Posted on 03/30/2003 12:49:03 PM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
ABOARD THE JOINT VENTURE, near Umm Qasr, Iraq Navy commandos have been inching their way into the Iraqi hinterland with the help of an odd-looking ship with a jaw-like bow that, three years ago, was ferrying commuters and their cars around New Zealand.
The HSV-X1 Joint Venture, an aluminum-hulled catamaran ferry that has been modified to carry gunboats, amphibious landing craft, helicopters and marine platoons, has become the aquatic forward operating base for navy special operations forces that are helping to clear southern Iraqi waterways of enemy ships and mines. "We are the mother ship," said Captain Phil Beierl, the ship's commander. The Australian-built catamaran - a light, high-speed ship with twin hulls - has been anchored in Kuwaiti waters within sight of Iraq's lone deep-sea port, Umm Qasr.
Like a floating truck stop, the Joint Venture has provided supplies, shelter and spare parts for more than a dozen Naval Special Warfare boats that have been darting in and out of the riverway that links Umm Qasr to the Tigris River on the north and the Gulf to the south.
For several days, the small, speedy special operations boats have been searching Iraqi vessels for mines, snipers and fleeing soldiers. They have combed through the river's numerous derelict freighters, ensuring they are not booby trapped. And they have been carrying Seal teams into Iraqi territory on reconnaissance missions.
The work of those small boat units and commandos was critical to securing the port so that a British ship could begin bringing food, water and medicine into Umm Qasr's container port. From there, the British plan to move aid northward by land, including to Iraq's second-largest city of Basra, which is under siege.
Without the Joint Venture, the commando boats would have had to travel scores of miles to reach bases in Kuwait for fuel and supplies, drastically reducing their time on mission - and adding as many as four days to the operation, Naval Special Warfare planners said.
"It would have been a mess," said Captain Snyder, who is in charge of logistics for the Naval Special Warfare Task Group based in Kuwait. Like most of the Naval Special Warfare officers interviewed, he requested that his first name not be used.
With the Joint Venture nearby, the Seal and boat teams were just minutes from fuel, hot meals, ammunition, showers, warm bunks, Internet access and a video-stocked television room. And when hurricane-force winds damaged an MK-V gunboat on the riverway early Wednesday, the ship was able to limp back to the Joint Venture for repairs. Naval Special Warfare planners hope the Joint Venture will be the model for a new kind of ship for a new kind of unconventional warfare. Future battles will increasingly involve smaller, swifter, stealthier forces that will need to stage heavy equipment closer to a battle than in the past, they say. The Joint Venture, or ships like it, will enable the Seals - an acronym for the navy's Sea, Air, Land commando units - to mobilize larger, more complex missions than the daring but smaller-scale insertions of the past. The Umm Qasr operation was a model for that kind of mission, the planners contend. "What we did near Umm Qasr was historic," said Lieutenant Commander Tom Rancich, who is in charge of future operations for the Naval Special Warfare Task Group. "We've never had 14 small boats operating independently of the big navy for seven days, unresupplied." The Joint Venture and the smaller gunboats that have been using it as a mother ship also exemplify a concept sometimes dubbed "street fighter ships."
Navy planners had already been searching for a fast, maneuverable cargo vessel when they first observed Australian forces using a commercial catamaran to ferry peacekeeping troops to the Indonesian island of East Timor in 1999. Impressed, the Pentagon rented two of the $48-million catamarans in July 2001 for about $5 million a year each from Bollinger/Incat USA, a company based in Australia. Initially, the ships were viewed as experimental. But they were pressed into war duty in January, and 40-person crews were hastily assembled for deployment just weeks later.
With its four jet-propulsion engines, the Joint Venture can travel 3,000 nautical miles at 35 knots on a tank of gas. It carries enough extra fuel to keep several smaller boats operating for days, has room on its car deck for as many as six small boats and can carry more than 200 heavily armed passengers in relative comfort. It also has a landing pad capable of accommodating one SH-60 Seahawk helicopter. Because it is a catamaran that rides high in the water, it can also navigate relatively shallow waters. The trip close to the Kuwaiti coast required the 96-meter (315-foot) ship to weave through narrow waters, creep over a sand bar at high tide and slip under a bridge at low tide.
Experimental high-speed catamaran tapped for Mideast deployment (01/19/2003)
Army Pleased With Performance Of Joint Venture High-Speed Catamaran (08/21/2002)
High-Speed Catamaran Transports Marines, Cargo To Thailand In Record Time (05/02/2002)
Fast Catamaran Deploying To Persian Gulf For War-Related Ops (04/01/2002)
Rota Marines Try Out Experimental High-Speed Catamaran Ferry (03/21/2002)
USMC charters high-speed catamaran (07/09/2001)
Willie, Iraq Navy commandos?
I'm afraid that's my boo-boo doing the cut & paste, x.
The original source makes the distinction between the dateline and first sentence of the article by changing font color. I should've either done the same or inserted a comma or a dash. Sorry for the confusion.
Department: General Catamaran News Lease arrangement lets the U.S. military test an Australian-built, high speed catamaran. |
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