Ground Assault Could Clog U.S. Supply Lines

WASHINGTON —  The massive, 9,000-mile-long supply line now providing war materiel to the Persian Gulf has been functioning--under strain--without major hitches, but experts fear it could begin to suffer breakdowns, particularly if U.S. forces become involved in a protracted land war.

So far, the effort has gone smoothly. With hundreds of aircraft and ships ferrying massive amounts of supplies, the Pentagon is managing to restock the vast arsenal of munitions and equipment that American forces are expending in the Persian Gulf.

“The effort has been going extremely well, and continues to go extremely well,” says Vice Adm. Francis R. Donovan, commander of the U.S. Military Sealift Command. “It’s been a staggering effort, and I think it’s realistically beyond what we could have expected.”

But some military and transportation experts fear that the well-oiled machine could break down if the gulf conflict turns into a lengthy ground war in which the military is forced to rely less on high-tech weaponry and more on massive, old-fashioned cannon fire.

“If you’re going to fight for a long time, it’s going to be tight,” says R. B. Costello, who served as undersecretary of defense for acquisitions from 1986 to 1989. “The logistics are going to be a tough row to hoe.”

Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense for logistics, says one reason the venture has gone so smoothly is that U.S. logistics planners have amassed huge amounts of spare parts in Saudi Arabia, enabling the military to stay well ahead of resupply efforts.

But Korb cautions that even with supply lines continually pouring material into the area, the surplus is bound to be eroded if fighting escalates on the ground. “You can do this for 45 to 60 days,” he says. “After that, you’re going to have some problems.”

U.S. officials coordinating the massive supply effort say there now is a big enough supply of munitions in the region to sustain the current war effort for another couple of months. And fuel is being replenished by the Saudis.

Major U.S. munitions manufacturers are not reporting a surge in orders from the Pentagon--partly because the huge buildup ordered during the Reagan Administration has left substantial stockpiles of ordnance and other military supplies.

For example, the huge U.S. arsenal reportedly includes well over 1,000 of the Patriot anti-missile missiles that have been intercepting Iraqi Scud missiles over Saudi Arabia and Israel.

And Olin Corp., the nation’s largest maker of gun and tank ammunition, says it hasn’t yet been contacted about increasing its current production. “The military has from 30 to 45 days worth of inventories,” says Ed Alber, a company spokesman.

But some existing supply lines already are being strained, and Pentagon officials concede that they have recently begun “scrambling” to get more high-tech bombs to the region.

Raytheon Co., maker of the Patriot missiles, says it has begun accelerating production of replacements in the face of the increased clashes with Iraqi Scuds.

Makers of spare parts are also being asked to speed certain items to the military. “Some of our aerospace units have been requested to supply parts for jet engines, but we’re really talking about a blip, a tiny dot,” says Mike Dunn, spokesman for Coltec Industries.

Even so, Robert W. Kesteloot, a maritime consultant with his own firm, K Associates, says the supply system “is, of course, being stressed to some degree.”

On Aug. 17 last year, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney declared an airlift emergency, summoning 41 aircraft owned by U.S. airlines for military use under the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program, which obligates U.S. airlines to turn over some planes to the military during wartime.

On the night of the first air raids on Iraq, Cheney raised the emergency level to Stage II, which would give the military access to 181 civilian planes. U.S. officials say that, if necessary, the military will commandeer even more airliners to meet wartime contingencies.

However, Costello, now a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute, a conservative military think-tank, says the most vulnerable component of the supply line--and the one most likely to be stretched thin in the event of a ground war--is shipping.

“If a real shooting ground-war breaks out, there aren’t enough planes in the world to supply half a million troops or more. You’ve got to do it with ships,” Costello says. “That’s my real concern.”

The sheer age of the 96-vessel Ready Reserve Fleet--former cargo ships purchased and stored by the government for use in a war--also may pose a problem. “A lot of those ships are 25 or 30 years old,” says Gunnar Lundeberg, president of the Sailors Union of the Pacific.

“We really had to beat the bushes to find crews familiar with the older technology,” Lundeberg says. “We even had to waive our pension rules so that some of our pensioners could come back to work.”

Branded “rusting iron” by Costello, the reserve fleet already has been criticized in Congress. Several of the ships suffered serious mechanical failures on their way to the gulf last fall.

Another potential impediment to a long-term resupply effort is the military’s reliance on chartered vessels flying a foreign flag.

Of the 220 ships under the control of the Military Sealift Command as of Thursday, 100 were flying foreign flags. Ninety-three of the foreign vessels were chartered by the U.S. government, and seven were operated for the governments of Japan, Korea or Kuwait.

Included in the 220 ships are 54 Ready Reserve Fleet vessels owned outright by the U.S. government and operated by Merchant Marine crews. The rest are chartered, U.S.-flag carriers.

The U.S. vulnerability was dramatized last week when crew members of the Eagle Nova, which is registered in Cyprus, refused to enter the Persian Gulf war zone to deliver military goods to the Saudi Arabian port of Dammam.

The ship was not under direct control of the sealift command, but it was carrying container goods for gulf troops under a standard commercial contract.

American President Lines, Ltd., which had chartered the Eagle Nova, was forced to send in the cargo on its own U.S.-flag ship, the President Buchanan, Lundeberg said.

“Theoretically, the chartered foreign vessels are under the control of the U.S. military, but episodes like this demonstrate that they aren’t,” Lundeberg says. “We had the same kinds of problem during Vietnam.”

