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Indian Island Improves Munitions Moving Process

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS110617-04
6/17/2011

By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Ryan Riley, Navy Public Affairs Support Element West NW Det.

PORT HADLOCK, Wash. (NNS) -- Naval Magazine Indian Island is playing a key role in the two-week, joint-military exercise, TURBO CADS 2011, in conjunction with the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) through June 20.

TURBO CADS 2011, which began June 6, covers the United States to East Asia, and is testing the U.S. military's Containerized Ammunition Distribution System (CADS). CADS is using military and commercial transportation to move conventional munitions from depots from around the U.S., to forward-deployed military units in Guam, Korea, Japan and Okinawa by using rail, truck and sealift.

"This exercise is a Department of Defense exercise which brings our services together to push ammunition forward to the tip of the spear; to the war fighter." said Cmdr. Gary Martin, Naval Magazine Indian Island commanding officer.

According to Wayne Nagy, Indian Island director, DoD switched from using boxcars and pallets to 20-foot containers, like the marine industry, after the 1990 Iraqi army invasion of Kuwait, when ammunition did not arrive until about 40 days after the initial surge to the Gulf.

"That was the revelation," said Nagy. "We've got to go with industry."

Nagy said the first week was mostly spent moving containers to Indian Island. Most of them are transported by train to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Wash., where Army and Navy semi trucks shuttle them to Indian Island.

By week's end, nearly 500 containers with a variety of munitions will be loaded aboard Military Command ship MV American Tern (T-AK-4729), bound for Guam, Japan, Okinawa and South Korea, Nagy added.

TURBO CADS is a Joint Chiefs of Staff-funded, USTRANSCOM sponsored exercise.

Indian Island's primary mission is to support the Navy's Northwest fleet. When a ship needs major maintenance, its munitions are unloaded and stored at the base and picked up afterward. But if a major conflict breaks out, the base would be loading containers.

Nagy said loading munitions the old way would take 200 people. Now just 30 people are needed.