MSC Commander Envisions a Sea Base with Air Express Service into the War Zone

After 33 years in the Navy, Vice Adm. David L. Brewer III, does not want to climb any more mountains. He wants to make them disappear. The military services' entire logistical operation was embarrassed during the 1991 Desert Storm conflict by what many called an iron mountain of supplies that piled up in Kuwait. Comprising thousands of containers, many of them unlabeled, the mountain was a nightmare for logistics specialists unable to track the contents of each container. Lumbering commercial vessels and foreign crews that balked at making deliveries to a war zone added to the problems.

Today, Brewer commander of the Military Sealift Command (MSC), beams when he talks about MSC's 19 fast, new roll-on/roll-off ships that can carry 1,000 Bradley fighting vehicles and traverse the Atlantic at 24 knots. "The speed of the commercial ships we had to use in Desert Storm was about 13 to 14 knots," he said. Like all MSC ships, the new fleet is manned primarily by civil service mariners on the MSC payroll, not by Navy crews. During the buildup prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, on-time delivery was "well over 95 percent," he said.

Brewer has commanded the USS Mount Whitney, the Second Fleet flagship, and the tank landing ship USS Bristol County. He also has served as Special Assistant for Equal Opportunity to the Chief of Naval Operations, commander of Amphibious Group Three, and Vice Chief of Naval Education and Training.

Brewer envisions a future with much of the military's logistical support based at sea. All equipment and supplies would be tracked by bar code, ordered by "visual signal" from war fighters, retrieved on demand by robotic logistical systems and, when necessary, air-expressed from the ship and "dropped into the zone...that technology is available today. We have shown it to the Navy," he said. He discussed MSC's future with Editor in Chief Rick Barnard.

Sea Power: What are your top priorities for 2003?

BREWER: We're looking at taking over more of the Navy's support ships: the submarine tenders, the salvage ships, and we have been asked to look at operating the flagships. We just completed a study on the USS Coronado, the Third Fleet flagship, at the request of Vice Adm. [Tony M.] Bucchi, commander, U.S.Third Fleet. We can save the Navy $7 million to $8 million a year in personnel costs, and that's a conservative estimate.

On just one ship?

BREWER: We will be able to operate that ship with between 90 to 120 mariners. [It now has a crew of 545.] One of the things unique about Military Sealift Command is that I can very rapidly increase or decrease the size of the crew depending upon what the ship is doing. And that gives us a lot of flexibility and additional savings.

That would be a fundamental change for the Navy.

BREWER: Absolutely. And being an ex-flagship commanding officer, I had problems with that at first. Of course, the flagship missions would remain under the Navy and we would just operate the ship from the standpoint of engineering, supply, and navigation.

We have approached the submarine community about taking over operations to a certain extent on the submarine tenders. In a 1997 study, the submarine community tasked us to look at the tenders. At that time, we were not prepared, frankly speaking, to meet their requirements in terms of being a nuclear repair facility. We're now prepared to that.

In a recent speech, you said you could save money and manpower by taking over more of the logistical functions of the Navy. Does this imply a requirement for more and more mariners? And are they not hard to get?

BREWER: Yes. Right now we're at 4,044 civil service mariners. If we were to assume responsibility for the additional ships that we're being asked to take, we could easily have a civilian force of 6,000. That does not include contract mariners, which we keep in a separate category.

We're also being driven by another initiative that I have called "Increasing Shore Leave." Our civil service mariners today earn only about two days of shore leave per month, coupled with two days of federal annual leave because they are civil servants. [MSC needs to] align them more closely with their commercial counterparts. The minimum amount of shore leave that the commercial mariner receives is two months for every four months at sea. Some receive as many as four months leave for every four months at sea. So, my initiative would basically give our civil service mariners up to 2 months for every 4 months at sea. That will require us to hire an additional 700 mariners in order to provide the pipeline for those mariners to stay ashore that long.

You want to make the civil service mariner's positions more attractive?

BREWER: Absolutely. Basically we have to do something extreme. So we're now involved in a recruiting blitz. We signed a recruiting contract with Media Cross, Inc. [St. Louis, Mo.] last June and since then we have had 400 net accessions. So, we're getting healthy very rapidly.

How many slots are open?

BREWER: Lots. We will assume control of USNS Rainier [a new Supply-class fast combat support ship] in August. Next year we will assume operational control of another, USNS Bridge. Each one of these ships has a requirement for 177 civil service mariners. That doesn't include pipeline. We would need at least 200 mariners to satisfy that requirement. We've also got to take over the T-AKE [a new class of three cargo and ammunition ships] that will come on line in 2005. Over the next few years, we have to grow from 4,044 to over 5,300 civil service mariners, without any new initiatives. So if I take over many more ships that would clearly drive me to 6,000.

