• U.S.

DEFENSE: Keeping the Military in Business

5 minute read
TIME

Jet trainers are flying 18% fewer hours, and warships are spending 20% fewer days at sea. One of every ten vehicles in the Air Force fleet of cars and trucks in Europe has been put on blocks. Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger has taken to prowling his Pentagon chilly corridors (thermostat setting: 65°-68°) in a woolen pullover.

These examples point up one of the most important, though least noticed, aspects of the energy crisis. The U.S. military machine runs on oil—high-energy JP4 for jet fighters, hydrocarbon-based propellants for rockets, bunker oil for aircraft carriers, lubricant for M-16 rifles—and oil is suddenly almost as hard to come by for the military as it is for civilians. The Pentagon is having to drain scarce supplies away from civilian use, worsening the shortages of heating oil and gasoline. Even so, military men are worried about maintaining combat readiness.

Supply Squeeze. Even before the Arab embargo, the armed forces were in a supply squeeze. For several months they had experienced trouble persuading U.S. oil companies to bid on military contracts. As early as last July, word went out to units around the world to conserve supplies. But U.S. wells supply only about half of the 670,000 bbl. of POL (petroleum, oil lubricants) that American forces normally burn every day: nearly all of the other half used to come from the Arabs, mostly to supply units overseas (American troops fought the Viet Nam War almost entirely on Arab oil). The Arab cutoff is now threatening to make a difficult situation dangerous.

Some of the economies that the military has instituted to cope with the squeeze are simple, sensible and probably long overdue. The household goods of transferring service families are moving by sea rather than by air. Military speed limits have been reduced to 50 m.p.h. Motor pools have been ordered no longer to let drivers warm up staff cars for the instant comfort of their passengers. Anticipating the shortage, some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff began swapping their Chrysler limousines for Chevelles. Planes are taxiing more slowly, and many courier flights have been consolidated or dropped. Helicopter rides to the golf course have been curtailed.

But while the Pentagon is cutting into fat, it fears it also is cutting into muscle. With Mediterranean depots off limits to the Sixth Fleet, and Singapore and the Philippines unable to supply Middle East oil to the Seventh Fleet, these two key armadas are being fed from the stores of units in less troubled areas, notably the U.S. Fuel to other units is being ladled out almost as if it were ammunition at the Alamo, to meet “minimal training requirements.” Pilots are doing their flying in ground simulators, tank crews and sailors are spending less time at their stations, infantrymen and aviation ground crews are getting less experience on the job. Admiral Noel Gayler, commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, has ordered a 25% to 50% cut in fuel consumption for all of his units except the Seventh Fleet. Most of the fuel is being given up by planes assigned to logistics missions.

“We can live with the shortage as a short-term thing,” says Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “But if we continue at a lowered tempo, there will be progressive deterioration of combat readiness. We’re just like a football team, and if you don’t practice during the week, you may not be able to play the game on Saturday.” Moorer has assigned top priority for oil to combat preparedness and training for critical units in the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia. Next call goes to basic training, flight training, maneuvers and proficiency exercises. Administrative and housekeeping functions, including hospitals, come third.

More Austere. The Pentagon does have more capability of increasing supplies than civilian businesses do. Indeed, nearly half the deficiency caused by the Arab embargo can be made up by tapping the naval reserves at Elk Hills. Calif. The field’s current output of 5,000 bbl. a day can be boosted to 160,000 bbl. a day in three months if Congress authorizes the increase, as the Energy Emergency Bill passed by the Senate and now before the House would have it do. But the oil-parched military, unable to wait, has invoked an existing law to tap a larger domestic pool. In 1950, during the Korean War, Congress gave the Defense Department standby authority to pre-empt civilian supplies. The law was never used then, but it was last week. At Defense’s request, the Department of the Interior ordered 22 major oil companies to deliver 19.6 million bbl. of fuel and other petroleum distillates to the military by Jan. 16. That should keep the machine running at its current rate for about another month. After that, there probably will be more levies.

Despite all the oil being drawn from the dwindling civilian supply, Joint Chiefs Chairman Moorer has ordered the military to be “even more austere than the public at large.” The result is that more servicemen may find themselves in the shoes of General David C. Jones, U.S. Air Force commander in Europe. Jones has ordered his driver to keep his sedan in the motor pool, as the general twice daily walks the mile between his quarters and his office.

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