly Cpl could have told anyone listening that.  I say that writing on the wall the day they striped our coy's LAV's.

 

[McG]

This lowly Cpl could have told anyone listening that.  

There is a big trg fleet of LAV III sitting in Wainwright.  If some of those vehicles would be made available for training, this might be resolved.