Chapter 10
Urban Sustainment
Even supply is different. While deliveries do not need to be made over great distances, soft vehicles are extremely vulnerable in an environment where it is hard to define a front line and where the enemy can repeatedly emerge in the rear. All soldiers will be fighters, and force and resource protection will be physically and psychologically draining. Urban environments can upset traditional balances between classes of
supply…[a] force may find itself required to feed an urban population, or to supply epidemic-control efforts…[a]ll [sustainment] troops are more apt to find themselves shooting back during an urban battle than in any other combat environment.
Ralph Peters
“Our Soldiers, Their Cities”
Sustainment activities exist to enable the Army to initiate and sustain full spectrum operations. Inseparable from decisive and shaping operations, logistics is the central component of sustaining operations and provides the means for commanders to
generate and maintain combat power and extend the operational reach of the force. In offensive and defensive operations, sustainment activities are not by themselves
likely to be decisive or shaping, yet significantly contribute to those operations. In stability and civil support operations, when the critical objectives may be restoring the infrastructure and the welfare of civilians, sustainment activities will often be decisive. Their success will allow Army forces to dominate this complex
environment. However, like all urban operations (UO), sustainment activities affect
and are affected by the environment. The urban terrain, infrastructure, and existing resources, coupled with supportive civilians, may facilitate sustainment activities. In contrast, a poorly designed or damaged infrastructure and a hostile population may
severely hamper sustainment activities. In the latter case, critical Army resources
required elsewhere in the area of operations (AO) may be diverted to repair facilities and control and support the inhabitants of the urban areas.
URBAN SUSTAINMENT
CHARACTERISTICS
10-1. Fundamental sustainment characteristics (see
figure 10-1) guide prudent sustainment planning
regardless of the environment. They provide
commanders an excellent framework to analyze and
help develop urban sustainment requirements,
assess the impact of the environment on the
provision of logistics, and gauge the effectiveness
of urban sustainment activities.
Figure 10-1. Sustainment characteristics
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RESPONSIVENESS AND SUSTAINABILITY
10-2. UO require responsiveness and sustainability to establish and maintain the tempo necessary for success. Responsiveness—providing the right support in the right place at the right time—is the essential sustainment characteristic. It requires that sustainment commanders and planners accurately forecast urban operational requirements. Continuous urban operations will drain personnel, equipment, and supplies at rates vastly different than in other environments. Therefore, sustainability—the ability to maintain continuous support throughout all phases of the operation—will be a significant concern. Anticipation is critical to both responsiveness and sustainability. It requires that sustainment commanders and planners comprehend the potential effects that components of the urban environment (terrain, infrastructure, and society) may have on operations and sustainment, either benefiting or impeding UO. Effective urban operational and sustainment planning cannot be accomplished separately. Operational and sustainment planners, as well as sustainment operators, must be closely linked to aid in synchronizing and attaining responsiveness and sustainability. The key is often the right balance between efficiency and effectiveness.
ECONOMY AND ATTAINABILITY
10-3. A thoughtful assessment and understanding of the urban environment can also help determine how specific urban areas can contribute to or frustrate the achievement of economy and attainability. Economy is providing the most efficient support at the least cost to accomplish the mission. Attainability means generating the minimum essential supplies and services necessary to begin operations. If available, obtaining support in the AO costs less than purchasing the supplies outside the area and then transporting them there. Critical resources may be available in urban areas to support the operation. However, relying on sources outside the established military sustainment system may create conflict with other sustainment characteristics. A strike by longshoremen, for example, may shut down port operations (at least temporarily) lowering responsiveness and sustainability.
SURVIVABILITY
10-4. Survivability is being able to protect support functions from destruction or degradation.
