Military Sealift Command has proved it can drive vehicles and gear from one ship to another while underway. Now, it looks to make the critical and dangerous transition even in rough seas.

The developments will strengthen sea-basing capabilities, which sit at the heart of Expeditionary Force 21 — the Corps' 10-year plan for dispersed operations. Sea basing, in turn, enables the necessary shift toward smaller, more distributed amphibious operations, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who previously served as special assistant to the chief of naval operations and director of his Commander's Action Group.

"Today's large-scale amphibious assault concepts require anti-access threats to be reduced over a wide area to protect the assault force. This can be highly escalatory, so the U.S. is less likely to use them," he said. "Smaller, more distributed amphibious ops are more survivable, require less reduction in enemy anti-access capabilities, and are less escalatory."

That is why sea basing is of such interest. In this model, tons of combat gear sit in pre-positioned ships in Diego Garcia, Saipan and Guam. If an enemy has fouled up and fired upon a deep-water port, or the location has no port, Marines still need to get in the fight. Though unable to get in and offload, these large, medium speed, roll on/roll off vessels, or LMSRs, are able to quickly transfer gear to modified oil tankers called expeditionary transfer docks, or ESDs.

Each 785-foot ESD has a 9,500 nautical mile range at a sustained speed of 15 knots. It boasts 25,000 square feet of vehicle and equipment stowage space and can carry 380,000 gallons of JP-5 fuel. With a little ballasting, an ESD can lower its mission deck below sea level to allow

landing

craft air cushion ship-to-shore connectors and amphibious assault vehicles to head ashore.

The transfer from one ship to another makes underway replenishment of fuel and food look like child's play. Forget what you know about pulling lines from one ship to another. This involves driving a combat vehicle from one moving ship to another, with nothing but a metal ramp between you and the oceans depths. Still, the effort is neither as laborious nor complicated as Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore or JLOTS, said John Thackrah, MSC’s executive director.

The Montford Point acts as a floating pier for a simulated offload from Gunnery Sgt. T Fred W. Stockham during the maneuver in March.

Photo Credit: MC3 Madailein Abbott/Navy

MSC has conducted three of these "skin-to-skin" operations. One took place last year; this year, both expeditionary transfer docks to the test — John Glenn off the West Coast, and the other Montford Point in the Western Pacific. The latter teamed with the maritime pre-positioning force ship Gunnery Sgt. Fred W. Stockham as part of exercise Ssang Yong 16 in March. In that exercise, the Corps rolled AAVs off the LMSR onto the Montford Point, then right off the edge, headed toward the coast.

"If we had to do a sea-based tomorrow, we can do it, without question," Thackrah said.

Still, officials are looking to increase the sea state in which this can be performed. Thus far, Sea State 2 is the limit. Even then, it can be a risky endeavor. Officials learned this the hard way when an EPF ramp — designed to rest on a stationary pier — was broken during an underway transfer. This has driven a redesign of the hydraulic system. This practice is expected to be more common with the ESD, but not the to the exclusion of the EPFs, which are far more versatile and greater in number.

"At this point, it is just a matter of practice."

The fouling of a bow thruster with a line did require an emergency breakaway, but there have been no other issues when transferring from LMSR to ESD, Thackrah said.

MSC officials said it is too early to list all exercises that may include sea basing in the coming year. However, the command’s Strategic Sealift and the maritime prepositioning squadrons plan to conduct mooring operations between an available LMSR and ESD at least once per quarter in order to maintain the crews' and mooring masters' proficiency in conducting mooring operations.

Lance M. Bacon is senior reporter for Marine Corps Times. He covers Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Marine Corps Forces Command, personnel / career issues, Marine Corps Logistics Command, II MEF, and Marine Forces North. He can be reached at lbacon@marinecorpstimes.com.

Share:
In Other News
Load More