Environmental and safety concerns and physical constraints prevented the construction of fuel berms on the airfield, so the railcars bringing fuel to Taszar doubled as storage facilities.
As the United States prepares for what is expected to be a sustained war against terrorism, there will be a pressing need for access to intermediate staging bases (ISBs) to conduct operations effectively. The ISB concept is not new. During World War II, U.S. forces used Great Britain as an ISB, and Japan served a similar purpose during the Korean War.
Although not totally applicable to the current situation, the lessons learned by the Army from its use of an ISB in Taszar, Hungary, should be instructive for future operations.
In December 1995, elements of U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) based in Germany deployed to Bosnia and Croatia to enforce the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (commonly known as the Dayton Peace Accords). In order to mitigate the considerable ground distance from Germany to the Balkans, the Army needed a facility close to the theater of operations at which to prepare before deploying into Bosnia and Croatia. Although this particular ISB mission, unlike its wartime predecessors, was a peacekeeping operation, it was no less essential to mission accomplishment.
It is important to define an ISB. In its "Technical Report: Intermediate Staging Base Concept," Science Applications International Corporation proposes this definition: "An intermediate staging base is a tailorable, secure, command and control, combat support, and combat service support staging, support, and sustainment base and transportation node established by the Joint Force Commander and located near, but not in, the theater area of operations." The village of Taszar in southwestern Hungary clearly was all of these things.
As Army and Air Force planners developed their deployment strategy, they selected Taszar and the much larger, neighboring town of Kaposvar, which has a population of about 70,000, as the ISB location. The Taszar-Kaposvar site met a number of key criteria, as Major Timothy J. Marshall detailed in an article in the September-October 1999 issue of Army Logistician—
The history of the Taszar ISB can be divided into three distinct periods.
During the first 2 months of the Taszar ISB's operation, over 25,000 soldiers belonging to the U.S. component of the Implementation Force (IFOR) flowed through Taszar. The ISB mission was to ensure the successful reception, staging, and onward movement (RSO) of these forces before their deployment to an uncertain operational environment in Bosnia. However, it became apparent that the peacekeeping mission, which originally was predicted to last 1 year, would continue indefinitely. Consequently, Taszar was the location from which continental United States-based units such as the 1st Cavalry Division deployed into the theater to assume Stabilization Force (SFOR) responsibilities in Bosnia.
As the Bosnian theater matured during this period, there was a decreased dependence on temporary engineer-built bridges, increased rail traffic to Bosnia, and greater use of pre-positioned equipment. In October 1998, Tuzla Airfield was opened to strategic air traffic. These actions, plus a reduction in personnel from 18,500 to 6,900 at Task Force Eagle (as the U.S.-led component of SFOR was named), diminished the need for the Taszar ISB. This led to four "right-sizing" actions, which significantly reduced the number of leased facilities and trimmed the uniformed Army population at the ISB. (The U.S. Air Force remained in Taszar until September 2000, when it turned over air traffic responsibilities to Department of Defense [DOD] civilians.)
Although the RSO mission diminished during the second phase of the Taszar ISB's history, the base still had a number of responsibilities. One was providing combat service support to DOD military and civilian personnel within Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia (less those that were part of Task Force Eagle). Another responsibility of the ISB was establishing and executing force protection measures for all units and personnel who were assigned or attached to the ISB, were tenants of the ISB, or were under its operational control. A third responsibility was conducting base operations at all assigned facilities. Base operations included supporting over 1,000 personnel spread over 10 locations. Among those locations were—
Despite the increased use of pre-positioned equipment, rotary-wing aircraft still were deployed to the theater by ship. Therefore, Taszar-based medics and military police supported the semiannual redeployment and deployment of U.S. forces assigned to SFOR duty at the Croatian port of Rijeka, which was run by the 21st Theater Support Command and the Military Traffic Movement Command.
