Compass Points - Great Reset?
Solving Military Logistics
Compass Points - Great Reset?
Solving Military Logistics
November 23, 2024
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The US military is facing severe shortages in key items including ships, planes, equipment, munitions, and supplies. To solve these logistic shortages is an extremely complex challenge. Or is it?
For example, the US Army has a serious shortage of 155mm artillery rounds.
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Since the war began in Ukraine the demand for the relatively low-tech 155mm ammunition has skyrocketed, with the nation firing as many as 8,000 rounds per day, according to some published estimates.
From Asia to Europe to the United States, arms manufacturers are building new facilities to boost the capacity to produce the shell, not only to supply Ukraine but also to replenish domestic stocks.
. . . In the United States, the Army is looking to significantly ramp up 155mm production, with a stated goal of producing 100,000 rounds per month by 2025. As of February, the Army was “manufacturing 30,000 155mm rounds per month, doubling its previous output of 14,000 rounds prior to the conflict,” according to a service release.
. . . Along with domestic industry partners such as General Dynamics, the Army is looking to international companies to help with 155mm production.
Norway-based aerospace and defense company Nammo is in talks with the Army to open a second U.S. plant to manufacture 155mm munitions, the company’s president and CEO Morten Brandtzaeg said at the Eurosatory trade show in Paris in June. Nammo already operates a plant producing 155mm ammunition in Mesa, Arizona. Brandtzaeg said Nammo is prepared to open a new 155mm plant near its Mesa location or in Florida.
“The [United States] has a very distinct and concrete plan for increasing capacity not only for the 155 but also for all the raw materials needed,” he said.
Another source of the ammunition is South Korea, which has large stockpiles of 155mm shells that adhere to NATO standards. Its laws prohibit it from supplying weapons to nations at war, but it can get around the law by replenishing stocks of countries not at war who are sending their own shells to Ukraine.
-- National Defense Magazine
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To solve the 155mm shortage the Army is exploring new sources of supply both in the US and overseas. Compare the Army's focus on increasing supply with the Navy approach to getting more ships. Recently, multiple sources, including GCaptain, reported that "the US Navy oiler USNS Big Horn ran aground yesterday and partially flooded off the coast of Oman, leaving the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group without its primary fuel source."
With the oiler Big Horn unable to perform, which Navy oiler stepped in to take its place and keep the fleet sailing? None. There was no other available oiler.
The USNS Big Horn is part of the Military Sealift Command. The MSC has roughly 7,000 civil service and contracted mariners operating 140 logistics supply ships that support the replenishment and transport of military cargo and supplies for U.S. forces and partners. In a time of a desperate shortage of ships, the Navy is working on overhauling the Military Sealift Command with a plan dubbed "the great reset" But is it really a great reset?
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The MSC “force generation reset” identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet, three people familiar with the plan told USNI News Thursday.
-- USNI News
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Great reset? Without a doubt, there is a continuing shortage of skilled workers to build and maintain Navy ships and a similar severe shortage of mariners to crew the MSC ships. Still, the focus must be on more workers and more ships, not less. A variety of incentives must be used like a new "citizenship for maritime service" program.
Putting MSC oilers out of service when there is a shortage of oilers does not solve the lack of oilers. It makes the shortage worse. Some of the other MSC ships being pulled out of service like the versatile Expeditionary Fast Transports and Expeditionary Seabases are just the ships that could be used as a temporary way to get more Marines deployed and supplied around the world.
When faced with a shortage of 155mm ammunition, the US Army has marched forward with only one goal, increase the availability of 155mm rounds. More 155mm rounds. The Army has increased 155mm factories and suppliers in the US and started to tap suppliers overseas. Obviously a 155mm round and a ship are not the same, but just as the Army has mobilized to produce more shells, the Navy must mobilize to produce more logistics and amphibious ships needed by the Marine Corps.
When an entire deployed fleet must reduce operations because one oiler runs aground, there are too few MSC logistics ships. When Marine Air Ground Task Forces are not on constant patrol around the world, there are too few amphibious ships. There is only one answer to too few ships. More ships! The Navy can reset the Maritime Support Command, but it will not be a great reset unless it results in more ships.
Compass Points salutes all those in the Navy, Marine Corps, in Congress, and all the friends of the Corps working to get and keep more ships sailing the global seas helping to keep the US strong. To solve military logistic shortages requires more thinking, more innovation, and more logistics.
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National Defense Magazine - 9/11/2024
Arms Manufacturers Catching Up with World's Insatiable Need for 155mm Rounds
By Josh Luckenbaugh and Stew Magnuson
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GCaptain - 09/24/2024
US Navy Oiler Runs Aground, Forcing Carrier Strike Group to Scramble for Fuel
By John Konrad
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USNI News - 08/22/2024
Navy Could Sideline 17 Support Ships Due to Manpower Issues
By Sam LaGrone
https://news.usni.org/2024/08/22/navy-could-sideline-17-support-ships-due-to-manpower-issues
Common Sense is not so common. - Voltaire
Any reasonable individual understands that you must have “depth” and “back up.” No football team can survive a season with 22 players. No school can survive without substitute teachers. No intelligent family has an empty pantry. My High School football team had about 30 footballs for practice. I am sure some genius might point out that you only need one.
DoD has operated like a “just in time” delivery manufacturing facility. Yet, since war is like no other human endeavor, modern management and storage concepts are not applicable.
If history were not instructive enough, we have starved Ukraine of tanks, aircraft, ammunition and are surprised when Russia threatens us for supporting Ukraine. We are supplying short range tactical missiles ( 190 miles and 375 pd war heads) while Russia brings in N Koreans and threatens us with nuclear weapons. It is time to let Russia know their bull dog mouth is overloading their canary butt and threatening the US and NATO will not work. Putin is bluffing.
"would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet," The Navy already did this with the Cruisers. Then they deferred the maintenance and then begun decommissioning them all as it is "not cost effective" to repair them....after they were allowed to rust at the piers. I saw them sitting forlornly at the piers to the extreme south of NOB. Solid pink was the paint and rust visible from 100 yards away.
"Extended Maintenance" in Navy Speak means "Ignore them, no funding, make them go away".