Life-Cycle Management - Army Logistics University - U.S. Army

only forklifts that have a maximum lift capacity of
10,000 pounds. Moving 20-foot containers can
become quite a problem, especially in undeveloped theaters
or when combat units arrive in theater ahead of
the units that are equipped to handle containers. This
occurs fairly often because planners have a tendency to
deploy combat units earlier than combat service support
units during the initial stages of deployment.
The current deployment process usually relies on
the use of established ports of embarkation and
debarkation. Decisionmakers determine which equipment
will be moved by air, land, and sea; they also
decide which items will be containerized and if the
containers will be placed on trailer chassis and moved
by rail or sea.
As CONUS-based units deploy overseas, most, if
not all, of their rolling stock (vehicles, trailer-mounted
generators, water trailers, etc.) is convoyed to a seaport,
where it is driven onto FSSs or LMSR vessels. The
cargo and passenger areas of these vehicles normally
are fully stuffed with related equipment, such as camouflage
netting, fire extinguishers, and tentage. These
items are known as “secondary loads.” Some unit
equipment and supplies are loaded on the same flights
as the owning forces when they deploy by air. In other
cases, unit personnel will load equipment and supplies
into commercial 20-foot containers that have been
delivered to the base. These containers (on trailer chassis)
then will be hauled by a truck tractor to the
marshalling area of the seaport. Depending on the type
of operation, containers—either with or without a trailer
chassis—may be moved to the seaport by railcar.
Truck tractors and trailer chassis are needed only
to move containers; they are not needed when containers
are used for storage. Since trailer chassis, like
truck tractors, usually are in short supply, straddle
trucks or mobile cranes are used to lift containers off
the trailer chassis and place them on the ground at the
seaport (or on top of other containers if space is limited).
When a ship is ready to receive the containers,
a straddle truck or mobile crane places them on trailer
chassis, and they are hauled by truck tractors to the
ship’s loading area at a pier. A gantry crane lifts the
containers onto the ship. In developed SPODs,
gantry cranes also unload the ships. Containers usually
are unloaded at the direct support unit level (supply
support activities).
Unit sustainment replenishment is transported from
wholesale Government warehouses or commercial
providers to container consolidation points, where it is
placed into 20- or 40-foot containers (usually 40 footers)
and transported to the sea ports of embarkation
(SPOEs) by highway or rail. Major problems arise
however, when modern facilities are unavailable at
SPODs or when adequate CHE is not available.
ARMY LOGISTICIAN PROFESSIONAL BULLETIN OF
Cranes and RTCHs are the primary military equipment
used to handle containers. Both can move 20- to
40-foot containers with gross weights of up to 50,000
pounds over both improved and unimproved terrain. A
RTCH is designed to operate on soft soil such as
unprepared beaches. It has four-wheel drive and can
operate in up to 5 feet of water.
Container Vessels
Besides CHE, another crucial aspect of containerization
is the design and operation of the vessels used
to transport containers. Several types of ships are
used to haul containers. The most common ships in
the commercial sector are large, non-self-sustaining
ones. The phrase “non-self-sustaining” means that a
ship has no onboard cranes to lift containers onto and
off of the vessel. Instead, these ships rely on fixed
facilities at seaports, primarily gantry cranes, which
can reach across the wide beam of the ship, lift the
container off the ship’s deck, and then place it ashore,
The 98-meter TSV–X1 Spearhead is a theater
support vessel used to transport troops and
cargo on missions that require maximum speed
and flexibility. Photo ©Richard Bennett.