This week, Daily Intel examines the military assets available to the civilian authorities coordinating the relief efforts in Puerto Rico. The island, along with the U.S. Virgin Islands to the east, is still struggling to regain its footing after a one-two punch from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. 10,000 shipping containers are stuck in the Port of San Juan, representing roughly 450 to 610 million pounds of cargo.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has said it will begin moving badly needed fuel by barge to six distribution points around the coast. But that only addresses part of the issue. The larger challenge lays in delivering supplies through, as the Army calls it, “the last tactical mile.”
delivering without a runway
Moving critical cargo over the last tactical mile was the chief argument the Army used in lobbying for the C-27J Spartan, which began its life as the Joint Cargo Aircraft (a program for which I was the public affairs officer for a time). The Air Force could only get cargo to forward operating bases with large runways, and the Army needed to get it to more distant locations. Helicopters are fine, but they were needed for air assault missions, not moving beans and bullets.
A similar problem exists in Puerto Rico. The roads and bridges leading to isolated locations in the island’s interior are impassable, and there isn’t anywhere to land a C-17 or even a C-130. All of Puerto Rico’s six major airports are on the coast: five on Puerto Rico itself, and one on the smaller island of Vieques. There are no major airstrips in the island’s interior. This is where the Marine Corps comes into play.
The Department of Defense announced that the USS Wasp, a Navy amphibious assault ship that can carry the bulk of a Marine Expeditionary Unit, is en route to Puerto Rico, with three MH-60 aircraft aboard. She will embark 10 more unspecified aircraft, presumably MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotors. The DoD said Saturday that another eight Ospreys are flying to the island separately.
help, but not nearly enough
The MH-60s normally assigned to the Wasp are the Knighthawk S variant, which can carry a 9,000-pound sling load beneath it. But the Osprey, with its ability to take off and land like a helicopter and fly long distances like an airplane, will be the biggest help to the people of Puerto Rico. It will still represent a drop in the proverbial bucket.
When using its VTOL capability, the Osprey can carry 20,000 pounds of cargo; the 18 Ospreys slated to get to work there represent a combined 360,000 pounds of cargo capacity per flight. Adding in the three Knighthawks brings the total lift capacity of 387,000 pounds.
Using 530 million pounds of cargo currently in port as a planning figure, it would take those three Knighthawks and 18 Ospreys a combined total of 1,370 flights to deliver it all. If they could fly three missions a day each (a stretch, given the rest an aircrew requires), it would still take them more than a year to get it all delivered.
Obviously they are not the only aircraft involved in recovery operations, but the loads are theoretical. Before being loaded on an aircraft, cargo will be stacked on a standard 463L pallet. These pallets have a payload capacity of 9,490 pounds. An Osprey can carry two of them. So that 20,000 pound load is reduced by the 1,020 pound weight of the two pallets. The weight begins to add up. As I said, these aircraft, however capable, are a drop in the bucket. Without repairs to the roads and bridges, supplies aren’t going to move efficiently.
Tomorrow: Comparing Maria to other logistics efforts.