An unexpected mission of the ISB was providing joint support to the 31st Marine Aircraft Group during Operation Allied Force in the spring of 1999. This prompted a host of interservice support agreements on the use of the ISB ammunition holding area to accommodate non-Army munitions, use of the airfield, and force-protection responsibilities. This type of support soon became the norm. The Taszar ISB was the site of two Navy aviation exercises with the Hungarian Air Force in 2000, and ISB-based contractors also supported the exercises of two Marine Expeditionary Units in Croatia during the year. Clearly, the ISB was used for purposes beyond those originally envisioned.
During this period, the Taszar ISB mission was executed by an aggregate of officers, noncommissioned officers, soldiers, and civilians that comprised the U.S. Army Support Element Taszar (USASET), previously known as the National Support Element. The USASET consisted of a headquarters element (command group, headquarters and headquarters company, and S1 through S6 coordinating staffs); a medical task force; a military police company; and a combined finance, personnel, and mail platoon.
The Defense Logistics Agency maintained a Defense Energy Support Center office and a Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO) at Taszar as well. Individual replacements were on temporary change of station orders for 6- to 9-month rotations; otherwise, Task Force Eagle provided unit-sized replacements made up of both Active and Reserve component personnel.
At the onset of the Taszar ISB operation, the USASET Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics (DCSLOG) was a lieutenant colonel, but by early 2000 the position had been downgraded to a major. The DCSLOG was responsible for ensuring support, which included ammunition, motor pool, food service, property book, parts requisition, and sub-area petroleum operations. The contract management officer consolidated contracting assets to achieve maximal operational efficiency and economy. He also coordinated the activities of the Joint Acquisitions Review Board, which validated requirements. The board consisted of operations, logistics, legal, resource management, and contracting personnel who reviewed requirements for contracting support against USAREUR's established contracting support plans and priorities.
For support operations, the DCSLOG tasked Brown & Root Services, Inc. (BRS), the Balkan theater support contractor. [BRS is known now as Halliburton KBR.] The support operations contract covered actual costs incurred plus a separate award fee. The award fee served as an incentive and as the profit margin for the contractor. BRS was graded on three criteria: funds management and cost control; performance; and coordination, flexibility, and responsiveness. A Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) representative, in coordination with his trained cadre of contracting officer representatives (usually DCSLOG personnel), provided quarterly assessments of BRS's performance to determine the amount of the award fee.
Because they were responsible for the entire Balkan sustainment contract, BRS located their headquarters in nearby Kaposvar. From there, they could coordinate with the DCSLOG on a daily basis while providing a host of basic combat service support functions—
Move. The primary means of conveyance for sections and units was nontactical vehicles. The fleet consisted of about 130 vehicles. BRS provided weekly dispatches, performed quarterly inspections, and recovered vehicles if necessary. BRS operated a 24-hour maintenance facility, which permitted them to inspect vehicles overnight without affecting mission accomplishment. BRS also managed a float pool of about 50 vehicles, in concert with the DCSLOG, that provided additional vehicles when required for mission support. (For instance, travel to Bosnia required a minimum of two vehicles.)
The greatest challenge for BRS was providing daily mail delivery from the Frankfurt Regional Air Terminal in Germany to Taszar and points south, such as Eagle Base and Camp Able Sentry in Macedonia. Narrow mountain roads, horse cart traffic, and a lack of established customs procedures made the task difficult. BRS overcame these obstacles by staging driver teams throughout the Balkans, which permitted crews to rotate and check their vehicles after 500 kilometers of operation.
BRS also operated Falcon and Eagle Expresses to ship supplies through Taszar to SFOR and Kosovo Force (KFOR) elements. The route they used for these shipments was 3,836 kilometers long because they had to bypass Serbia and travel through Romania and Bulgaria. Fortunately, BRS had a state-of-the-art control system that enabled them to track their vehicles throughout the Balkans.
Fuel. The Sub-Area Petroleum Office (SAPO) for the Balkans Theater (Hungary, Bosnia, and Croatia) was part of the USASET DCSLOG. This was the only instance in which the Taszar ISB was directly responsible for providing support to Task Force Eagle. The office served as the liaison among the U.S. European Command's Joint Petroleum Office, subordinate units, and support agencies such as the Defense Contingency Support Team elements in Split, Croatia.
