The Army Reserve's Expeditionary Port Opening Capability

Large-scale combat operations (LSCO) differ from counterinsurgency (COIN) in several key ways, one of which is the contested nature of logistics from the homeland to the front line of combat. Commanders can no longer gradually build and deploy materiel with contracted solutions, which has become the norm under COIN. Moreover, a conflict with China would involve vast distances across the Pacific and a much more watery environment than the Army has faced since World War II. At that time, the Army fielded over 600 ships in the Pacific to build the iron mountain of logistics support, a task that the Navy and Marine Corps have not done since then.

Since World War II, the Army has moved 70% of its maritime assets into the Army Reserve (USAR). Subsequently, due to the high cost of maintaining oceangoing vessels, in 2018 the USAR divested its complete inventory of watercraft. The Army now has only 30% of its pre-2018 capacity. Though the vessels are gone, the USAR kept much of its expeditionary port-opening force structure, with 22 units with watercraft-related missions. However, due to the divestiture of vessels, the USAR can no longer train specialized individual and collective skills of Army mariner.

The USAR must be enabled to provide a global robust, resilient, and survivable port opening capability to the Army and the joint force to mitigate contested logistics. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s (USINDOPACOM’s) tyranny of ocean distance drives the demand for this capability, but — as demonstrated in Gaza this past year — the need for the capability extends across all combatant commands. Currently, units with port opening capabilities are scattered under multiple USAR commands that do not have the resources or bandwidth to provide meaningful training opportunities for this capability. Existing USAR collective training exercises are not well-aligned to support port opening-related unit missions or mission essential task lists. USAR participation in active-duty maritime logistics exercises, such as joint logistics over-the-shore (JLOTS), is fraught with issues of funding and unit availability. Finally, the idea that the USAR no longer supports port opening or watercraft-related operations has constricted mariner recruiting and schooling pipelines.

All this adds up to a burgeoning problem: a lack of ability to produce or maintain a USAR capability that is an essential need in current competition and will be even more critical in any future LSCO fight.

Is the USAR Really Out of the Army Watercraft Business?

In fiscal year (FY) 2018, the Secretary of the Army ordered the divestment of vessels from the USAR to help fund the Army’s modernization. The USAR has zero vessels on hand. The USAR may never own vessels again; however, 171 watercraft personnel authorizations remain in the USAR, spread across two theater support commands, eight expeditionary sustainment commands, five harbormaster detachments, and five theater movement control elements.

While this population of mariners struggles to maintain certifications and training opportunities, the requirement for port opening and watercraft capabilities may soon grow exponentially. Modeling by U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) and U.S. Army Pacific Command (USARPAC) suggests that the number of vessels and port opening capabilities must increase by a factor of 10 to support the current USINDOPACOM logistics footprint in a LSCO scenario, and by a factor of 100 or more if U.S. forces must retake the first island chain in a conflict with China.

USINDOPACOM, U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), USARPAC, 8th Theater Sustainment Command (TSC), 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary) (TB[X]), 10th Regional Support Group, and the Maritime and Intermodal Training Department (MITD) schoolhouse, among other active-duty entities, desire to partner with the USAR. They want to fill their own critical watercraft shortages for missions and training opportunities through careful use of USAR annual training (AT) and active-duty personnel for operational support orders. When this need for USAR mariner support can fill a gap for an active component watercraft mission, these units indicate that the process for obtaining such support is often too burdensome, slow, and unclear, while the ability of the USAR to support their demands has declined since divestiture.

Operation Relevant Mariner

3rd TB(X) is the center of gravity for the USAR mariner population and has therefore worked to formulate three lines of effort to address the above-mentioned challenges:

• Develop a bridging strategy to help USAR mariners maintain certifications and licensing.
• Align and manage multicomponent individual and collective training opportunities.
• Make senior leaders aware of these challenges and build a consensus on how to address them.

1: Individual Training to Maintain Licensing and Certification

USAR’s lack of vessels poses critical challenges in maintaining certification and licensing for assigned mariners, akin to running a vehicle licensing program without vehicles. Since divestiture, almost half the remaining mariners in the USAR population have not been able to maintain their licenses or certifications. The Maritime Qualifications Division (MQD) of MITD currently tracks 146 USAR mariners with (or who previously held) certification. Of these, 76 licenses expired at the end of FY 2024. The remaining 70 will, without sailing opportunities to attain licensing recency, vanish at a rate of 10 to 20 Soldiers per FY through 2028.

Army Regulation 56-9, Army Intratheater Watercraft Systems, outlines maritime qualification as a dual process consisting of a Marine Technical Examination (MTE) for certification and a vessel-specific duty performance test (DPT) for licensing. The MQD at the schoolhouse qualifies Soldiers in military occupational specialties (MOSs) 88L Watercraft Engineer and 88K Watercraft Operator and Warrant Officers in MOSs 880A Marine Deck Officer and 881A Marine Engineer Officer to operate and maintain Army watercraft.

Unit and activity commanders who own vessels establish training programs that support vessel-specific DPT licensing for maritime personnel. Certification is normally achieved by passing the MTE for each skill level. A maritime certificate remains valid for five years from the date of issue, and a 180-day grace period beyond expiration may be granted in some cases. Soldiers may apply for renewal by taking an open-book examination, unless they no longer have recency, defined as 90 or more days assigned to a vessel in the preceding five years. Soldiers who allow their certification to expire beyond the 180-day grace period must submit their application for recertification, which includes taking a complete, closed-book MTE for the level of expired certification. Licensing then follows by completing a vessel-specific DPT. These DPTs verify that an individual has the knowledge and ability to safely perform vessel-specific operational tasks.

