With a renewed and increasing troop presence in Afghanistan, the Army is having to reestablish logistics support capabilities it once had to supply distributed soldiers with fuel, food, ammunition and other supplies, according to a logistics officer who recently returned from a tour there.
Col. Michael Lalor, commander of 1st Armored Division Sustainment Brigade stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, said the unit spent most of its seven-month deployment reestablishing distributed supply stocks and resupply capabilities in austere areas of Afghanistan where U.S. troops are advising Afghan forces in the fight against the Taliban.
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“Yes, these were capabilities that existed in prior, earlier and different phases of the fight,” Lalor said Feb. 14 during a roundtable with defense reporters at the Pentagon. “But, over time, our force structure came down and we removed some of those capabilities or contracted them. Now, as we evolve, I wouldn’t say we just immediately brought them back and put them it place. It was based on specific situations, specific requirements tailored to meet where we are now, how it has moved to more of an advisory mission.”
There are about 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and plans are in the works to send up to 1,000 more this year, according to the Pentagon.
More U.S. troops in Afghanistan need more food, water, ammunition and other equipment supplied to sustain their operations. Lalor’s brigade had to plan for that increased demand and to distribute commodities farther afield.
“We had to readjust and realign where we had fuel, where we put the ability to store fuel and then we looked at our throughput by air and ground to distribute the fuel,” he said.
Lalor has deployed five times in his career, including three tours to Afghanistan. He has been in command of the 1st AD Sustainment Brigade since June 2016 and deployed to Afghanistan with the unit from May to November 2017.
The unit consisted of 700 soldiers, 135 civilian Army employees and 9,000 contractors from the United States, Afghanistan and other nations.
“This is a situation where the mission swings and pendulums and adjusts over time and we needed to reevaluate as we went,” he said. “We adjusted as we moved forward and as we see this mission expanding out, I need more ability to reach at longer distance. So, we went back and brought in our equipment.”
The brigade was tasked with providing tactical-level combat support, including food, water, fuel, construction materials, ammunition, major combat systems and repair parts to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The brigade also provided for and organizes the transport of that equipment throughout the theater of operations. The brigade also distributes pay and mail.
“We operate over long distances, sometimes in excess of 500 miles, and we use a combination of ground and air resupply to support our U.S. and coalition units,” he said.
Afghanistan is a particularly challenging environment for providing distributed on-demand logistics because of its rough, often mountainous terrain and the fact that U.S. forces do not have port access to the landlocked nation, Lalor said. Fuel distribution is especially challenging because there have to be adequate supplies properly stored at the proper places, transportation capability to dispersed forces and then a distribution capability on the far end, he said.
Getting all that right – stockpiling, storing, transporting and distribution – requires an accurate real-time capability to visualize the brigade’s logistics enterprise, Lalor said. “Seeing yourself” is necessary to avoid redundancy of supply or saturating one area while starving another of certain supplies.
During the recent deployment, the brigade focused on re-posturing the field distribution of logistics assets across the country so that it could effectively resupply through the air and ground transportation. It also trained Afghan logisticians so they could better support their own forces in combat, Lalor said.
“We refocused on building capacity in depth in our sustainment equipment to reach units in the field,” he said. “This is important because our mission in Afghanistan continues to evolve and during our tour the length and expanse of the U.S. and coalition advising mission increased. We adjusted to meet that demand.”
New equipment was brought in to support the distribution of supply bases and to expand the delivery capabilities of the support brigade, Lalor said. Transport vehicles and fuel and water distribution systems were brought in to support the increased footprint of U.S. forces in Afghanistan that will result from recent policy adjustments, including the pending deployment of the Army’s first Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB), Lalor said.
“The key thing that we brought in … was expeditionary fuel equipment.”
Instead of vehicles or fuel tankers, the brigade brought in deployable fuel bags, hose systems and “items that we could aerial resupply into austere areas, set and then we could essentially pitch and catch fuel … and give ourselves some length and distance,” he said. “We also brought in some more aerial resupply equipment to facilitate that, as well.”