SGT Martin and his team had just finished installing the Chinook’s blades aboard the SS Atlantic Conveyor at sea about 90 miles north of East Falkland. This grueling task was made all the harder because they were aboard a converted merchant vessel operating on a ship rocking on the waves that was converted only weeks earlier from a commercial container vessel. Because of the limited space, only one aircraft could be launched at any given time, a significant difference from the ample hanger space back in England. Despite this, 19 helicopters and Harrier Jets had already been completed and were on their way to support operations. The soldiers and the sailors of the task force worked long hours under stress, but national pride was on the line. SGT Martin had his mission: the final 10 helicopters needed to depart the ship to support the landings.
As the team prepared to work on the next platform, the nearby HMS Hermes’ alarm started blaring and chaff shot in all directions. A blast rocked the Atlantic Conveyor, throwing the maintenance crew to the deck. Over the next hours, SGT Martin’s team was rescued from the burning wreck. Their fleet of helicopters were helpless as the ship slowly listed on its way to its inevitable end: the bottom of the Atlantic.
Operation Corporate, the name for the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) mission to retake the Falkland Islands from the Argentinians, was not the conflict the UK was expecting to fight. Military restructuring and drawdowns resulting from an economic downturn and realignment of NATO missions caught UK logisticians between a rock and a hard place. How do you assemble, deploy, and support a task force over a line of communication a third of the circumference of the Earth away, all without local allied or partner support?
The Royal Navy did not have enough ships to conduct such a task. Their active and auxiliary fleets were designed for operations in European waters with a small-scale contingency force used mostly for partnered exercises. Moving a brigade’s worth of soldiers was not possible, much less their assigned equipment and basic load. Air transport was not an option; Geopolitics made landing in an adjacent country to assemble and invade impossible. Even airborne insertion was not available, with the only feasible airfield base too distant. Bottom line: the Royal Navy could not get the British Army and the Royal Marines to the fight, let alone support them when they got there.
The logisticians of the UK government had open eyes about this problem. Before the first round had been fired by the Argentinian army, commercial shipping to support the task force was already being booked. By the conflict’s end, over 50 ships had been taken up from trade, either through contracting or involuntary requisition. These ships performed many duties in the conflict, such as hauling fuel, transporting soldiers, repairing piers, and sweeping for mines. It is not an overstatement to say that, without these ships, the mission would have been impossible. Despite their achievements, use of commercial shipping comes with significant hurdles to operations.
First, commercial shipping is not designed for expeditionary military operations. Most ships of this sort are used exclusively in well-established routes with known support systems and built-up infrastructure. For example, many commercial carriers can only unload at deep water ports and at piers capable of supporting them. Unloading in the open water between platforms presents great risk, while unloading in shallow waters directly to shore is impossible. There were not enough naval carriers available to ferry all the aviation assets needed to the area, so ships like the Atlantic Conveyor were significantly altered to stow then launch these craft.
Transfer of supplies and wheeled vehicles occurred via ship-to-ship crane operations, helicopter sling or cargo load, or via Mexeflote rafts. Because the commercial ships were not designed to operate using these methods, transfer of materials was usually slow and risky, making the ship immobile and targetable for long periods of time. Though the Atlantic Conveyor was the only UK commercial ship sunk, it was only by combination of chance and clever air defense scheming that others were not hit during the landings.
Second, not just any ship could be requisitioned and used. Sovereign nations pass laws that govern the conduct of the ships registered to their country. For example, if the UK government wanted to contract a Canadian-flagged ship, the Canadian government could refuse the action, either forcing the company to re-register the ship to another country or deny the contract. The same is true for the sailors themselves; countries can pass laws restricting their citizens from crewing ships from other nations. The only notable foreign sailors on UK ships were citizens of Hong Kong, which was then under British control. Luckily, the UK had a significant shipping industry at the time of the conflict and were able to requisition and contract a large fleet and use the waning might of their maritime industry to make alterations quickly.
Third, the variety of ships taken up and the lack of port facilities meant that load planning was a bespoke task. This was exacerbated by the haphazard loadout and supply dumping at each port. Lack of supply was not an issue for logisticians; the entire country mobilized industry and emptied warehouses to ensure any possible provision needed by the task force was sent to the ports of embarkation. However, this rush to provision resulted in disorganized supply dumps at each port. As ships were requisitioned, they were loaded in ways that often made little sense with hindsight. Stores were loaded manually, with some ship holds too small to allow the use of material-handling equipment. Even when ships could handle International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 20- or 40-foot containers, the lack of port facilities in forward areas made the use of those containers impossible. Ships typically could transfer and move only pallet-sized objects or boxes, about the same as the ubiquitous tri-wall container used today in many warehouses.
This resulted in loads being handled two or three times prior to final configuration, expending significant time and man hours. Some materials became lost or unreachable, making them unavailable for distribution. Significant material was eventually just sent back to the UK despite being needed by ground forces.
These experiences can provide lessons for operations in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) area of responsibility (AOR). There are obvious strategic implications to contracting or requisitioning shipping. Does sufficient American-flagged shipping exist with American sailors to forestall any lack of international support? Will requisition of shipping impact domestic economic support, especially to Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska? Will our domestic ports have enough capacity and a workforce ready to support? Will shipbuilders be able to cope with alterations, new construction, and repairs?
There are also tactical and operational considerations and lessons that can be learned and translated into doctrine and techniques in the near term to reduce friction.
