Heavy Cargo Sailing to Gulf

Two massive, fast-moving Navy cargo ships carrying combat helicopters and supplies critical for any military move against Iraq left U.S. shores this week en route to a Southwest Asian port, defense officials said.

The Yano sailed from Charleston, S.C., with little fanfare at noon Tuesday, carrying a Black Hawk helicopter and three OH-58 combat helicopters in its holds.

A day earlier, the Pililaau left Beaumont, Texas, loaded with combat support equipment, including trucks and Humvees, that filled almost 200,000 square feet of cargo space.

The ships are the latest in the Pentagon’s “surge fleet” -- designed to deliver equipment rapidly in a crisis -- to leave U.S. shores loaded with gear to support the buildup of U.S. air, land and sea forces in the Persian Gulf region. Their deployment significantly boosts the amount of military hardware the Pentagon is positioning within striking distance of Iraq.

“It’s part of the continuing, steady, slow movement of equipment that we’ve been engaging in to build up the pressure on Saddam Hussein,” said Marge Holtz, a spokeswoman for the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, which moved the bulk of the materiel used during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

On Monday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters that to supplement the U.S. forces long positioned in the Gulf region, the military has, in recent months, been engaging in a “deliberate force flow” to bases and ports near Iraq.

In addition to the Yano and the Pililaau, three other military cargo ships berthed in the U.S. have been activated since late October: the Bob Hope, the Fisher and the Bellatrix. Two ships based in the Indian Ocean, the Watkins and the Watson, also have embarked for the Gulf region in recent months. They are part of a fleet of ships positioned near the British-controlled island of Diego Garcia and loaded with military equipment and supplies to support Army fighting units.

A U.S. official said Tuesday that there are plans to activate a hospital ship for duty in the Gulf, but Holtz said the Sealift Command had not been ordered to prepare either of the two hospital ships in its inventory: the Comfort, in Baltimore, or the Mercy, in San Diego.

Either of those ships leaving U.S. shores would be a strong indication of imminent military action. It would take either ship four weeks to get to the Persian Gulf.

The Yano, normally berthed in Baltimore, and the Pililaau, from New Orleans, are part of a fleet of 19 ships acquired and refitted by the military during the last decade at a cost of $6 billion to improve the way the Pentagon equips U.S. troops abroad.

The ships have huge ramps to allow massive artillery pieces, Humvees and trucks to roll on and off. The design allows them to be unloaded much more rapidly than the cargo ships that were used to equip troops during the Gulf War. Those ships required giant cranes to painstakingly lift tanks and other heavy gear out of their holds. With the new ships, the ramps come down and the vehicles are driven ashore.

More than 900 feet long and 100 feet wide, each of the ships has a hold capacity of 380,000 square feet -- equivalent to more than six football fields. The Yano is carrying 180,000 square feet of materiel on this voyage and the Pililaau slightly more. The ships can move at speeds up to 28 mph. Though the fastest route to their destinations would take the ships through the Suez Canal, a military official said the Yano and the Pililaau are under orders to take a slower route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. The voyage to the Gulf region is expected to take 21 to 25 days.