C-130 Taking Off at “Log Base Charlie.”

C-130 Taking Off at “Log Base Charlie.”

The COMALF had allotted thirty-six C‑130s for the air evac role on the basis of an estimated 3,000 casualties per day. Air Force medical person­nel, mostly Guard and Reserves, performed well. Many were at austere bases near the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border to help interface with the Army and Marine hospitals. Over 1,400 Air Force medical personnel were in theater. Although only a small portion of their capability was used, they did process over 12,000 patients during Desert Shield/Desert Storm.³⁶¹ (See Figure 37 for map of the air evacuation system.)
After the war, the C-130 force's main task was to help the Army, Marines, and Air Force redeploy their troops and equipment to the main ports. The goal was to get the troops home as quickly as possible. TRANSCOM's scheduling of CRAF worked very well, and CENTCOM began redeploying the troops home by the thousands. The goal was about 6,000 a day. The C-130s' work in the theater was not over, however. They continued to fly food, water, and supplies to POWs and refugees. One of the last big C-130 airlifts brought the last 6,000 refugees out of Safwan, Iraq, to relocation camps in Saudi Arabia. The UN took responsibility for the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait only after all the refugees had been airlift­ed out.³⁶²

Figure 36

MARCENT Area

37

Figure 37

38

Aeromedical Evacuation


Land Transportation
Common-user land transportation was the responsibility of the U.S. Army, which found itself unprepared to meet the needs of the other component services because of the priority given to deploying combat units.³⁶³ The arrival of the Army's 7th Transportation Group on 11 Au­gust 1990 provided relief. Some of the personnel were assigned airport and seaport operations duties, and the robust transportation staff was able to satisfy the immediate requirement for buses and trucks to move equip­ment out of the ports. However, throughout the operation, vehicle re­quirements far exceeded vehicle availability.³⁶⁴ For example, the cargo backlogs at the APODs and SPODs were so great that, on C+38

(14 Sep­tember), U.S. Army Forces, Central Command (ARCENT) Support Com­mand (Provisional) declared a crisis, and 500 more trucks were ordered.³⁶⁵ Initial U.S. Air Force ground assets were pro­vided from prepositioned sites in theater and the Air Force prepositioned ship “Ad­vantage.” In addition to vehicles deployed with the units, nearly 3,400 vehicles were distributed from prepositioned assets to support the first phase of arriving forces. But the realization that the available assets were being over­whelmed called for innovation by the CENTCOM logistics staff. The staff looked to contracting, host nation support, and other donor assistance for relief. The result was that most vehicle shortfalls were

39

Prepositioned Vehicles at Thumrait, Oman.

filled by over 2,700 rentals and ap­proximately 2,000 vehicles contributed by Japan and the Saudi Assis­tance in Kind program.³⁶⁶
Because the deployment flow emphasized the early arrival of com­bat forces, ARCENT could not meet the demands for common-user land trans­portation. In particular, delay in munitions movements caused an exces­sive backlog at the ports. As previously mentioned, the problem was accentuated by an early CENTCOM decision to increase stockage levels of food and munitions in theater from thirty to sixty days. Con­tainers and munitions piled up at the ports, numerous ships “in the stream” awaited offload, and numerous pallets had inadequate identifica­tions at the APODs. Contracting and HNS solved some of the problems, but individual Services had to arrange to augment their own surface transpor­tation requirements. The Army was overextended in filling its own overland lift requirements, and the Marines' organic line haul capability was fully committed. CENTAF began contracting for its own line haul capability through ARCENT's Support Command (Provi­sional).³⁶⁷
During the deployment and sustainment phases of Desert Shield and Desert Storm, CENTAF transporters sourced and allocated nearly 10,000 Air Force vehicles to support twenty-five Air Force beddown locations.
Rapid distribution of vehicles was first priority among steps to in­crease combat readiness. Early in the deployment phase, a twenty-one- man Air Force team was formed to depreserve and service the Southwest Asia (SWA) prepositioned fleet. At one of the preposition sites, the team made over 2,148 Air Force vehicles mission-ready in only twenty-one days, an average of 102 vehicles a day. Additionally, 244 vehicles were expeditiously downloaded from the Air Force prepositioned ship “Ad­vantage” and provided crucial vehicle support for the entire western region of Saudi Arabia. Movement of all commodities was CENTAF's next concern.³⁶⁸
CENTAF requested C-141 strategic airlift support early in Septem­ber to assist in moving oversized prepositioned equipment from Oman to bed­down bases in Saudi Arabia. Because of CINCCENT's deployment priorities, the Commander-in-Chief, Transportation Command (CINCTRANS), denied the request, and surface transportation moved the oversized cargo.³⁶⁹ The C-130 fleet supported the distribution of the remaining items.³⁷⁰
Because highways were limited within the theater, intratheater C‑130 airlift became the vital link for moving personnel, equipment, and mis­sion-critical items throughout Southwest Asia. The CENTCOM JMCC validated all theater airlift requests generating the airlift movement dis­cussed earlier in the chapter. Also, two Joint Airlift Clearance Authori­ties (ACAs) at major APODs monitored and expedited all service ship­ ments. The ACAs tracked over 6,857 actions and expedited movement of 822 critical Air Force sustainment and Army war-fighting cargos.³⁷¹