A foundational program focused on certification and licensing must be established to address the number of licenses and certifications that have expired or that will soon expire for USAR mariners. Soon-to-expire certifications must be the priority, so the 10 mariners with licenses set to expire in FY 2025 should be given immediate opportunities to renew their licenses. This would prevent these mariners from having to take the more difficult closed-book MTE.

Tackling the individual training problems must be the first focus in restoring the USAR mariner program, since individual skills are required to build toward collective training and to ensure that watercraft and port opening experts in staff positions have more than just book and classroom experience.

2: Align and Manage Multi-Component Training Opportunities

Ideally, U.S. Army Reserve Command (USARC) must publish an operation order tasking all USAR units with assigned watercraft personnel to conduct a named port opening culminating training event (CTE), either as part of existing CTEs as part of USAR AT or for limited-time missions supporting active-duty organizations.

This tasking could be designed to work seamlessly within the Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model (ReARMM), since port opening units do not expect new equipment during mod years and can therefore cycle personnel through individual certification and licensing on watercraft in that phase, while year one provides an appropriate window for multi-component sailing opportunities in partnership with active-duty units that still possess watercraft. For the remainder of the ReARMM cycle, these trained mariners could conduct collective training events with their USAR unit and provide up-to-date and trained expertise, ensuring that the training pipeline for the specialized mariner skill set does not break unit collective readiness.

USARC could also establish a mariner management coordination cell staffed with five Active Guard Reserve non-billpayer temporary manpower allocations. 3rd TB(X) has undertaken a prototype proof-of-principle for just such a cell, using end-of-year funds and capitalizing on training opportunities in open space during MITD’s program of instruction. A fully functioning mariner management coordination cell would coordinate missions and training opportunities for the entire USAR mariner population, reaching across formations to create awareness and facilitate participation in training and sailing opportunities.

3: Build Senior Leader Awareness and Consensus

Senior leader awareness of watercraft and port opening capabilities and challenges remains critical to reinvigorating this high-demand, low-density capability. Over the past few years, many leaders have come to believe that the USAR has abandoned the watercraft business since divestiture. Now that LSCO highlights the need for maximizing maritime logistics, senior leaders have begun to refocus on sustaining and possibly building up the remaining vestiges of this capability.

Translating awareness into action requires clear communication of demand along with provision of resources from the Army to the USAR. Requests for USAR mariner augmentation to missions and exercises and USAR support to multi-component crewing of vessels are currently being elevated from USARPAC through USINDOPACOM to the Army. Though USINDOPACOM has the most crucial demand, other combatant commands also require this capability. This was demonstrated by the active component’s 7th TB(X), who provided JLOTS support to the Gaza humanitarian mission. This proves the demand for maritime logistics will not go away and must soon be codified and communicated by the Army.

In the meantime, one way to solidify and synchronize awareness and better facilitate the USAR’s response to this forthcoming demand would be to reestablish a Reserve port opening training advisory board, an executive-level forum composed of representatives from customer commands and port opening and watercraft units, both USAR and active duty. 3rd TB(X) has scheduled just such an event, now set to occur at Fort Belvoir at the end of May 2025. Representatives plan to attend from USTRANSCOM, USINDOPACOM, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, USARPAC, 8th TSC, USARC, 377th TSC, 316th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), Deployment Support Command, 7th TB(X), U.S. Army Forces Command, CASCOM, 9th Mission Support Command, MITD Transportation School, and the USAR’s new 319th TB(X).

The board will provide an opportunity for leaders in the maritime community to develop and review viable training strategies for port opening and watercraft units through the five-year training cycle, and to address issues and problems that prevent optimization of individual and collective training. It will also open lines of dialogue to coordinate and smooth the process for USAR participation in active-duty training opportunities and real-world missions.

Conclusion

In today’s rapidly evolving threat environment, we must organize and prioritize our expeditionary port opening capabilities in the USAR. Although the 7th TB(X) has just completed its high-profile contingency mission in Gaza, other contingencies are likely to arise that require similar or even more robust resources. If LSCO begin in the Pacific, who is on the bench? Has this niche capability with strategic implications been adequately prioritized in training and are the units responsible ready to execute their missions? The sooner we, as an Army enterprise, begin to operate across the Active Component/Reserve Component and joint seams, the better we will be prepared to ensure throughput risk is mitigated when strategic failure is not an option.

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COL Benjamin “Will” Buchholz is the commander of the 3rd Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary). He holds Middle East and Africa foreign area officer areas of concentration, having served as the senior defense official/defense attaché to Uzbekistan and Libya, the Army Attaché in Yemen, and U.S. European Command J-2’s senior liaison to Ukraine. He was a distinguished honor grad of the U.S. Army War College and holds a master’s degree in Near East studies from Princeton University. He will serve as Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa’s J-4 upon completion of brigade command.

LTC Matthew Strickland currently serves as the deputy commanding officer for the 3rd Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary). He is a graduate of the Joint and Combined Warfighting School (Hybrid) and the Army Command and General Staff Officer Course and holds a Master of Arts degree in educational leadership from Saint Louis University.

CSM Daniel D. Fairfield served as the command sergeant major of the 3rd Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary) from 2022 to 2024. He has coordinated and supervised joint port operations during combat training exercises for Reserve component service members and completed joint logistics over-the-shore training. He is a graduate of the Sergeants Major Course and holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Nebraska.

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This article was published in the summer 2025 issue of Army Sustainment.

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