CNN
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The U.S. military boats that took temporary duty off the Gaza docks earlier this year are poorly maintained and largely unprepared to handle the military’s growing mission in the Pacific, a new government monitoring report said this week.
The Government Accountability Office released a report Wednesday that found “pervasive” problems with the Army’s watercraft and how they “meet mission requirements in the Indo-Pacific theater, where the Army’s need for watercraft is most acute.” ” concluded that it was limiting the Army’s capabilities.
This year’s boat current The capacity rate is less than 40%. Overall, our fleet has almost halved since 2018, from 134 to 70 as of May this year, due in part to ship sales in 2018 and 2019.
“Army officials stated that this low mission performance and the sale’s small vessel fleet were hampering their ability to meet operational readiness and mission requirements,” the report said. “Army officials also said that at such low rates, fewer than half the ships in the fleet are typically available at any given time.”
Army watercraft came under intense scrutiny this year during a difficult temporary jetty mission aimed at increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. CNN reported in June that the vessel manning the temporary pier, known as JLOTS, was not adequately resourced or maintained by the Army.
“For decades, military boats have not been prepared, capable or prepared to do anything dangerous or have to do anything in the real world,” said retired Warrant Officer and former Army personal watercraft chief. the engineer told CNN at the time.
After the temporary pier’s mission ended (the pier was only operational for about 20 days at a total cost of $230 million), the military asked private contractors to help bring military vessels back to the United States. did. Defense officials said at the time that it was more cost-effective and safer to transport them that way.
Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said Friday that one vessel is currently being returned to the United States and two others are scheduled to be loaded for shipment this weekend. Another ship is undergoing “routine maintenance” which is expected to be completed next week. The ship is expected to sail by the end of October, Smith said.
Smith said the Army is “aggressively” working to address gaps in overall watercraft capability, prioritizing improvements to the current fleet while “modernizing to meet the needs of the force in 2040.” “We are investing in a fleet that has been developed.”
Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, told CNN that the Army is also considering replacing existing Army vessels with autonomous vessels in the future.
“What we’re seeing is that the oil industry and other shipping industries are already doing this, and it’s happening all over the world,” Butler said. “There’s no reason why the Army shouldn’t think that way…Leaders from the ship level all the way down to the Department of Defense are considering this and determining the best way to deploy the force.”
A GAO report released this week found that “significant maintenance issues” contributed to low ship readiness, which was further exacerbated by “vessel aging, inadequate supply, and aging parts.” It states that
The report includes an example of a landing craft utility vessel that has been undergoing maintenance since 2018. The ship was originally scheduled to be repaired and operational by January 2021, but was delayed by at least three years. The Army “had to amend the contract seven times to expand the scope of work” after it was discovered that more than 40 percent of the ship required “significant unplanned repairs.”
“The expanded scope of work further increased delays and costs, exceeding the original maintenance estimate by more than $1.2 million,” the GAO report said.
In another example included in the report, GAO said the Army identified in 2010 that LCU ramps used for loading and unloading people and equipment had “safety concerns.”
“Despite the risk of catastrophic failure and loss of life, the Army did not replace the safety-critical bow lamp component,” the report states, adding that in 2022, the LCU was in “high seas” near Japan. It added that a lamp had fallen from the vessel. The Army took no action until it received a briefing from GAO in 2023, more than a decade after the concerns were first identified. An inspection of all LCUs conducted after the GAO briefing that year found that approximately one-third of the vessels “failed inspection and are pending repairs.”
The report includes a response from Secretary of the Army Christine Worms, stating that the Army is “aggressively pursuing a comprehensive approach to mitigating the Army’s watercraft capabilities and capability gaps.” “There is,” he said. Regarding mission needs specifically in the Pacific, Worms said Army Futures Command is working with U.S. Army Pacific Command and Indo-Pacific Command to address concerns about the watercraft’s mission readiness.
The GAO report also said the Army is considering leasing civilian watercraft to augment its existing fleet and relocating all watercraft to the Pacific Ocean. Butler also said the Army is actively talking with Congress about leasing civilian vessels, and recently brought representatives to Hawaii on an Army watercraft to discuss the benefits of leasing.
In February of this year, the Army established a management committee to help monitor personal watercraft, but as of May, the GAO survey found that the committee was unable to fulfill its important oversight role, including establishing methods for information management. consultations regarding responsibilities have not yet begun. Will it be distributed to stakeholders and how often will the board meet?
At the end of the day, the Army’s watercraft are “a means by which the Army, a ground force, participates in war,” Butler said.
“The future fleet may be entirely autonomous, but we don’t know,” he says. “These are all things we’re looking at in terms of modernizing the way we move people, weapons and equipment.”