12

Blueball Express Trucks at Al Kharj Enroute to Taif.

With the commencement of hostilities, most third-country nation­als walked off the jobnearly crippling CENTAF's contracted line-haul distri­bution. This was anticipated by the planning documents, and so it was not a surprise. The CENTAF logistics staff took immediate action to develop and implement the first-ever sustained Air Force line haul opera­tion, the Blueball Express. This operation entailed the use of 200 Air Force drivers from nearly every Air Force specialty code and 100 leased tractor trailers. During the war, Blueball Express primarily transported munitions and aviation fuel to sustain the air campaign and subsequent ground offensive. They operated out of four independent operating locations: Al Kharj (F-15s, F-16s, and C-130s), Jeddah (KC-135s and KC-10s), Riyadh (KC/RC-135s, E-3s, C-21s, EC-130 ABCCCs and E-8s), and King Fahd (A-10s, AC/EC/MC/HC/C-130s, MH-53s,and MH-60s). The Express delivered nearly twenty million pounds of sustainment and am­munition cargo directly to support Desert Storm combat air opera­tions. During Desert Shield and Desert Storm, over 150 million pounds of cargo were line hauled by a combination of commercial, Army, and Blueball Express assets.³⁷²
Accountability and control of transportation resources through­out Southwest Asia were quickly solved by the ingenuity of experi­enced transporters on the CENTAF logistics staff. CENTAF transporters locally developed real-time vehicle database management programs to control and track assigned vehicles. They also developed extensive computerized personnel management systems to provide information on manning strength at each beddown site. The capability to access resource informa­tion instantaneously was invaluable in enabling re­sponses to short-notice requests for support of forward operating loca­tions.³⁷³
When Desert Storm ended, the Blueball Express mission changed. American troops were being deployed to CONUS and bases were marked for closure. The Harvest Falcon and Eagle assets from those bases had to be moved to the reconstitution sites, primarily Al Kharj and Thumrait, where they would be inventoried, repaired, packed, and stored. The Blueball Express was tasked to transport much of the cargo, a task that could be done more effectively and efficiently if resources were com­bined. Conse­quently, the entire operation was consolidated and moved to the more centrally located Riyadh. Operating from Riyadh, the surface transportation task continued through September 1992. By this time, the majority of Harvest Falcon and Eagle assets had been transported from the deployed sites to the reconstitution sites, and the Blueball Express began to scale down operations. Today, transportation line haul assets have been identi­fied to meet future contingency requirements in South­west Asia; they will be part of CENTAF's continuing prepositioning pro­gram.³⁷⁴
Summary
The intratheater lift systems were an essential element of air power in the Gulf area and vital to the success of the entire Desert Shield and Storm operation. However, basic planning for intratheater distribu­tion was marginal. It did not cope with the significant and continued cascad­ing requirements, which ultimately led to a doubling of the force structure in the theater. The APODs and SPODs were overwhelmed at the beginning because a conscious decision was made to load combat forces ahead of supporting forces. The situation was exacerbated by a CENTCOM decision to increase stockage levels of food and munitions in the theater from thirty to sixty days. And finally, the intratheater distribution prob­lem was compounded by the poor in-transit cargo visibility capability of the various Service systems.
Despite the problems, intratheater transportation systems were suc­cess­fully implemented because of several factors. Additional C-130s were made available during the air and ground phases of the war to support the increased force structure in the theater. Generous support from host na­tions, Coalition members, and other donors helped satisfy increased re­quirements for surface transportation. And time was available to dedicat­ed personnel for ad hoc planning and development of innova­tion solutions to transportation flow and in-transit cargo visibility prob­lems.

