On Point: the United States Army in Operation Iraqi ... - Boekje Pienter

petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) resupply efforts. Some of these included combat armscommanders retaining control of POL tankers rather than returning them to support units.• Package POL products such as grease and lubricants rarely reached units after theycrossed the berm. Requisitions for replacement stocks went unfilled long after majorcombat operations ended. Units resorted to using Iraqi lubricants acquired by foragingparties and draining oil from non mission-capable equipment.• The logistic system failed to resupply engineer explosives and barrier material to units inIraq. Once initial supplies were depleted, units used what they captured from Iraqi forcesor improvised. For example, some units disassembled explosive Mine Clearing LineCharges (MICLIC) and used the charges to destroy captured Iraqi equipment. 24• Ammunition resupply was also problematic. At one point in the fight, 3rd ID was forcedto ask the 101st Airborne Division for an emergency resupply. After coordination, the101st fired the missions with its own artillery as a more efficient means of accomplishingthe fire support missions. 25• Resupply of major items of equipment was extremely limited. The one positive exampleof effective resupply was provision of six Apache attack helicopters, flown in from FortHood, Texas, to replace those severely damaged or destroyed.• The medical supply system failed to work. Units were forced to resupply their unitmedical platoons from the stocks held by the combat surgical hospitals. 26• Repair parts for vehicles and equipment simply didn’t make it forward to attacking units.Brigades that attacked north from Kuwait and defeated the Iraqi forces in Baghdad didso without receiving any repair parts whatsoever. 27• To meet transportation requirements, the V Corps deputy commander personallyapproved the allocation of trucks daily.• Soldiers across the theater did not receive mail from the time they crossed the berm untilwell after the fall of Baghdad.The difficulties outlined above are not the result of any single deficiency in the logisticsystem. On the contrary, a number of converging factors degraded the support provided tounits in combat. Despite a decade of transitioning from a Cold War defensive system, currentlogistics doctrine and systems do not support offensive operations across distributed battlespace.Many classes of supply are still managed as independent systems. All classes were supposedto be transported from the port as far forward as possible, ideally to the forward brigades.Medical supplies have traditionally been handled in a separate supply chain, so that the lifesavingsupplies could move faster. In OIF, that approach complicated supply management anddistribution. In a high-tempo, long-distance operation, handling supplies at each echelon madeit practically impossible for logistics leaders to streamline their efforts across the theater.Combat developers spent the dozen years after DESERT STORM attempting to establishdigital and automated logistics processes to improve logistics by establishing distributionmanagement practices, installing in-transit visibility and upgrading automated informationsystems. Among other things, the intent was to reduce the infamous “iron mountains” ofsupplies that were pre-positioned in Saudi Arabia before DESERT STORM, by shippingsupplies straight from the United States and Germany when required during the campaign. Forthe most part, these initiatives did not work in this complex and high-tempo campaign. As inother campaigns, logistics in OIF succeeded as a consequence of sheer hard work.409