THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 13, 1994 TAG: 9409130358
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 121 lines
About 1,800 members of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division will be in Norfolk by midmorning, ready to board the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower for duty in a possible invasion of Haiti.
As the first of the troops from Fort Drum, N.Y., began arriving late Monday, sources said a second Norfolk-based carrier is being added to the extraordinary convoy. The America is scheduled to carry more than 2,000 soldiers, including Army Rangers - who, as special operations forces, usually enter a hostile zone to capture vital targets ahead of the main invasion force.
The Navy would not confirm the America's role in the mission.
The urgency of the action was underscored Monday by a visit to Norfolk from Defense Secretary William J. Perry, who slipped in for a quick briefing on the Haitian crisis by Adm. Paul David Miller. Miller, commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, is the senior military officer planning for contingencies in the Caribbean.
A group of Cobra, Black Hawk and Kiowa helicopters that support the 10th Mountain Division were flown into Norfolk during the day Monday.
The 10th Mountain, with a total of 8,500 troops, is one of two light infantry divisions in the Army; the divisions are distinguished from mechanized infantry by the absence of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. The division's only vehicles are 5-ton trucks and Humvees, the lightly armed trucks that replaced jeeps in the 1980s as the Army's basic utility vehicle.
Al Konecny, a spokesman for the division, said Humvees, trucks and other equipment for the division were being shipped to Bayonne, N.J., to be loaded on other ships for transport to the Caribbean.
Light infantry troops are trained to strike quickly and move on to the next target, attributes that could be particularly useful in invading lightly armed Haiti and rousting its military dictatorship.
``We operate on our feet,'' Konecny said.
But with speed and maneuverability comes ``limited lethality,'' said John Luddy, a defense policy analyst for the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Against a well-trained and equipped foe, light infantry forces are vulnerable, he said.
The concept of light infantry grew out of the Reagan administration's desire for a counter-insurgency force in the mid-1980s, Luddy said.
The 10th Mountain Division's deployment aboard the Eisenhower could provide the first in-combat test of the ``adaptive force packaging'' championed by Miller. Small groups of Army troops have been involved in training exercises aboard several Navy carriers in recent years, using the big ships as platforms from which to ``invade'' fictitious enemies.
Advocates say the packages give the military a much-needed flexibility, particularly with defense budgets declining. But critics are skeptical about their effectiveness and about what some see as Army encroachment on amphibious operations that traditionally have been carried out by the Marine Corps.
``When you put ground troops on an aircraft carrier, you minimize the capabilities of both,'' Luddy said. To house the Army forces, a carrier must send at least part of its air wing to shore, reducing its ability to defend itself and strike at foes from the air.
In addition, the Army's aircraft do not have collapsible rotors as Marine and Navy copters do, meaning fewer can be stored aboard.
And because the helicopters that carry Army forces are limited in range, the carrier must move closer to hostile shores than it normally would, adding to its exposure, Luddy said. Such concerns don't apply in situations like the one in Haiti, he acknowledged, because the enemy has no air force and no real navy.
Still, a carrier ``is not an optimum platform for this kind of thing,'' Luddy said.
Luddy suggested that the decision to use carriers as Army platforms in an invasion could be another reflection of how thinly stretched the Pentagon finds itself as it deals with wars in Bosnia and Rwanda and continuing tensions in the Persian Gulf and the Korean peninsula.
Military officials will dispute that, he predicted. ``They always have another answer.''
Though it has existed as a light infantry force only since 1985, the 10th Mountain Division can trace its history to World War II battles on the snow-covered slopes of northern Italy.
Konecny said the division was formed in 1943 and trained for mountain operations, including using skis to march across snowy areas. It was deactivated after the war, reactivated in the 1950s for several years and then deactivated again in 1958. MEMO: Staff writer Jack Dorsey contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Army Cpl. Dean Lockhart spends time with his wife, Lisa, before
leaving Fort Drum, N.Y., Friday en route to Haiti.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Haitian woman trains in front of the Presidential Palace in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Thousands of paramilitary recruits are
preparing to repel a possible U.S.-led invasion, which 17 nations
have now pledged to support with troops or police.
NAVY SHIPS OFF HAITI
The Navy has more than 15 ships in the Caribbean. These ships are
serving off Haiti.
Savannah
oiler, Norfolk
Monsoon
coastal patrol craft, San Diego
Hurricane
coastal patrol craft, San Diego
Comte de Grasse
destroyer, Norfolk
Aubrey Fitch
guided-missile frigate, Florida
Clifton Sprague
guided-missile frigate, New York
Oliver Hazard Perry
guided-missile frigate, New York
Also in the region are the Norfolk-based amphibious assault ship
Wasp and amphibious transport dock Nashville.
KEYWORDS: HAITI U.S. NAVY U.S.S. EISENHOWER RANGERS U.S. ARMY by CNB