This Page was Intentionally Left Blank

Appendix 4A



Theater Prepositioned Equipment

	S/T (000)	C-141s*
Bare Base	14.7	655
Vehicles	12.8	570
Medical	1.0	90
Munitions	42.5	1,888
Trap	.4	19
Rations	3.9	171
Fuels Equipment	.7	29
Comm Equipment	-	-
Totals	76.0	3,422

*C-141 Equivalents

Theater Airlift Management
Within the AOR, airlift supported air operations under the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC), also known as the Air Force Forces Commander (AFFOR).
The Tactical Air Control Center (TACC) performed as the senior command and control element and coordinated all air move­ments and airspace control. As a subordinate element of the Tactical Air Control System (TACS), the Commander of Airlift Forces (COMALF) with Airlift Control Center (ALCC) and Airlift Wing Operations Centers (WOCs) operated as a command and control core for airlift forces. The TACC and ALCC were collocated.
The COMALF was dual-hatted. As the AFFOR's Deputy Chief of Staff for Airlift, he was the central manager for all theater airlift assets and was responsible for providing common-user airlift support for joint customers. He was also responsible to CINCMAC for monitoring and managing MAC forces that transited the theater.
The ALCC was a MAC command and control element specifically tailored for a given scenario and deployed with the COMALF to provide airlift manage­ment and tasking. The ALCC director was directly responsible to the COMALF­ for all aspects of airlift operations.
The ALCC had three primary divisions:
• Airlift Operations Division (DOO). Prepared the Airlift Mis­sion Schedule (ALMSNSCD), a detailed mission summary, from preplanned airlift requests.
• Command and Control Division (DOC). Responsible for flight-following and executing the ALMSNSCD. Coor­dinated operations with WOCs, deployed ALCEs, and CCTs.
• Combat Operations Division (DOX). Responsible for coor­dinating of immediate airlift requests. Coordinated airfield and airspace issues with DOO and DOC. Managed ALCE and CCT deployments and planned tactical events.
The ALCC also had several supporting staff elements:
• Communications. Managed MAC organic communications and coordinated nonorganic communications requirements.
• Intelligence. Kept ALCC functional areas informed of enemy ground and air threats that affected present and future operations.
• Aeromedical Evacuation Control Center (AECC). Medical liaison. Coordinated airlift response for theater medical movement requirements and movement of wounded from theater.
• Aerial Port Control Center (APCC). Liaison. Controlled and allocated aerial port resources while monitoring unit capability and workload.
• Ground Liaison Officer (GLO). Liaison between Army Air Ground System and ALCC. Advised on Army tactics and employ­ment matters.
• Logistics Readiness Center (LRC). Monitored and expedited movement and repair of airlift aircraft, aerospace ground equipment (AGE), and war readiness spares kits (WRSK).
• Weather. Provided current and forecast weather support for COMALF and ALCC.
Within the AOR, two basic types of airlift requests occurred; they differ in time available to satisfy a movement requirement.
• Preplanned. Normally more than twenty-four hours to plan, coor­dinate, and execute through the ALMSNSCD. Request for common-user airlift support passed up through service chain to Joint Movement Center (JMC), which reviewed, prioritized, and validated the require­ment. ALCC executed validated requests in priority sequence until capability was saturated. The requirements were listed in DOO's ALMSNSCD, and missions were tasked in the Air Tasking Order (ATO).
• Immediate. Movement required in less time than preplanned request, outside the ALMSNSCD publishing cycle. Like preplanned, service validated requirement (normally, immediate re­quest traveled through operations channels instead of logistic), which was sent to JMC for joint validation. Because of time compression, field-as­signed Theater Airlift Liaison Officer (TALO) and TALOs at each higher level informed the ALCC of the pending request through the Advanced Airlift Request Net (AARN). Therefore, when validation was received from the JMC, DOX had already planned the mission, includ­ing airspace, and DOC executed either by aircraft diversion or alert sortie. USMTF formatting is now the standard airlift request for both preplanned and immediate.

Definition of Provisional Units Terms

ALDP Airlift Division (Provisional)

TAWP Tactical Airlift Wing (Provisional)
CSGP Combat Support Group (Provisional)
TASP Tactical Airlift Squadron (Provisional)
ECS Electronic Countermeasures Squadron
AREFSP Air Refueling Squadron (Provisional)
AERO EVAC SQP Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron

(Provisional)

MASP Military Airlift Support Squadron (Provisional)
AVSP Audio Visual Squadron (Provisional)
ALCSP Airlift Control Squadron (Provisional)
WXGP Weather Group (Provisional)

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