The SAPO ordered and managed over 2 million gallons of fuel per month. This included JP8, diesel, and mogas (used in unmanned aerial vehicles) purchased by vendors in the theater. Fuel was delivered to Task Force Eagle elements at Camps Coyote and McGovern in Bosnia by truck.
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Environmental and safety concerns and physical constraints prevented the construction of fuel berms on the airfield, so the railcars bringing fuel to Taszar doubled as storage facilities.
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Fuel for Taszar was delivered by railcars, which doubled as the fuel storage facilities. Although the railcars created a highly vulnerable target and therefore presented a force-protection issue, environmental and safety concerns and physical constraints prevented the construction of fuel berms on the airfield. BRS tested the fuel, maintained fuel consumption records, and operated the retail fuel distribution point.
Fix. The tactical fleet was limited to high-mobility, multipurpose, wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs) for the military police company, M915 trucks for the transportation squad, and ambulances for the medical task force. The military police company and the truck squad that transported hazardous cargo to and from Bosnia were the only units that had organizational-level mechanics. Military police HMMWVs were used constantly for convoy security and route reconnaissance and by the quick reaction force.
BRS performed direct support maintenance for the military police company's tactical vehicles and requisitioned parts from the 2000th Theater Army Materiel Management Center of the 21st Theater Support Command through the Standard Army Maintenance System. They inspected the rest of the seldom-used fleet quarterly.
Sustain. The size of the medical task force varied. By late 2000, the medical treatment facility consisted of three physicians, one dentist, one nurse, and eight medics. The task force was able to provide level II care to include dental, laboratory, x-ray, and patient holding services. There were no dedicated air-medical assets. As previously mentioned, a physician and a medic team deployed semiannually to support the Rijeka port mission.
The USASET contracted with a local Kaposvar hospital to provide level IV care. (The sophistication of medical services improves at each successive level of care; level IV medical resources include trauma, resuscitative, surgical, orthopedic, and radiological capabilities.) Every USASET vehicle had a list of nearby hospitals and clinics along the main supply routes in Croatia and Bosnia to consult in case of an emergency.
The Defense Supply Center Philadelphia-Europe, based in Bischofsheim, Germany, provided class I (subsistence) items. Theodor Wille Intertrade, the prime vendor for the Balkans, shipped the food to their Croatian subcontractor in Petrijna (about 50 miles southeast of Zagreb). From there, it was delivered to U.S. elements in Taszar, Tuzla, and, when necessary, in Rijeka. The food provided was specified on the standard Army 21-day menu. USASET personnel inspected subsistence for both accountability and safety reasons at the Croatian warehouse. Taszar did not maintain a class I distribution point except for meals, ready-to-eat, which were for emergency use only.
Personnel in Tuzla and Taszar consumed only bottled water because of health concerns. An Italian-based contractor delivered the water to U.S. facilities. BRS provided bulk water at the rate of 25 gallons per soldier per day for the dining facility and 10,000 gallons per day for the medical facility through commercial water mains and potable water tankers. They tested the water to ensure that chlorine levels were maintained at between .05 to 2.0 parts per million.
The main dining facility operated by BRS was open 24 hours a day, although there were only three serving times during the day. Operating all night long provided military police, medics, contractors, and other nighttime workers an opportunity to get a meal that otherwise might not have been available to them. In December 2000, a dining facility based at the Taszar airfield was dismantled. However, if necessary, it could quickly be rebuilt to accommodate an increased headcount.
Arm. U.S. Forces stored ammunition in a holding area located near the airfield. The facility had approximately 15 storage pads that could accommodate 584 short tons of ammunition. The facility primarily held the USASET's basic load of ammunition and served as a temporary storage facility for ammunition rotating in or out of the area of operations. Ammunition was delivered from Germany by rail and transloaded to the truck squad for delivery. The procedure was reversed when ammunition was returned to Germany. A motion-detection alarm system, coupled with random, roving military police patrols, provided security. Explosive ordnance support was provided on an on-call basis from Task Force Eagle.