Commanders often choose to locate sustainment functions in an urban area because the buildings may better protect and conceal equipment, supplies, and people. Urban industrial areas and airports are frequently chosen as support areas because they offer this protection as well as sizeable warehouses, large parking areas, and materials handling equipment (MHE). Such areas facilitate the storage and movement of equipment and supplies. They may also provide readily available water, electricity, and other potentially useful urban resources and infrastructure. However, these areas may also contain toxic industrial materials (TIM) (see Chapter 2). These materials and chemicals in close proximity to support areas may unjustifiably increase the risk to survivability. Sustainment activities in any environment will always be targeted by threat forces. Furthermore, sustainment activities located in any type of confined urban area can offer lucrative targets for terrorists, insurgents, or even angry crowds and mobs. Therefore, no sustainment activity should be considered safe from attack during UO. (During OPERATION JUST CAUSE, Panamanian paramilitary forces and deserters even attacked marked ambulances). Although host-nation support may include assets to assist in defending sustainment units, bases, and lines of communications (LOCs), sustainment commanders must carefully consider if adequate protection measures can ensure survivability. The sustainment commander’s greatest challenge to force protection may be complacency born of routine.
Base Security: Tan Son Nhut, Vietnam – 1968
Colonel Nam Truyen was the commander of the 9th Vietcong Division who planned
and conducted the attack on the U.S. airbase at Tan Son Nhut during the 1968 Tet
Offensive. He had previously entered the airbase during the 1967 Christmas cease-
fire using forged identity papers to conduct his own personal and highly thorough
reconnaissance.
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UO increase the likelihood that the indigenous population will be utilized as a
workforce to supplement Army sustainment activities. Hence, strict operations
security will be paramount. Commanders will need to carefully screen potential
workers to determine their relative trustworthiness. Human intelligence (HUMINT)
and counterintelligence (CI) assets will likely be required to assist in this effort.
However, higher-level commanders should seek to take on as much of this burden
as possible so that lower-level, tactical commanders can use their limited intelligence assets to accomplish other critical intelligence collection and analysis activities.
All commanders with base protection responsibilities should implement random,
changing force protection measures that focus on civilians—even those civilians who
have, over time, earned a perceived measure of trust. (Civilians can be co-opted and coerced by threat forces.) As such, all civilian activity that seems out of the ordinary should be promptly investigated regardless of whether a specific force protection
measure is in effect. Although leaders and Soldiers seek to establish mutual trust
and respect between themselves and the local populace, commanders should
normally err on the side of protecting their Soldiers.
SIMPLICITY
10-5. Simplicity is required in both planning and executing sustainment activities in this complex environment. Developing standard procedures among the Army, other services, and especially civilian governmental and nongovernmental agencies, liaison and open channels of communication, simple plans and orders, and extensive rehearsals contribute immeasurably to attaining this necessary characteristic.
INTEGRATION
10-6. The need for sustainment integration increases in UO due to its joint and multinational nature and greater numbers of other governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and agencies operating in or near urban areas. More NGOs will likely exist because urban areas often contain most of a region’s population. Most NGOs focus on people. Army forces and other military and nonmilitary groups must cooperate and coordinate their actions. Much of their coordination will revolve around sustainment activities. Cooperation and coordination will take advantage of each group’s sustainment capabilities, help to avoid duplicated effort (contributing to economy), and create sustainment synergy. It will also help to curtail competition for the same urban resources and assist in developing a unified list of priorities. Such coordination will help ensure that other operations by one force or agency will not disrupt or destroy portions of the urban infrastructure critical to another’s sustainment operations and the overall mission.
10-7. Success in UO requires combined arms and innovative task organizations. As such, UO will often result in the integration of heavy and light units necessitating a simultaneous integrated approach to sustainment. Gaining units must integrate forces into their maintenance systems and carefully consider potentially increased resource requirements. (For example, armor units consume greater amounts of Class III—bulk and petroleum—than a similar-sized light unit.) When integrating into a light unit, armored and mechanized units should bring as much of their critical parts and supplies as possible and immediately integrate into the gaining unit’s logistical reporting system to ensure adequate resupply.
