A Bradley Fighting Vehicle belonging to 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division offloads it to the port of Antwerp. In the event of a crisis, moving large numbers of troops and equipment could be a major challenge to the U.S. (U.S. Army photo)
Defense News: The US Army is preparing to fight in Europe, but can it even get there?
WASHINGTON — With Russia’s reemergence as a menace in Europe, the U.S. Army has been laying the foundations to fight once again on the continent it defended through most of the 20th century. But if war were to break out tomorrow, the U.S. military could be hard-pressed to move the number of tanks, heavy guns and equipment needed to face off with Russian forces.
And even if the Army could get there in numbers, then the real problems would start: how would the U.S. sustain them?
The U.S. sealift capacity — the ships that would ultimately be used to transport Army equipment from the states to Europe or Asia — is orders of magnitude smaller than it was during World War II. Combine that with the fact that the commercial shipbuilding industry in the U.S. is all but gone, and the U.S. can’t launch the kind of massive buildup of logistics ships it undertook during wartime decades ago.
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WNU Editor: One can say the same thing about Asia .... how will the U.S. Army get there if there are not enough ships to transport your heavy weapons. And as for fighting two wars at the same time, this lack of logistics capability is just one more nail in that coffin.
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