1. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command
Leveraging
the
Naval Sea Base
I would like to briefly discuss the Army’s current Army Prepositioned Stock strategy and then address some possibilities for how the Army may leverage the capabilities of the Naval Sea Base.

2. Current Army Sea Basing
Army’s current form of Sea Basing is the static use of Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) to reduce lift requirements and meet deployment goals. Current APS strategy is to provide:
A set of forward positioned critical capabilities oriented
toward reducing responsive time for the Transforming
Army to execute operations without an
operational pause and capable of meeting demands of
full spectrum of operations.
Composition of current APS is being studied to identify potential reconfigurations to meet the needs of the transforming Army.
This is the current Army Sea Basing strategy.
Army G-3 is currently chairing an Integrated Concept Team studying the composition of the APS and are exploring the possibility of:
Including additional Combat Support and Combat Service Support equipment and sustainment materiel, including Configured Loads. This would increase the availability of strategic lift assets to deploy combat forces and systems.
Pre-positioning non-Stryker equipment and sustainment in Configured Loads for the SBCT.
Restructuring APS afloat into employable unit configurations with sustainment on a single vessel, rather than equipment sets on one vessel and sustainment on another.
Restructuring APS afloat into employable unit configurations divided into separate “fleets” perhaps collocated with Marine Corps Maritime Prepositioned Ships.
Additionally, the Center for Army Analysis is also conducting an analysis on the effectiveness of configuring APS in terms of Common User Items rather than unit equipment sets.
The completion of these studies will provide the “way ahead” to revitalize our prepositioning strategy to better support the transforming Army

3. Potential Army Uses for the Naval Sea Base
Provide reception and staging platforms.
Support deployment for an Army mounted ground force.
Support sustainment of common supply items and logistic
services.
Provide medical support.
Provide maintenance support for common items of equipment.
Extend, and integrate, FORCEnet C4ISR capabilities.
Extend Sea Shield force protection capabilities.
Provide Naval fire support and air and missile defense.
Provide a sanctuary and common supply items and logistic
services for reconstitution of forces.
These are potential backup capabilities the sea base could provide that would complement and enhance Army Future Force operations in the JOA. These capabilities are not new, they will already exist in the sea base as currently envisioned. In essence, these capabilities will be leveraged to enhance joint operations:
Ideally, the Future Force would deploy directly into the JOA. When access to air and sea ports are denied, or air and sea ports, or other infrastructure are inadequate, the sea base could be used as a safe haven for the reception, staging, and deployment of Army forces. Similar to anticipated Marine Corps operations, Army forces could move by strategic lift to intermediate staging bases, and from there, by intra-theater airlift or Theater Support Vessels, to the safe haven of the sea base. Under the Sea Shield force protection umbrella, Army forces would “marry up” with Army Prepositioned Stocks.
To speedup deployment from the sea base, Naval High Speed Vessels, V-22s, and other intra-theater lift could be used to augment Army Theater Support Vessels and other intra-theater lift assets to move Army forces ashore.
Once ashore, Sea Shield could continue to provide a force protection umbrella, fire support and air and missile defense, to complement Army capabilities. The sea base could could also provide backup sustainment support of common supply items and logistic services, as well as medical and maintenance support for common items of equipment. With improved interoperability and integration between Army C4ISR and FORCEnet, Army forces could request backup logistic support from the sea base when operational conditions require (e.g., long periods of high tempo operations, or disruption of LOCs).
Once the mission is complete, or a new mission is directed, Army forces could withdraw to the sanctuary of the sea base to conduct reconstitution operations using available common supply items and logistic services.
When Army forces can gain access to the JOA without using the sea base as a reception, staging, and deployment platform, the sea base could still provide Sea Shield force protection, Naval fire support and air and missile defense, medical and maintenance support, and sustainment support of common items of supply and logistic services to augment and complement Army operations.
These, and other, hypothetical notions for leveraging the Naval Sea Base could be explored during war gaming and experimentation events and a “way ahead” identified to achieve the maximum benefits of the sea base for the Joint Force Commander.

4. Unified Course 04 Observations
Part of the Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations
Capability, not a “thing” or a “place”
Must be developed within Joint Deployment, Employment and Sustainment context
Potential as a joint concept: requires participation from all Services

5. Army’s Unified Course 04 Takeaways
Convergence of lift requirements, sea basing, and intra-theater lift
Anti-access challenge: need to circumvent fixed point defenses
Army forces afloat: feasible near-term
Mobility as the counter to information
Value of service experimentation within the joint context
Campaign quality Army with Joint & Expeditionary mindset