Help from other countries in the allied coalition on this score has been minimal, since only seven of the 100 foreign-flag vessels are operating on behalf of foreign governments.

Overall shipping-industry capacity may be further strained by the decision of some big shipowners--including some Americans--after war broke out to stop sending their vessels through the Suez Canal, adding a week to the voyage between Europe and Asia.

And Lundeberg also has asked the Maritime Administration for authority to redeploy his vessels because the surge in Mideast-bound cargo is beginning to choke traffic at transshipment ports in Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Singapore; and Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.

Despite the concerns, Donovan says he has confidence in the sealift system. “These charters have delivered for us,” he says. “The majority of our ships are U.S.-flag ships, and the majority of mariners out there are Merchant Marine sailors.”

Although some of the older vessels in the Ready Reserve have suffered mechanical failures, Donovan says the problems were mainly related to recommissioning inactive vessels. “These are not complicated plants,” he says. “Once you get a steamship lit off, . . . it will continue to run.”

Until now, at least, most of the supply-line problems that authorities have encountered have been more in the nature of frustrations than serious bottlenecks.

For example, large amounts of cargo--from food and spare parts to engines and medication--are still sitting at three East Coast air bases, awaiting shipment to the gulf.

The snag developed after President Bush ordered a near-doubling of U.S. troops in the gulf region last November, forcing logistics planners to rechannel their efforts into ferrying soldiers across the ocean.

In the meantime, however, supplies for the troops--ordered earlier--have continued arriving at the bases.

“We’re still trying to clear out all the cargo that accumulated as a result of the second deployment,” said Master Sgt. Chuck Jones, a spokesman for the Military Airlift Command. “That put us a little bit behind. . . . You only have a certain amount of resources available to you.”

At Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, countless supplies of pallets this week sat in four immense, domed tents erected to shield the goods from the elements. More rows of pellets are stacked in parking lots next to the terminal.

By any standards, the logistics effort in the Persian Gulf has been gargantuan.

After President Bush dispatched the first U.S. troops following Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, the Pentagon set in motion massive airlifts and sealifts to the Persian Gulf that outstripped the most intense supply efforts of the Vietnam War era and are among the longest in history.

So far, military and civilian aircraft have flown more than 11,200 supply missions, carrying 411,000 passengers--mainly troops--and 379,000 tons of cargo. Most of the air missions have been flown by military aircraft, but civilian planes have helped out, as well.

Among the 220 ships that have been enlisted in the resupply effort are more than 150 privately owned vessels chartered by the Navy, each at a cost of between $7,000 and $40,000 per day.

Ships carrying materiel for the Navy Military Sealift Command so far have delivered 4.2 billion pounds of dry cargo and 8.4 billion pounds of fuel to the gulf. Depending on the vessel, a trip from an East Coast port to the gulf can take two weeks to more than a month.

The most critically needed items, including some “smart bombs” and vitally needed spare parts, are sent on a C-141 transport dubbed “Desert Express,” which departs once a day from an East Coast Air Force base.

The dry cargo shipped in chartered vessels or on Ready Reserve ships is largely military equipment and munitions.

“This is the large stuff that won’t fit in containers,” says Military Sealift Command spokesman Marge Holtz. “They are not carrying the beans and soda pop.”

Holtz says what military planners call “sustainment” shipping--”the undershirts and toilet paper”--is shipped on regularly scheduled U.S.-flag liners. Even so, in one emergency early during the deployment, a giant C-141 flew to the gulf carrying nothing but toilet paper.

As a rule of thumb, Pentagon officials say, military undertakings such as Operation Desert Storm have an optimal 30-day supply of critical items--”and that’s without resupply,” one Air Force officer said.

Experts foresee serious problems only if the United States begins expending large amounts of artillery- and tank-ordnance and suffering major casualties in a lengthy ground war. Military planners say their only hope then is to strain the supply pipeline to the fullest.

Korb, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution, agrees that the U.S. supply lines would be stretched beyond their limits if American forces become bogged down in trench warfare, in which they would be firing artillery and machine guns for months.

“After 60 days, you begin to see some shortages in material, you begin to see breakdowns in your planes and your helicopters and stuff like that,” he says. “You wouldn’t have all the spare parts that you need.”

Times staff writer Victor F. Zonana in New York contributed to this report.

THE LONG SUPPLY LINE

Supplies for the Persian Gulf War move over a long line--in some cases 9,000 miles. But there may be some weak links: Ground war

A lengthy ground might could force the U.S. military to rely less on high-tech weaponry and more on massive, old-fashioned cannon fire.

Current stockpiles of spare parts in Saudi Arabia could run low.

With a few exceptions, the Pentagon is not ordering ordnance manufacturers to increase production.

Many of the less-advanced weapons, such as gravity bombs and small-arms ammunition, are left over from the Vietnam War. High-tech problems

Pentagon officials concede they are now working to get more high-tech bombs to the region.

Some high-technology weapons have delivery times of 1 to 2 years.

Makers of spare parts are being asked to speed certain items to the military.

Shipping

Many of the government-owned Ready Reserve Fleet ships are 25 to 30 years old; it may be difficult to find crews familiar with the older technology. Several ships suffered serious mechanical failures on their way to the gulf in the fall.

There is a heavy reliance on chartered vessels flying foreign flags. Of 113 cargo ships now chartered by the Military Sealift Command, only 21 fly the U.S. flag.