FLEXIBILITY
10-8. Lastly, commanders must develop flexibility. Although they and their staffs must thoroughly understand the urban environment essential to planning sustainment operations, they cannot possibly anticipate every eventuality. Urban commanders must possess the ability to exploit fleeting opportunities.
Knowledge of the environment, particularly its infrastructure, can aid in developing innovative solutions to sustainment acquisition and distribution problems. Flexibility enables sustainment personnel to remain adaptive and responsive to the force commander’s needs. Key to maintaining flexibility is the constant assessment of the sustainment situation and the readiness to modify or change procedures to adapt to the current conditions confronting Army forces operating within the urban environment.
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10-9. Maneuver and sustainment commanders should consider and prioritize these characteristics as they visualize UO. Each characteristic does not affect every operation and urban area in the same way. The sustainment characteristics seldom exert equal influence, and their importance varies according to mission, enemy, terrain and weather, troops and support available, time available, civil considerations (METT-TC).
Like the principles of war, commanders must not ignore the potential impact of sustainment characteristics and how their influence changes as the operation evolves (see FM 4-0).
LOGISTICS PREPARATION OF THE THEATER
[Sustainment] planning accounts for increased consumption, increased threats to lines of communications, and anticipated support to noncombatants…Urban operations place a premium on closely coordinated, combined arms teams and carefully protected
[sustainment activities]. Urban operations are [logistic]-intensive, demanding large quantities of material and support for military forces and noncombatants displaced by operations.
FM 3-0
10-10. A thorough logistics preparation of the theater (LPT) is critical for an adaptable UO support plan.
Sustainment planners conduct the LPT to understand the situation from a sustainment perspective and determine how best to support the maneuver commander’s plan. However, decisions that impact the urban environment and the political situation require a combined operational and sustainment perspective.
Sustainment planners must understand the urban environment, the fundamentals of UO, the proposed course of action, and the urban environment’s effects on sustainment (as well as the other warfighting functions). Such knowledge allows the planners to develop a detailed estimate of support requirements. A thorough LPT helps commanders determine the most effective method of providing adequate, responsive support to meet support estimates while minimizing the sustainment footprint. Overall, it helps tie together UO requirements with acquisition and distribution. As with all operations, but particularly in a dynamic urban environment, this assessment process is continuous since requirements will change as the urban operation unfolds and matures.
SUPPORT TO INTELLIGENCE
10-11. The LPT resembles and runs parallel to the intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB).
Products generated under IPB may be useful in the sustainment analysis. Conversely, the LPT may contribute to the IPB by identifying critical resources and infrastructure and assessing their potential to influence (positively or negatively) the operational plan. This information may warrant a course of action that includes offensive or defensive operations to seize, secure, or destroy those critical resources. In UO
initially planned for other than sustainment reasons, the information may require altering the plan or imposing additional constraints to protect the identified resources. While these resources may or may not be critical to current operations, they are usually important to set or shape the conditions necessary for Army forces to consolidate and transition to subsequent missions or redeploy. This close relationship between IPB and LPT underscores the need to quickly and continuously involve sustainment personnel for their sustainment expertise and perspective in planning UO.
10-12. As sustainment units are among the most dispersed and omnipresent in any AO, sustainment Soldiers are potentially valuable intelligence collectors. Soldiers working in and around urban sustainment bases and executing frequent convoys through urban areas quickly become very familiar with the urban terrain and the routine associated with that terrain. As with all Soldiers, sustainment personnel must be incorporated into a comprehensive human intelligence collection system.
