the last LCMs will leave U.S. service, becoming a fond memory to the sailors that crewed them. They have served in wars from the Pacific to the South Atlantic, with distinction.
What will replace them? By about 2010, the Navy will need a landing craft with a cargo capacity in the thirty-five-to-fifty-ton range. A logical successor might be a downsized LCAC. In addition to carrying cargo, a gunboat version able to escort LCACs or AAAVs would be very useful. The problem, of course, is money. There simply is no budget for anything but paper studies, and no program office has been chartered to solve the problem. Given the fiscal limitations of the next decade or so, you might see LCMs serving well into the first quarter of the 21st century. They are simple. They work. That alone may keep them around for some time to come.
The Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF)
During the past two or three decades, the U.S. has managed to abandon or get thrown out of most overseas bases for its forward deployed forces. It was our own fault really. Sometimes we backed the wrong dictators (Marcos in the Philippines or Noriega in Panama). Sometimes we just got our butts kicked out, as happened in France, Vietnam, and Libya. And sometimes nature takes a hand, as when the volcano Mount Pinatabo erupted, wrecking Clark Field and hastening our exit from the Philippines. As a result, the U.S. Navy is currently limited to a handful of overseas bases, usually on old colonial possessions or territories of our best allies. These include Guam, Diego Garcia, the Azores, and Okinawa. Unfortunately, such bases are separated by thousands of miles/kilometers from the continental U.S. and from the most likely potential flash points.
This caused serious difficulties in the late 1970s when the U.S. had virtually no bases in Southwest Asia to confront the Islamic revolution in Iran or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The only U.S. base in the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia (leased from Great Britain), is almost 2,000 nm/3,700 km from the Straits of Hormuz, at the head of the Persian Gulf. This situation was compounded by drastic cuts in the Navy's budget, slashing the power-projection capability it had possessed just five years earlier at the end of the Vietnam War. The drawdown of U.S. military by the Carter Administration probably encouraged the actions of the Soviets and Iranians in 1979. Then-Secretary of Defense Harold Brown authorized a study in 1979 to find ways to reverse the downward slide of forward-based U.S. forces around the world. Several alternatives were considered, including:
• Construct a vast new fleet of amphibious ships, roughly doubling Navy lift capacity.
• Build additional strategic airlift aircraft (C-5s, C-141s, etc.) to rush units of regiment and brigade size to crisis areas.
• Find new ways to forward base units and equipment for rapid deployment to a crisis.
The third alternative won out: prepositioning stocks of military equipment close to potential trouble spots, allowing troops to fly in and form up their units on the spot. Called Prepositioning Of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets (POMCUS), it was a key element of NATO strategy during the Cold War. It was much cheaper than maintaining full- time units on the inter-German border, and allowed ground forces to be based mainly in the continental U.S., saving vast sums of money. The Marines already had prepositioned stocks in Norway, stored in large caves in the Oslo area. POMCUS sites are also used in Korea to deter aggression by a belligerent neighbor. The problem in Southwest Asia in 1979 was that the U.S. had no allies willing to allow basing of equipment on their territory. Some way had to be found to base enough equipment for a Marine brigade (about 18,500 personnel) without upsetting the neighbors.
The answer was a pair of commercial shipping technologies that came of age in the 1970s. The first, containerized cargo handling, allowed long-term packing and storage of equipment and supplies, with computerized tracking to provide rapid access to the contents of any particular container. The other technology was the Roll-On, Roll-Off (Ro-Ro) ship, which allowed vehicles to drive on or off a ship without special handling equipment or personnel. All that was required was a jetty or wharf where the ship could drop its ramp. The vehicles did the rest themselves. Ro-Ro ships were fairly common by the late 1970s, and it was quite possible to package a complete Marine brigade on a group of such ships. You could have ships sit in an island lagoon or just steam offshore from the crisis area. All they would need was a port facility to off-load, and an airfield to fly in personnel and aircraft. The ships would carry enough supplies (water, fuel, food, ammunition, etc.) to support a Marine brigade long enough for follow-on forces and supplies to arrive from the United States.
By 1980, an interim force of seven leased merchant Ro-Ro ships (enough for a reduced 11,000-man Marine brigade) was stationed at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. This was only a temporary stopgap, so in 1981, the Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) was established as a permanent unit. MPF leased thirteen converted Ro-Ro ships, forming three Maritime Preposition Squadrons (MPSRONs). Each MPSRON can equip, supply, and support an 18,500-man brigade-sized MAGTF for up to thirty days. With three such units on permanent station, at least one would be within seven days steaming from anywhere in the world they might be needed. As history turned out, this has been the case.
The thirteen ships procured under the 1981 MPF program are technically of three different types, though they fall into two classes for size and capacity comparison. The first five were Norwegian-owned Maersk-type Ro-Ro vessels. Three American-built Waterman-class Ro-Ro ships were converted, with five additional units of the AmSea/Braintree class purpose-built by General Dynamics, Quincy Shipbuilding Division. Conversion of the original eight ships involved splitting them, adding a large cargo section in the middle, a helicopter platform aft, and heavy lift cranes forward. Their general characteristics are summarized in the table below.
The ships were built to commercial standards, with comfortable accommodations for their small crews. This is important, because they may be deployed for months at remote sites around the world. Each ship has several vehicle/cargo decks, where everything from main battle tanks to cargo containers are stored. These can be rolled off the stern ramp onto a pier, or lifted out by deck cranes. Each MPF ship has a large stowage capacity for fuel and water, and equipment to distill up to 100,000 gallons /377,358 liters of freshwater per day. Finally, each MPSRON has an afloat commodore (usually a senior captain) and staff as the Navy command element.
The MPF conversions took several years to complete, and the ships a while longer to outfit and equip. Nevertheless, by 1986, they were ready for service. All thirteen were then leased back to the Navy to form three MPSRONs. To support the MPF program, a maintenance facility was established at Blount Island near Jacksonville, Florida. Every thirty months, each ship rotates through Blount Island for a few weeks. All of its equipment and supplies are off-loaded. Then everything is inspected and replaced as required; equipment and vehicles are cleaned and modified to the latest USMC standards. In this way, twelve out of thirteen MPF ships are always on station with their MPSRONs.
Each squadron is based a few days steaming time from its primary Area of Responsibility (AOR, the diplomatic euphemism for 'trouble spot'). Their organizational structure looks like this:
The Waterman-and AmSea-class ships have roughly the same stowage footprint, while the Maersk-class ships have somewhat less (mostly in the area of containerized cargo). Thus, MPSRON-2 has the five Maersk-class Ro-Ro vessels, while MPSRON-1 and -3 each have four of the other types. All vehicles are combat-loaded, fueled, and armed, ready to drive down the stern ramp, directly into battle if necessary.
Just how much stuff does a MPSRON carry? Well, a lot! The following matrix measures the typical loadout for all three MPSRONs. It should be noted that MAGTF equipment and supplies are evenly distributed across the ships of an MPSRON, so that loss or damage of one ship will not cripple the entire force:
