A US Army M1A1 Abrams tank is ready for action minutes after its delivery to a remote location
						Strategic mobile systems
	The requirement for rapid mobilisation of military forces is greater than ever. Nigel Vinson, the Duke of Westminster’s fellow – Royal United Services Institute, follows the attempts to meet this need
						Stung by criticism that its forces were strategically paralysed throughout most of the Kosovo conflict, a fact symbolised by the drawn out deployment of the 24 AH-64A Apaches into Albania, the US Army has embarked upon a review of its intervention capabilities. In particular, the service is seeking to bridge the gap between its heavier armoured and mechanised forces that possess enormous firepower but lack strategic mobility, and its light, air-mobile and airborne divisions that have relatively good strategic reach but are bereft of sustained combat power. This dilemma has become particularly acute since the end of the cold war that highlighted the need to intervene on peacekeeping operations with greater regularity than was envisaged at the beginning of the decade. However, this is hardly new: witness the creation of the US rapid deployment force in the late 1970s and 1980s, ostensibly to provide an intervention capability against any destabilising region or Soviet activity in the middle east. In the 1990s there are subtle differences in intervention issues: commitments potentially are long term and involve a greater blend of policing duties, as opposed to traditional warfighting functions. But in spite of a profusion of these small-scale contingency missions – far more than were envisaged even in the 1997 US quadrennial defence review – there is also the requirement for rapid mobilisation for major theatre wars involving both the US and other western European allies of the NATO alliance. The primary asset for any force contemplating rapid intervention is sufficient strategic and theatre airlift. Only the US has the number and type of aircraft to meet this need, possessing about 550 Lockheed Martin tactical C-130 Hercules, 205 C-141 Starlifters, 126 C-5 Galaxys and continuing to receive deliveries of 120 Boeing C-17 Globemaster IIIs. The US Air Force also possesses about 549 Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers and 59 McDonnall Douglas KC-10 Extenders for air-to-air refuelling. These systems are being upgraded continuously; procurement of the C-130J and X variants should standardise the 21 models of the Hercules family currently in service. Lockheed Martin and Honeywell are embarking upon a C-5 update to improve avionics and procure new engines; the Globemaster III is replacing the Starlifters. And the new Block 10 version of the C-17 can reduce requirements for a US Army strategic brigade airdrop, involving 2,400 troops plus support, by 30 per cent. In light of deficiencies identified during the Kosovo campaign, congress has authorised procurement of a further 60 C-17s in addition to an extra 15 aircraft for US special forces requirements. The incoming US Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, has stated that in future all equipment will be judged on its ability to fit into the cargo bay of a C-17 for strategic lift and a C-130 for in-theatre lift. Future aircraft designs include box-wing, blended wing body and tilt-wing technologies such as Boeing’s SuperFrog. Currently looking for international partners to justify investment, the SuperFrog is a potential successor to the venerable C-130 family. Designed to carry half the weight but the same internal volume as the C-17, the SuperFrog could operate effectively from austere airstrips. The BWB concept also may be proposed for the future B-X strategic bomber and the replacement for the KC-135 fleet. Home-grown solution Given that outside the US, not a single strategic transporter exists within the NATO alliance, seven European nations have an urgent need to procure a future transport aircraft to replace a fleet of 400 C-130 and Transalls. The home-grown A400M solution from Airbus Industries is based on an anticipated requirement for 288 aircraft from Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Belgium. However, Germany continues to look at the Antonov An-70 and Italy has just procured 12 Lockheed Martin Alenia C-27Js and 18 C-130Js. Furthermore, the UK, having replaced half its ageing C-130K fleet with the new J-model, is also expected to lease approximately four C17s or their equivalent as part of their short-term strategic airlift requirement. Despite the speed at which airlift can transport elements of any rapid intervention force, the US Department of Defence still delivers approximately 95 per cent of its material by sea. The 1990-91 Gulf War revealed a number of deficiencies in US sealift requirements, not least in terms of the stated sustained cruise speed of 20kts, and the recent introduction of the Bob Hope Class has raised this to 24kts. Technology has had little effect on military sealift, but the picture is changing fast. Recent events in East Timor revealed the benefits of the Australian Defence Force’s HMAS Jervis Bay, an 86m, 350 tonne wave-piercing catamaran built by International Catamarans, Tasmania. The vessel can move over 500 fully equipped troops, M113 or ASLAV 8x8 combat vehicles at sustained speeds of up to 43 knots, requiring only 20 crew. The US military sealift command, spurred on by such developments, is currently evaluating a number of concepts such as FastShip – the waterjet-propelled design by FastShip Atlantic Inc, that is claimed to sustain speeds of over 40kts. Although primarily designed for the commercial market in the Atlantic, with three anticipated sailings a week from 2002, the east coast of the US to Europe could be covered in less than 40 hours, halving current sailing times. Land forces also are reconfiguring to match strategic realities, although this process has been extremely slow. As outlined by General Shinseki, the US Army aims to place a brigade on the ground within 96 hours, a division within 120 hours and a corps within 30 days. Essentially, three methods are being employed to address this. First, existing structures are being modified in order to accommodate new requirements. For instance, the US Air Force has reconfigured some of its existing assets into ten air expeditionary forces, more suited to contingency operations. Similarly, the US Army has adopted pre-positioning of existing equipment in order to provide immediate assets at likely hot spots. Additionally, a number of US Marine Corps and US Army brigade sets are held on ships in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and in the far east, for similar contingencies. Although pre-positioning makes strategic and financial sense and has additional deterrent value, this remains a credible policy only because the US possesses so much surplus equipment from the cold war. However, as a new generation of equipment is procured there may be inadequate numbers to both pre-position and keep units at home in a combat-ready status. Modern strategic realities require the US Army to be able to place a brigade on the ground within 96 hours Defence review A potential solution to this is being tried in the UK. The 1998 UK strategic defence review called for a ninth armoured infantry battalion to help create a sixth operational brigade for intervention operations. This brigade is formed without buying more Warrior fighting vehicles, but by pooling the entire fleet while ensuring a full battalion is available for unit-level training and operations. Furthermore, the majority of in-barracks training is expected to be achieved with the use of simulation technology. Secondly, improvements to existing equipment, particularly the digitisation of ground forces, should ensure that fewer vehicles can achieve more. The recent reorganisation of US heavy divisions to take account of this digitisation will reduce the traditional burden associated with deploying such forces on operations overseas. Finally, over the longer term, new equipment will be better configured for intervention operations. Heavy and outsized items, such as the 45-50 tonne United Defence XM2001 Crusader self-propelled gun for the US Army, although still imposing a considerable logistical burden, will be significantly more effective than its predecessors, and so will reduce the overall logistical burden. More radically, a number of countries are looking to lighten much of the equipment used for intervention operations while seeking innovative ways to avoid the associated reduction in capability. The US Army is evaluating a number of systems to assess their viability for a medium weight force. The intention is to loan 40-50 LAV IIIs from the Canadian Army to develop concepts and doctrine, while testing vehicles in a fast-track study aimed at an in-service date of next year. Future plans are studying the lightening of the heavy divisions, and it is currently envisaged that the future combat vehicle will fulfil as many as 30 different missions on the battlefield, as well as succeeding the 68 tonne M1 Abrams. Weighing approximately 20 tonnes, the aspiration is to move the vehicle by C-130 once in theatre. The big challenge will be to increase levels of protection, firepower and both tactical and strategic mobility for operations that undoubtedly will be more varied and much more unexpected now than at any time this century.
	An RAF Chinook helicopter lifts a 105mm light gun and a Pinzgauer vehicle. Rapid mobilisation for both small scale contingency missions and major theatre wars remains a priority for the Nato alliance
			This C-17 drop mission involves a stick of containers dropped from each side of the aircraft, with 20 containers to a stick