URBAN SUSTAINMENT INFORMATION
10-13. Figure 10-2 illustrates that a thorough analysis of the key components of urban areas in the commander’s AO provides the data for an accurate LPT and subsequent UO sustainment plan (see Chapter 2 and Appendix B). Analyzing the urban terrain and infrastructure helps to determine—
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z
Geographic influences on consumption factors and on the provision of support (weather, climate, and topography).
z
The availability of supplies, such as safe food, potable water, petroleum, electrical energy, barrier material, and compatible repair parts.
z
The location of facilities, such as warehouses, cold-storage sites, water treatment facilities, manufacturing plants, hospitals, hotels for billeting, and waste treatment facilities.
z
Transportation information, such as
seaport and harbor facilities,
airfields, rail and road networks,
traffic flow patterns, choke points,
and control problems.
z
Locations and accessibility of
maintenance facilities and
equipment, and machine works for
the possible fabrication of parts.
z
The available general skills among
the urban population, such as
linguists, drivers, mechanics, MHE
operators, longshoremen, and other
vital trade skills.
Figure 10-2. Urban environment and essential
elements of sustainment information
POTENTIAL RESTRICTIONS
10-14. Commanders must be aware of restrictions that apply to the use of some non-U.S. resources.
Security and requirements for U.S. national control dictate that only U.S. assets may perform certain services and functions. Therefore, some foreign urban-area capabilities, even if abundantly available, may not be used. These might include—
z
Command and control of medical supply, service, maintenance, replacements, and
communications.
z
Triage of casualties for evacuation.
z
Treatment of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and nuclear (CBRN) casualties, as well as the decontamination of U.S. equipment, personnel, and remains.
z
Identification and burial of deceased U.S. personnel.
z
Veterinary subsistence inspection.
z
Law and order operations over U.S. forces and U.S. military prisoner confinement operations, as well as accountability and security of enemy prisoners of war in U.S. custody.
URBAN SOCIETAL CONSIDERATIONS
10-15. As in all aspects of UO, the urban society is a critical element of the LPT analysis. Sustainment planners must assess whether they can acquire and use urban resources and infrastructure without overly disrupting the urban society and their environment. If the resources are only sufficient for the urban area’s inhabitants (and dependent populations in outlying areas), and the facilities cannot increase production to accommodate the needs of Army forces, then commanders may not be able to rely on those resources to support their operations. In fact, the opposite may be true. The effects of UO on the inhabitants, particularly during offensive and defensive operations, may place increased burdens on the Army’s resources. For example, commanders may require civilians to evacuate all or parts of an urban area to safeguard them from the effects of planned combat operations. This precautionary measure may require Army forces to support civilian evacuees with temporary housing, food, water, clothing, and medical and 26 October 2006
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sanitary facilities. It will also require carefully planned evacuation routes to ensure that the movement does not interfere with sustainment of the fight.
10-16. Sustainment planners must take into account the potential effects that the provision of supplies to the urban population may have on the operational environment (provided by Army forces or not). For example, an embargo on petroleum products was lifted after Army forces entered Haiti in the 1990s and a less repressive regime assumed governmental control. Few civilian vehicles had moved on the streets of the Port-au-Prince, the capital city, when fuel was scarce and the movement of mounted forces through the urban area was virtually unimpeded. This changed almost overnight once fuel supplies became available, initially making it very difficult for forces to move where required (unless transported by helicopter).
10-17. Sustainment planners must also consider the urban society’s ability to restore their own facilities and provide for themselves (if necessary with assistance from Army forces). Throughout this analysis, civil affairs (CA) units can advise and assist in identifying and assessing urban supply systems, services, personnel, resources, and facilities. Critically, commanders must understand that purchasing local goods and services may have the unintended negative consequence of financially sustaining the most disruptive and violent factions in the area. Army forces must seek to purchase urban products and services that will not contribute to prolonging the conflict or crisis. In many stability or civil support operations, they must also attempt to distribute the contracts for goods and services purchased locally as fairly as possible among urban factions and ethnic groups to maintain impartiality and legitimacy. As part of their coordination efforts, commanders should attempt to achieve the cooperation of relief agencies and other NGOs in this endeavor.
10-18. Finally, sustainment planners must also identify potential threats and increased protection requirements that the urban society (criminals, gangs, and riotous mobs) may present, particularly when support units and activities are positioned in urban areas. The disposition or allegiance of the urban population is also important to consider. The infrastructure of an urban area may exhibit great potential to support the sustainment efforts of Army forces, but if the population is hostile or unreliable, use of the facilities and resources may be unfeasible.