You mentioned minimal savings of $7 million on the flagship. Is it a goal of MSC to save money for the Navy?

BREWER: My commitment to the Chief of Naval Operations is to operate his Combat Logistics Force, and any other support ships that we take over, more efficiently and at less cost. For example, we will operate a [fast combat support ship] at an op tempo 50 percent higher than that of the Navy.

Plus 50 percent? You can do that because your turn around time is less?

BREWER: Much less. We rotate crews. It's easier to rotate crews and keep the ship available. The [ballistic-missile] submarine community's been doing this successfully for years.

You are taking over four fast combat support ships that are an integral part of the carrier strike groups. They deliver munitions, oil, whatever the fighting ships need. You say this will save $74 million a year and return 2,000 Navy billets to the fleet. How?

BREWER: The manning is much different. A crew of 544 Navy people manned those ships. We can do it with 176 civil service mariners and 59 Navy people. Our training time is much less because our people are more experienced. And we use a lot of overtime. It is cheaper to pay them overtime than it is to hire more people because our civil service mariners are available to you seven days per week on board that ship.

What is your experience thus far with operations related to Operation Enduring Freedom?

BREWER: We have more speed now as opposed to what we had for Desert Storm [in 1991]. If you extrapolate, we could today close the Desert Storm force in two-thirds the time it actually required. We now have a more reliable roll on/roll off fleet of ships out of the Ready Reserve Force Fleet. Most of the equipment that we're moving right now rolls on and rolls off: the tanks, the trucks, the Bradleys. That's the beauty also of the LMSR [large, medium speed roll on/roll-off] ships. You can carry about 300,000 square feet of equipment, or the equivalent of 3,000 Ford Bronco-size SUVs or 1,000 Bradleys. These ships are 950 feet in length and they travel at 24 knots ships. The speed of the commercial ships we had to use in Desert Storm was about 13 to 14 knots.

So the buildup for Iraq went well?

BREWER: It's been very good. In all of our planning factors, we have always planned worse case. We plan for our maintenance days and our weather days. We plan for the unexpected. From the continental United States to the Middle East, I add at least 3 days. Something's going to happen. It could be a traffic jam going through the Suez. Based on those planning factors, on-time delivery is well over 95 percent.

One of the things that will certainly affect MSC and the rest of the service is Sea Basing, one of the tenets of the Navy's Sea Power 21 strategy. What does Sea Basing mean to you?

BREWER: It means I can put a sea base outside of the enemy's surface-to-surface missile range, 200 miles or so, and still support the war fighter. I don't need ports and I am less vulnerable.

A practical example is the use of selective discharge within the Sea Basing model. The battalion commander in the field wants certain piece of equipment. Today, you've got to call all over the place to get it. In a Sea Basing model, based on today's technology, the commander sends a visual signal to the Sea Base. A computer gets it. The operator sees it and energizes a system that uses bar-code technology and pulls out that container. If the battalion commander says I needed it yesterday, it goes up to the flight deck. It's picked up by helicopter or heavy life aircraft and dropped into the zone. If it's needed soon, then it goes over the side to a high-speed vessel that takes it to some trans-load point and moves it to the objective. That technology is available today. We have shown it to the Navy.

What is a Sea Base?

BREWER: It could be any number of things depending on your mission. The base itself could be one, two or five different ships coming together into one formation supporting different missions. It could be a large container ship with a flat deck. If we used a large container ship that has the capability of handling say 6,000, 20 foot containers, that's a lot of space. We're looking at one of those right now. It's about 1,140 feet long, 140 feet wide and you could put a flight deck on it. You could fly up to 10 or 15 helos off at the same time.

When you look back five years from now, what do you think MSC will have accomplished?

BREWER: I would see MSC as operating four more salvage ships now operated by the Navy. We could very well be operating one to two flagships and, in three to five years, one to two of the submarine tenders. In five years, obviously, we will have the three new T-AKE cargo ships and we will be retiring the existing AE [ammunition ships] and the AFS [combat stores ships] that, frankly speaking, are really high maintenance ships because they are old. So, I will actually reduce costs.

As an organization we will be even more integrated into the Fleet. In order to be an effective organization, you have to live with your customer. We are probably one of the most efficient organizations in the Navy. We have a tooth-to-tail ratio of about 80 percent. Eighty percent our people are at sea and only 20 percent are on shore. I see an even higher ratio. By the year 2010, if this organization isn't 90 percent at sea and 10 percent ashore, then we have not really become a 21st century organization. *