Sea Basing and Alternatives for Deploying and Sustaining Ground Combat Forces
Abstract
The United States Marine Corps and Army have long maintained expeditionary forces organized and equipped to be rapidly moved and inserted into combat with little reliance on access to local bases or infrastructure. Recognizing the vulnerability of forces that are dependent on local access (as U.S. forces have been in Afghanistan and Iraq), the Department of Defense (DoD) is improving its expeditionary capabilities across all of the military services. Prominent among those efforts is the Navy's plan to field a 14-ship squadron--the Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future), or MPF(F)--that would be capable of deploying, employing, and sustaining a Marine expeditionary brigade with little or no need for access to local bases or other infrastructure. This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study--prepared at the request of the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Sea Power and Expeditionary Forces of the House Committee on Armed Services--looks at the capabilities and costs associated with MPF(F) and sea basing in general as well as other approaches that DoD might take to improve its expeditionary capabilities. The study compares the advantages, disadvantages, and costs of eight alternative systems--five that would involve the sea basing of ground forces and three that would use aircraft to directly deliver forces and supplies. In keeping with CBO's mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, this study makes no recommendations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA519792
Entities
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office