URBAN SUPPORT AREAS AND BASES
10-19. A major influence on the operation plan and its subsequent execution is often the proper identification and preparation of support areas and bases. The LPT helps commanders determine the need, advantages, and disadvantages of using urban areas in the AO as bases from which to provide support and conduct distribution operations. Ideally, these areas should support reception, staging, onward movement, and integration operations. They should also allow easy sea and air access, offer adequate protection and storage space, increase the throughput of supplies and equipment, and be accessible to multiple LOCs.
Consequently, commanders often establish support areas and bases near seaports and airports that are part of a larger urban area. However, threats recognize the Army’s need for ports and airfields and may devote substantial resources and combat power to defend them. Army commanders also face the challenge of integrating airfield and port defensive operations with air and naval component commanders to deny threats the ability to conduct stand-off attacks against aircraft and ships. Only an integrated, joint approach can ensure persistent air and sea support– essential not only to sustainment but to firepower as well—is not degraded by the threat. Therefore, planners may determine during the LPT that the risks of seizing or establishing urban lodgment areas may be too high (see Chapter 4). Instead, they may recommend building an airfield, conducting logistics over-the-shore operations, or constructing sustainment bases in more isolated—but more easily secured—locations.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
10-20. As shown above, the LPT process and analysis help to determine if urban areas in the AO—
z
Are suitable as areas and bases for support.
z
Can contribute sufficient quantities of and are a dependable source for resources for the overall operation.
z
May additionally drain the supported commander’s resources.
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10-21. The results of this process often serve as a basis for reviewing requirements for civilian contract support and host-nation support and for developing sustainment input into time-phased force and deployment data. This chapter focuses on the effects urban areas may have on accomplishing sustainment functions and related activities, particularly when sustainment units and activities are in urban areas.
ACHIEVING FORCE AGILITY
10-22. To maintain the responsiveness necessary to support full spectrum operations against a wide array of threats and operational environments, sustainment forces must remain agile, possessing the mental and physical agility to transition within or between types of operation with minimal augmentation, no break in contact, and no significant additional training. Responsiveness, flexibility, and economy are key characteristics that enable sustainment forces to support a dynamic combat force; they represent the capability of sustainment forces to provide the resources to initiate, sustain, and extend UO. Agile sustainment forces are characterized by modular force designs, the ability to tailor sustainment organizations for the supporting mission, and the ability to conduct split-based operations. These sustainment aspects are critical to achieving the agility necessary for Army forces to succeed in UO.
MODULAR DESIGN
10-23. Sustainment units are structured as modular organizations, or must possess the ability to modularize in order to conduct decentralized sustainment operations required in UO. At the company level, modularity enables each major company sub-element to assume a cross-section of the company's total capabilities, allowing commanders to employ individual modules to provide a support function, while the rest of the unit remains operational. Modularity enhances responsiveness while enabling support forces to project capabilities as far forward as possible into urban areas, yet with the minimum forward footprint necessary to sustain operations.
FORCE TAILORING
10-24. Sustainment force tailoring refers to the process of determining and deploying the right mix of capabilities to support the force or mission. Sustainment commanders may task organize specific capabilities into functional elements in order to maximize effectiveness and efficiency, and to minimize the sustainment footprint. During UO, the sustainment commander can tailor the support element required to accomplish a specific mission or task, thereby mitigating the risk
associated with deploying a larger, more robust capability
package forward into the urban area.
SPLIT-BASED OPERATIONS
10-25. Split-based operations refer to performing certain
sustainment administrative and management functions outside
the area of operations. During UO, Soldiers and civilians can
perform personnel, materiel, and distribution management
functions without deploying forward into the urban area if the
information systems are adequate. This is essential to
minimizing risk to support forces and the sustainment footpri