The current stage in the history of the Taszar ISB is characterized by cutting costs and reducing the size of the combat service support footprint in Hungary. By August 2001, after 5½ years of operation, the Taszar ISB included only the Taszar Airfield and a nearby base with a soldier population of about 200.
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Cargo is loaded into a C-130 Hercules at Taszar Airfield. |
USAREUR planners concluded that the mission could be prosecuted just as effectively by collocating the ISB with Task Force Eagle in Tuzla, Bosnia. A provisional area support group (ASG) now performs the Taszar ISB mission. This ASG, located in Tuzla, has a subordinate area support team of about 100 soldiers and civilians in Taszar. Ultimately, U.S. forces will pull out of Bosnia and redeploy with their equipment. When that happens, Taszar will be the focal point for a reverse RSO operation.
Although the uniformed staff there is minimal, Taszar still serves as an ISB for U.S. forces and provides a number of important services—
Importance of teamwork. The USASET mission would not have been possible without teamwork among the Active and Reserve components, Department of the Army (DA) civilians, and BRS contractors. Each element had a particular skill that was essential to mission accomplishment. Civilians performed critical missions such as contracting, flight control, finance, intelligence analysis, and engineering. By employing expatriate and host nationals, BRS reduced the demand for uniformed personnel, who then could be employed elsewhere in the theater for military operations. No one element was more important than another.
Rotation of personnel. In accordance with DOD policy, military personnel were usually on station for only 6 months. In some cases, the tenures of some of the commanders were even shorter. This created the problem of short-term institutional memories. Although there was a standard "right-seat-driver" program to acquaint replacement soldiers with their new tasks, there was no means to prevent the recurrence of mistakes. (For instance, DCMA had to train contract representatives constantly on inspecting their portion of the BRS contract.) Also, it was difficult to recruit DA civilians for yearlong assignments because of the remoteness of Taszar and the lack of financial incentives. This problem was never resolved satisfactorily.
Establishing host nation support. Support from the Hungarian Government and local residents was critical to mission success. The local population provided cooks, cleaners, and interpreters who were responsible for important day-to-day missions. The Hungarian Army element garrisoned at Taszar also provided force-protection support. In short, host nation support is aforce multiplier.
Exploiting a mature ISB. An ISB can be used in a number of ways after its original purpose has been realized. Although soldiers and their equipment were no longer processed through Taszar for deployment to Bosnia, the base and the adjacent airfield offered joint training opportunities for the Navy and Air Force. The contractor base also was available to support Marine Corps exercises in nearby Croatia. Future ISBs need not be confined to their original purpose if mission, enemy, terrain, troops, time available, and civilian concerns permit additional training events.
Force protection. The facilities in Taszar were constructed during the Communist era, when the concept of force protection was not a consideration because a totalitarian regime was in power and Soviet troops were present. Although prudent force protection measures were in effect at the Taszar ISB, they took on an added urgency after the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000. Shortly thereafter, a comprehensive review of the facility demonstrated a number of vulnerabilities that required significant and costly changes. Simply put, a base built in an earlier era may not be practical for today's U.S. forces without critical upgrades.
Wear and tear. Despite the best maintenance efforts, the military police HMMWVs sustained considerable wear and tear from 5 years of daily use. Although this did not affect mission accomplishment, it created a strain on the limited number of organizational mechanics the military police company brought into theater. Other HMMWVs on the ISB were driven infrequently. In the future, a policy of rotating vehicles during long-term deployments may have to be included in ISB operating procedures.
U.S. forces will require access to intermediate staging bases in their sustained war against terrorism. This critical capability will mitigate the otherwise deleterious effects of staging combat operations from the continental United States. Although the circumstances of the Taszar ISB operation may not be replicated at future ISBs, lessons learned in Hungary can be useful in the war on terrorism. ALOG
Major James J. McDonnell is a combat developments officer in the Directorate for Combat Developments at the Army Combined Arms Support Command at Fort Lee, Virginia. He was the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics Plans and Operations Officer for the U.S. Army Support Element Taszar, Hungary, from August 2000 to May 2001.