Fast Sealift and Maritime Prepositioning Options for Improving Sealift Capabilities
Abstract
Until recently, the privately owned U.S. flag merchant fleet provided sufficient numbers of dry cargo ships to transport military unit equipment (u/e) . In the past decade, however, the number of dry cargo ships in this fleet decreased by approximately one-third, from more than 300 to about 200. Equally important, the direct military utility of this fleet decreased substantially because of the increased proportion of container ships. Today, the fleet includes about 94 pure container ships, which without special cargo modules cannot carry the vast majority of Army u/e. If these trends continue, DoD will no longer be able to simply requisition a large number of privately owned U.S flag ships and employ them without modification to deliver u/e. This Note, which is the result of research conducted between January 1988 and March 1990, addresses two questions: (1) To what extent can future U.S. flag merchant ships and existing government sealift programs support potential force deployment requirements? (2) If fast sealift ships (FSSs) and maritime prepositioning ships (MPSs) for Army equipment are needed, what kinds of ships should be built and n what operating regime should they be maintained?
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA260640
Entities
People
- Myron Hura
- Richard I Robinson
Organizations
- RAND Corporation