by Kris Osborn, Warrior
(Washington DC) Tanks, infantry carriers, artillery and infantry can all steam across hundreds of miles in the Pacific theater for expeditionary operations, rapid transport and high-speed emergency combat deployment, due to US Army Pacific’s accelerated push to expand its watercraft in the Pacific and intensify collaborative, multi-domain efforts with its Navy partners.
Many regularly discuss the “tryanny of distance” regarding the Pacific, suggesting that the vast and seemingly limitless maritime expanse is essentially incompatible to mechanized land-power deployment in a rapid, expeditionary manner. Due to advances in technology, enhanced multi-domain connectivity, AI-enabled joint-service networking, next generation platforms and new concepts of operation, the US Army is now vastly more capable of land-sea transitions, deployments and maneuverability.
This improvement is supported greatly by the US Navy for several key reasons. The US Navy’s current and now arriving Textron-built Ship-to-Shore Connectors (SSC) are engineered to transport 70-ton tanks from ship to shore. In addition, the Navy’s Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) vessels, high -speed ocean transport ships evolving from the previous Joint High Speed Vessel, are capable of transporting 600-tons of equipment.
As part of this joint equation, the US Army is fast-tracking a new Maneuver Support Vessel Light vehicle (MSV-L) designed to enable high-speed, disaggregated deployment of land combat power, including infantry, armored vehicles and weapons. US Army Pacific’s Commanding General of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command told Warrior that the service is intensifying work with the Navy to adapt new concepts of operation in support of a new generation of technologies and platforms.
The emerging MSV-L is now being tested in Hawaii with the US Army Pacific Command’s 8th-Theater Sustainment Group in preparation for deployment throughout the Pacific.
New Maneuver Support Vessel Light — MSV L
“Army watercraft allow you to do joint logistics over the shores what we do. It’s an exciting time. Currently today, the Army has its prototype Maneuver Support Vessel Light MSV light. It’s here with us in an Oahu and we’re going to run it through its paces,” Gardner said. It’s designed to move 1 70 ton tank, two Bradleys, two HIMARS, two Strykers or a company plus infantry and really take them out that last tactical mile up to a 300 mile range,” Gardner told Warrior in a special interview on Pacific watercraft.
This kind of ability enables the Army to offer substantial support to US Navy and Marine Corps forces potentially involved with island-hopping kinds of warfare operations in littoral, coastal and multi-domain environments. “This is another way that you can deliver combat power to any beach on the planet at a high speed under our timing and tempo that we want. This is about using army watercraft to do operational maneuver that puts us in a position to deliver precision fires and precision force protection,” Gardner told Warrior.
Future Army Pacific Watercraft Expansion
Historically, many are inclined to associated land-power deployment with long-term staging operations and slow, gradual logistical build-up preparations to support land combat. For instance, land invasions in the Gulf-War and Operation Iraqi Freedom did require an extensive pre-deployment logistical build-up operation. While this may still be critical in some respects, in recent years the Army has exponentially increased its ability to rapidly deploy and mobilize throughout multi-domain, maritime and littoral environments such as the Pacific. Working closely with key allies such as Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan and Australia, US Army Pacific is massively revving up an increased ability to deploy quickly and leverage new basing. The concept, as explained by Gardner, is to expand US Army operational support for the joint force beyond the first island chain, in part by leveraging new bases in the Philippines and Japan.
“The plans are to expand the Army’s presence really in that what we call the first island chain….. this case Japan, Korea, Philippines down towards Singapore and then also to the second island chain, which is a Guam, Papua New Guinea parts of Australia and then here in Hawaii. We have started to grow that force. We just stood up a fifth composite watercraft company in Japan,” Gardner said.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
