ENGINEERING THE THEATER
Port Operations Rating Tool (PORT), a cloud-computing, web-based tool that serves as an in-depth repository of all information for approximately 6,000 ports worldwide. PORT gives the trans- portation planner the most up-to-date and comprehensive intelligence on sea ports, such as the number of available berths and cranes, cargo capacity and navigation channel depths. Tis tells military plan- ners what vessels they can bring into a port and gives them the ability to data-mine and analyze port characteristics and their limitations for military use, and receive initial “throughput” estimates for extreme cargo such as the main battle tanks that have never touched some commercial coastal facilities.
In addition to the commonly known major terminals and world ports, PORT is the sole catalog of medium, small, extra-small and fully austere (beach) sites. Planners can rapidly establish an alternate course of action or location when access to a large, primary port is denied. By using overhead imagery and other intelligence data to remotely engineer unavailable maritime critical characteristics, PORT creates models for compact forces to gain footholds in obscure, austere points of entry. It also simulates features like spac- ing requirements, cargo capacity and ship lanes that are more difficult to plan during austere beach landings. When a port has been heavily damaged, the tool’s modeling capability helps engineers sequence repairs and determine the fastest way to bring it back to full capacity.
SHIP-TO-SHORE PROJECTIONS Not only is ERDC improving the Army’s technical intelligence, it uses this intelli- gence to simulate vessel landings in severe environments and model inland ground vehicle mobility. By seamlessly combining these single-domain tools, planners can
50 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2020
KEEPING IT REAL
ERDC’S ship simulator receives information on environmental conditions from tools such as ROAMS, which determines if vessels can maneuver to access beaches and ports. The data supports operations planning as well as actual assaults. ERDC has developed a suite of tools and data analytical capabilities that can provide assurances about whether operating conditions will affect meticulously developed strategies—an important capability in a multidomain environment.
virtually replicate the projection of forces from sea to inland objective. Tey can rehearse how well the natural ship chan- nel will accommodate a military vessel, determine transit times and chart traffic patterns.
“[ERDC] gives the warfighter and the sustainer some analytical tools to get after some of the challenges we have in the future fight,” said U.S. Army Transpor- tation Corps Regimental Chief Warrant Officer Jermain Williamson. “It definitely gives the warfighter some tools to make some decisions based on risk. Technology enhances your ability to make good deci- sions based on the information.”
ERDC has used ship simulator and vessel- response models since the early 1980s to evaluate federally maintained navigation channels in the continental United States, a powerful example of how ERDC is able to leverage the Army Corps’ Civil Works mission into technologies for use by the military.
Recently, ERDC has begun to apply its latest state-of-the-art ship simulator to military uses by assisting the U.S. Marine Corps in conducting a virtual amphibi- ous assault on a location very similar to those encountered during the invasion of Inchon, South Korea, in 1950. Te U.S. Navy provided experienced craftmas- ters to pilot the Landing Craft Utility 1600 series used in the virtual assault. Their assessment was that the simula- tor provided a realistic environment and that the handling of the virtual Landing Craft Utility closely resembled that of an actual craft.
“We are applying the information that we gain from the environmentals that we’re able to place inside this particular ship handler,” said Tomas McKenna, an amphibious operations subject-matter expert at Marine Corps Intelligence Activity. “Our greatest difficulty when responding to crisis is that in a lot of these areas, there are denied areas or areas where we have not typically operated consistently.
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