Getting troops and their gear quickly to the fight, which likely will be thousands of miles from a home station, is an urgent readiness requirement, said Lt. Gen. Aundre F. Piggee to David Vergun, Army News Service. “The luxury of days of buildup at a tactical assembly area are long gone”, he said. Adversaries know that playbook and will do their utmost to deny access.
M1A2 Abrams unloaded in Bremerhaven, Germany (Photo: DVIDS / Staff Sgt. Micah VanDyke, 24th Press Camp HQ)
As such, two readiness priorities of Army sustainers are stockpiling weapons and equipment for contingencies and much more rapidly offloading supplies needed by brigade combat teams at ports and runways. Piggee, the Army Deputy Chief of Staff G-4, spoke Friday at an Association of the United States Army "Sustainment" Hot Topic forum at the Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. "We have Army Prepositioned Stocks all over the globe," Piggee said. "Our goal, in the coming years, is to have more than a dozen brigade-sized sets that are configured for combat, meaning being able to fight tonight."
The prepositioning of stocks throughout the world provides the Army with the ability to rapidly equip forces and provide support until air and sea lines of communication can be established, he said. Prepositioned stocks are located at or near the points of anticipated use, ashore and afloat. Land forces must have the ability to act even when no permanent U.S. presence or infrastructure is available, he added. APS is also used to supply rotating forces, such as those in Eastern Europe or the Western Pacific. This is the purpose of the APS program.
Reducing time for offloading ships and aircraft is the second major priority, Piggee said. In 2016, the Army conducted 35 BCT operational movements overseas, he said. In 2017, there were 55 such movements and by the end of 2018 there will have been 83. The reason this is important, he said, is because the Army Army is not only increasing its presence in areas of the world where assurance to allies and deterrence to adversaries is important, but with each movement, Soldiers become more efficient at offloading.
Piggee said last year he personally witnessed the offload of the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade at a European port during an Operation Atlantic Resolve exercise. Because Soldiers had learned the art of combat-loading vessels, they were able to remove their aircraft and parts in just two hours, an operation that normally would have taken a few days, he said. Combat loading means stowing supplies in a manner that allows equipment that needs to be used immediately to come off the ship or aircraft first. This reduces the time needed to assemble a BCT for combat.