First, Army logisticians and aviators can conduct training and exercises with civilian shipping to gain experience and lessons learned for contemporary operations. Pacific Pathways, a contemporary training exercise in USINDOPACOM, regularly exercises the Army’s capability to deploy via commercial means to the area of interest. However, the shipping portion of these exercises is often done via carriers that conduct port-only operations, similar to the operational environment we experienced in Operation Iraqi Freedom offloading in Kuwait.
Use of port facilities likely will not be possible in an island-hopping campaign. Ports are prime targets and are sure to be damaged or destroyed, especially if they are near adversary nations, and some islands simply do not have facilities that can handle standard commercial shipping. The Falklands are a prime example of this. Their jetty was, even in peacetime, unable to offload significant cargo. Even where Army and Navy ships are handling ship-to-shore operations, commercial shipping will be required to resupply these forward elements. During Operation Corporate, the majority of ships taken up from trade were replenishing Royal Navy logistics ships in open water or ferrying equipment to the combat area for distribution via crane, air, or Mexeflote raft. Practicing both ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore operations without port infrastructure will be vital for open water supply chain maintenance.
This exercise must be centered around open ocean transfer of tactical units, preferably involving an infantry assault force and aviation elements. As a part of a future Pacific Pathways, U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) could requisition a commercial ship with the intent to conduct alterations to make it suitable for operational deployment. This will undoubtedly be a difficult and slow task, but one that will generate incredible lessons learned and institutional knowledge. It will also demonstrate capability, resilience, and improvisation.
Second, port operations and supply organization for load planning must be trained and practiced as a primary outcome by combat units. Unit logistics training often occurs as a consequence of supporting combat arms training, such as gunnery or force-on-force maneuvers at a training center. Though this training is sufficient to ensure direct support to combat arms operations in a maneuver setting, it does not train all the competencies that we require of Soldiers in a port setting. If a unit organizes stores inappropriately, such as mixing hazardous material (HAZMAT) that is not compatible or exceeding net explosive weights, this can result in severe port delays or the destruction of ship and stores and death of personnel. This was a factor for the British Army. As they were organizing and loading ships, several loads were refused by requisitioned ships due to HAZMAT incompatibility, causing both frustration of cargo and critical material to be left behind.
Additionally, training must enable Soldiers to create loads that can be handled outside the ISO container context. Certain ship cargo holds do not allow for the use of containerization, nor would offloading without port facilities allow it. When deploying, the British Army used ships such as the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship, necessitating the hand storage of materials in every type of room that a cruise ship offers. Training that creates lessons learned and tactics, techniques, and procedures to account for non-standard stowage in these cases will reduce the risk of handling supplies multiple times or losing control of them due to supply loss due to inaccessible storage.
Though this kind of training can be combined with Pacific Pathways, it can also be a separate event, accomplished at a much lower cost with options to do it at local installations. Focused training such as this will not only build unit and individual competencies but create institutional memory and best practices for future operations. Modern ports no longer employ longshoremen in the numbers they did during the 1970s and 1980s, nor do they specialize in manual loading of ships as they did before the ISO container era. There is no reason to believe that such labor will be available to our forces in the future, so the use of unit manpower to conduct this task is the likely outcome. Partnering with industry to inspect loads and plans to ensure compliance with safety requirements and best practices would add realism to this line of effort.
Third, USTRANSCOM, the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, and Military Sealift Command must conduct engineering surveys of commercial shipping in anticipation of future requisition and alteration requirements. These organizations track all American-flagged shipping, in coordination with the Department of Transportation. As of January 2023, 153 militarily useful ships existed in the U.S. fleet, 62 of which were container ships. Many of these ships are enrolled in the Maritime Security Program, where the Federal Government provides a stipend to ship owners to remain flagged to the U.S. and under a state of acceptable readiness for requisition in times of national emergency.
No two of these ships are exactly alike, but many have significant similarities. The survey of one ship, such as would be done for the Pacific Pathways exercise, would provide key insights into other ships as well. These surveys need not significantly interrupt commercial operations. Most of the work could be done with ship blueprints or by doing what the British military did: embedding engineers while underway to conduct surveys.
These surveys would inform material preparation for such alterations as well. Long-lead-time items, such as power transformers, radio support equipment, or crane motors, could be either pre-purchased and warehoused or secured through a contingency contract with a vendor. Contracts could be laid with shipbuilding companies to conduct contingency alterations and repairs, providing contractors with predictability.
In total, around 10,000 British soldiers and marines were put ashore for ground combat action in the Falklands. To support their efforts, an additional 18,000 military and civilian personnel were mobilized, sailing over 110 total ships, and flying over 80 aircraft. The distance of the theater of operations paired with the complex operational and tactical problem magnified an already complex distribution problem. For every logistics landing ship employed, at least one dry stores ship needed to be contracted. For every warship, at least one tanker needed to be requisitioned. For every brigade transported, at least one passenger liner needed to be taken up.
Any potential combat in the USINDOPACOM AOR will likely require mass force projection, perhaps on an order of magnitude larger than the UK experienced with the Falklands. While USTRANSCOM and the Army cannot affect the size of the shipping fleet available in the short term, adopting lessons from the Falklands can provide capability and readiness gains to operate with the fleet we have.
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LTC Nathaniel A. Rice is the battalion commander of the Division Special Troops Battalion, Division Sustainment Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. He has earned a Master of Arts degree in education from the University of Louisville.
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This article was published in the winter 2026 issue of Army Sustainment.
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