August 2005 41
Reviewed by Edward Lundquist
On a cold day in 1776, General
George Washington turned to Colonel
John Glover, an infantryman of the 14th
Continental Regiment, to ferry himself
and 2,400 men across the Delaware
River. This may well be the U.S. Army's
first major employment of watercraft to
support operations. Soon after, the Army
used watercraft for back lift, when it fer-
ried 900 Hessian captives back across
the Delaware. So began the Army's long
association with boats and ships of its
own, quite apart from the Navy.
Altogether, the Army today has about
250 ships, boats and service craft. Not
as many as the Navy, but much larger
than many other fleets in military serv-
ice. Much of this fleet is designed and
employed to provide intra-theater lift.
While ships of the Navy's Military
Sealift Command are tasked with get-
ting Army cargo to the theater of opera-
tions, it is the Army's responsibility to
get that cargo offloaded and delivered
where it is needed within the theater.
The Army can call upon a wide variety
of vessels, some quite large, to do the
job. Harding shows us, in detail, the big
and the small. The largest include the
GEN Frank E. Besson, Jr. - class
Logistics Support Vessels (LSV), which
displace more than 4,000 tons and are
312 feet long with a 60-foot beam. The
new Theater Support Vessel Spearhead
(TSV-1X) is not only big, it is fast. Built
in Australia to commercial high-speed
ferry standards, Spearhead can achieve
sustained speed of 40 knots and faster,
even when crossing the ocean. With
more than 14,000 sq. ft. of cargo space
accessible by ramp, it loads and unloads
rapidly. The TSV concept was validated
with another converted high-speed ferry,
the transformational Joint Venture
(HSV-1X), shared with the Navy. Both
services liked what they saw, and the
Navy acquired Swift (HSV 2) to support
mine-warfare operations. I've been
aboard Joint Venture, and was amazed
by the amount of room to embark per-
sonnel, and the internal volume for vehi-
cles and cargo. These fast and flexible
catamarans may be the precursor to a
fleet of the future.
It is a challenge to get the Army's serv-
ice craft to where they would be needed
to support a significant offload.
The Army's smaller watercraft (small-
er landing craft, floating causeways,
small tugs, etc.) are moved to the opera-
tional area either aboard leased commer-
cial vessels or aboard Navy cargo ships.
"The larger Army vessels (LCUs, LSVs,
the larger tugs and the TSV) are self-
deployable, meaning that they are capa-
ble of sailing anywhere in the world
under their own power and manned by
their own crews," Harding says.
In places where the U.S. keeps cargo
ships loaded for contingencies, it also
keeps watercraft ready to support the
logistics operation. On Diego Garcia,
for example, an island outpost in the
Indian Ocean, prepositioning ships are
stationed at the ready, loaded with
weapons, ammunition, fuel and supplies
to support the Marines, Army and even
Air Force. One ship carries an entire
fleet hospital. Several years ago I went
aboard the MV Strong Virginian, a
heavy-lift multipurpose vessel that at the
time was supporting the Army's preposi-
tioned cargo operations on Diego
Garcia. Strong Virginian , a lift-on/lift-
off vessel, uses her 600-ton capacity
cargo boom to lift extraordinarily heavy
cargos, and therefore requires no shore-
side assistance for cargo operations.
Strong Virginian's topside spaces were
stacked with Army utility boats and
landing craft to support in-theater cargo
movement at undeveloped ports during
contingencies. "Once they've reached
the operational area, the Army water-
craft are manned by soldiers who have
flown in from bases in the U.S.,"
Harding says. A sizeable portion of the
Army fleet consists of tugs both large
and small. Being a tug boat sailor
myself, I'm rather fond of tug boats, and
over the years the Army has had some
real workhorses. Many of the service's
tugs have featured the classical lines
long associated with tugs, but some of
the newer craft - like the diminutive ST-
900 class, have a new look. The 60-foot
ST-900 boats have a narrow one-man
pilothouse. At 100 tons, they are actual-
ly quite powerful for their size. These
tugs can be carried into theater aboard a
larger ship. The relationship between
Army mariners and Navy sailors is a
good one, in that the two groups often
work together during logistics-over-the-
shore exercises, according to Harding.
Large Navy vessels bring Army vehicles
and equipment to the operational area,
where sailors and soldiers work together
to offload the cargo onto smaller Army
watercraft for the journey from ship to
shore. Harding says the Army's water-
craft fleet is similar to the Navy's fleet of
small craft in that both fleets are operat-
ed and maintained in the same ways.
The same skills are important (seaman-
ship, ship-handling, navigation, etc.),
the ships are painted the same color
(haze gray), and they operate in many of
the same regions. The fleets are differ-
ent, however, in that the Navy's fleet of
landing craft is primarily intended to
move people (Marines) from ship to
shore, while Army landing craft are
intended primarily to move cargo (Army
vehicles and equipment) from ship to
shore, and along rivers and other water-
ways within the operational area.
Harding tells me that he wrote his
book for a couple of reasons, not the
least of which is his expertise on the
subject. "First, I think Army watercraft
do an important job, especially in sup-
porting operations in Iraq, and I thought
other people would be interested in
hearing about the vessels and the jobs
they do. Second, as the author of six
other books, I was looking for a new
topic to write about, and this topic has
never been written about in book form.
Third, because I have written a dozen or
so magazine articles about Army water-
craft, I'm about the only writer I know
who could put this together."
Captain Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy
(Ret.), is a senior technical director with
the Center for Security Strategies and
Operations, Anteon Corporation,
Washington, D.C. He supports the U.S.
Navy's Surface Warfare Directorate.
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Picture This: The Army's Fleet
Sail Army
A Pictorial Guide to Current
U.S. Army Watercraft
By Stephen Harding
Pictorial Histories
Publishing Company
Missoula, Montana
MR AUGUST 2005 #6 (41-48).qxd 8/4/2005 9:08 PM Page 41
Digital Wave Publishing