How are troops transported to other continents?

[barryballstine]

Ok here is my question. How are troops transported from america in such large numbers to iraq? How are troops transported from australia to iraq? I once asked an aussie soldier and he said he couldnt say. Why is this? Cheers

 

[the road runner]

Ok here is my question. How are troops transported from america in such large numbers to iraq? How are troops transported from australia to iraq? I once asked an aussie soldier and he said he couldnt say. Why is this? Cheers

My understanding is that they would be transported by air(C-17,C-5,C-130) and even Private companys like American Airline(usa),Qantas(aus) have been used to ferry troops.

Troops and equipment, can also be transported by ship,but time sensative equipment and troops would be Airlifted.

I remember seeing a DVD on GW1,where troops were transported to Jordan on C-5 Galaxys.

Hope this helps

 

[Marc 1]

At the moment there is a company with an A330 that is regularly on charter to the ADF for this mission.

 

[barryballstine]

Awesome but you cant get hundreds of thousands of troops via air. It would be unfeasible. So how do they do it? Deep underground highspeed rail system to kuwait from america? Ship?

 

[the road runner]

I do not think it would be un -feasable.How many people travel on private airlines around the world a day? I do not know but its alot

There are private airlines, who could fly hundreds of thousands of troops to the Middle east.Esepecilally in this economic climate....im sure there would be a large number of Airlines who would love to lease there surplus aircraft to the USA.

As Marc1 has stated the Australian Defence Force uses a lease arangement with an A-330.

Also some of the The Equipment and manpower of the USA are located in bases in Japan,turkey,Mid east ect.They pre deployed form those bases.

Heavy equipment like MBT are sent by ship..that is a fact.
GW2 i can remember Aussie clerance divers,clearing a port of mines so heavy transport ships,LHD could dock and unload there equipment.

All in all a massive logistics task,it would be nice to hear from some senior members on this topic to clarify how the USA deploys its troops.

thanx

 

[barryballstine]

ok forget I said australia.. we don't have many troops there anyway.. it's just to please america.. token gesture. There is no way the US flies the troops there ??

 

[kato]

There is no way the US flies the troops there ??

Of course they do. Personnel transfer to Iraq to the tune of half a million soldiers doesn't even remotely compare to the annual turnover of a major civilian airport. The capacities of the thirty busiest airports worldwide range from 40 to up to 100 million passengers a year. Each.

The answer is:
- near 100% of all personnel is airlifted (except perhaps a few marine units)
- about 90% of all equipment is sealifted
- the remaining 10% of equipment is airlifted

And remember that bringing all that stuff to the borders to Iraq took 6 months to have everything together each time.

 

[Marc 1]

this article may give you a few clues on how the US handled Desert Shield:

C-141 Heavenesert Sheild Airlift

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1991/01/28/74602/index.htm

Airlines like Evergreen Airlines do quite a bit of charter work for the US DOD. Evergreen International Aviation, Inc.

 

[swerve]

Awesome but you cant get hundreds of thousands of troops via air. It would be unfeasible. So how do they do it?

Riyadh airport handles about 20 million passengers per year nowadays. In 1998 it was 8 million. Even in 1990, it was in the low millions, & it had spare capacity. There were other airports available in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar & the UAE, plus military airfields.

Getting hundreds of thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia was the easy bit. IT took only a small proportion of available airport & aircraft capacity.

 

[Ananda]

Don't forget, that Saudi's taken more than 2 million Hajj Pilgrimes every year in the short period of time (only less then a month for all pilgrim has to enter) most of them comming by air..Not Counting hundres of thousands pilgrims outside hajj month..

Middle East especially the Gulf has modern and large disembarcations and embarcations facillities.

 

[mattyem]

more and more often we are seeing the military out sourcing to save time and costs, this is true in troop transport with commercial airliners also being used at times being privately chartered.

 

[swerve]

The military of most countries, most of the time, have used commercial transports, whether it be the RN chartering or requisitioning commercial shipping throughout its history or assorted countries chartering commercial air transport to support their forces.

An entirely military-owned transport force is a historical rarity, & usually due to an unusual degree of mobilisation, or the use of a novel means of transport, or both - as with air transport in WW2, where civilian resources didn't exist in the numbers the military needed. The victors of WW2 inherited huge air transport fleets from the war, & have only slowly given up the idea that they need military air transport self-sufficiency, despite the huge growth in civil air fleets.

 

[HKSDU]

Awesome but you cant get hundreds of thousands of troops via air. It would be unfeasible. So how do they do it? Deep underground highspeed rail system to kuwait from america? Ship?

deep underground railway system???? watching too many movies buddy. america doesnt have that kind of technology, actually no nations does.

 

[Ryan UK]

i remember reading somewhere that the British Govt can commandeer British based civil airlines in a time of emergency to transport troops this may also be true for british based shipping companies i don't know. But if Britain has this type of arrangement im sure that the US, Australia and other powers have a similar type of Agreement.

 

[citizen578]

i remember reading somewhere that the British Govt can commandeer British based civil airlines in a time of emergency to transport troops this may also be true for british based shipping companies i don't know. But if Britain has this type of arrangement im sure that the US, Australia and other powers have a similar type of Agreement.

Alot of UK charter companies have deals with HMG, same with ferry and even cruise companies. FlyGlobespan is a classic; domestic British company which has long-term MoD contracts (flying the airbridge to the Falkalnds and Ascension for instance) which is mutually beneficial. Let's face it, every charter company would love a large, reliable, government contract in these uncertain times. I don't know what happened to Omni Air - they were always quite prominent.
There's also a strong chance that if you get the ferry across to Norway or the low countries that you are on an MoD auxilliary vessel.

It makes sense. Why spend vast amounts on maintaining a pax (or even cargo in some cases) transport fleet when an commercial company will do it more cheaply and efficiently.

 

[winnyfield]

i remember reading somewhere that the British Govt can commandeer British based civil airlines in a time of emergency to transport troops this may also be true for british based shipping companies i don't know. But if Britain has this type of arrangement im sure that the US, Australia and other powers have a similar type of Agreement.

US arrangement
Civil Reserve Air Fleet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The British govt however, in future will have their tanker transport fleet solely in private hands.
AirTanker