U.S. Army, U.S. Navy deploy KFOR equipment at Black Sea port
This time, the U.S. Army's Military Traffic Management Command will receive and discharge close to 1000 pieces from three ships at the Black Sea port, then, in concert with the U.S. Army's 21st Theater Support Command, facilitate its movement forward into Kosovo.
According Lieutenant Colonel Tom Boyle, the Task Force Commander: "Bourgas provides the Army with another choice in the Balkan Area of Operations, it provides us the flexibility and an opportunity to have multiple choices in how we deploy and redeploy forces to and from Kosovo."
The deployment is part of a scheduled rotation of personnel and equipment to the U.S. controlled sector of Kosovo. The U.S. Army frequently moves its equipment in and out of theater to ensure optimum mission readiness and to reduce the deployment burden on any singular unit or command. This represents the first time that the majority of the U.S contingent supporting KFOR has come from units stationed outside of Europe.
The equipment list is diverse, including containers, tracked personnel carriers, cargo trucks and a host of engineer equipment. In total there are nearly 250 containers loaded with general equipment and supplies to sustain operations of U.S. troops operating from base camps inside Kosovo and the Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia; some 700 wheeled and tracked vehicles supporting everything from troop and cargo movements to engineer operations; and what can only be described as a standard mix of Apache (AH-64), Black Hawk (UH-60A), Chinook (CH-47D), and Kiowa Warrior (OH-58D) helicopters for a Task Force of this size.
The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) contracted the three ships to move the equipment from the United States to Bulgaria. The first ship, the U.S. flagged Motor Vessel (MV) Merlin, arrived late on the evening of 30 April, and started unloading on 1 May. The MV Merlin carries over 700 of the nearly 1000 pieces of cargo. The remaining two ships, the MV Scanderborg that sails under Danish flag, and the MV Project Arabia under Dutch Antilles flag, will arrive shortly after the MV Merlin has been discharged.
Under the supervision of MTMC personnel assigned to the 839th Transportation Battalion from Livorno, Italy, the ships will be unloaded by a mix of contracted labor from Bulgaria and a pool of specialized U.S. military equipment operators from the deploying units. Concurrent with this operation will be the task of loading and lashing the equipment aboard trains that will ferry equipment from Bourgas to Camp Able Sentry, FYROM. At Camp Able Sentry, unit personnel flown in from the continental Unites States, will link back up with their equipment and move forward into Kosovo. The 953rd Transportation Company from Piraeus, Greece provides the bulk of MTMCs force here in Bourgas and serves as the port operator for this operation. The 14th Movements Control Team from Livorno, Italy, is responsible for coordinating and arranging all onward movement of supplies and equipment from Bourgas to Camp Able Sentry, FYROM. This includes coordinating the movement of trains in to Bourgas for loading and after their eventual onward movement to FYROM.
Among the equipment which will not deploy by rail or ground from Bourgas to their new temporary home in Kosovo are the helicopters. Military and contract personnel under the supervision of the 2/502 Aviation Battalion from Mannheim, Germany will move the helicopters from the ship to an adjacent warehouse where the helicopters will be reassembled and prepared for flight operations. Once assembled and tested, the helicopters will self-deploy into Kosovo.
Both MTMC and MSC work together with Task Force Bourgas. This is the official 'call sign' - for the 21st Theater Support Command organization charged with billeting, feeding, morale support and, most importantly, providing force protection to U.S. personnel and equipment deployed in support of operations in Bourgas. The Task Force is under the command and control of the 29th Area Support Group based out of Kaiserslautern, Germany.
"The results of the test operation conducted at the Bourgas port facility in February allowed this operation to unfold and open up a second port from which to conduct deployments into Kosovo. Assessing factors such as the level of support available from the Bulgarian military and port authorities, the quality of port infrastructure/facilities, and the inland transportation network (rail and highway) linking the port to the Balkans gave leadership the information they needed to commit to using this port again. In addition, leadership felt that Bourgas provided significant force protection advantages over other alternative ports in the region," says Boyle.
Bourgas provides the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. European Command with another viable option for moving large volumes of equipment and supplies into the Balkans," said Major Carl Axelson, commander of MTMC's 953rd Transportation Company. The 953rd Transportation Company also operates the port of Thessolaniki, Greece which was the seaport used during the initial deployments into Kosovo in 1999 and early 2000 and remains a hub for the flow of sustainment supplies and equipment into Kosovo and FYROM.
Bourgas is the second largest port in Bulgaria and in close proximity to Kosovo, FYROM, Greece and Turkey. The Bulgarian railways network and the Bulgarian national road system link Bourgas with major industrial inland points of the Balkans. Bulgaria is a country of the size of the state Ohio and has a population of almost 9 million people. The capital of Bulgaria is Sofia.
Military Traffic Management Command and Military Sealift Command are partners under the U.S. Transportation Command. Together, the two commands provide vital logistic ocean and land transportation respectively to the Department of Defense, and other government agencies.
(FROM MILITARY SEALIFT COMMAND - EUROPE)
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