I am curious of the lift capacity of the C-5 Galaxy crrently in the inventory. I think it is aroud 270,000 pounds. Just numbers to me. Actual vehicle lift is more what I am looking for. Can it carry 2 Abrams or would it opt for 1 Abrams and a Bradly? HOw many Brad's can it carry? How many are still left in the inventory? Would they use a bunch of these to move say a Battalion or combined arms Bde quickly someplace. Or just send in the Airborne and then wait for everything else by sea?

http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=84

You can load 1 Abrams (70 tons = 140,000 lbs.) or 3 Bradleys on a C-5. The rest is all mission dependent as to what flies and what goes by ship. It depends on how quickly you need it there, what forces you want on the ground first, how much armor you need, etc., etc.

I had to take an Air Force load planners course last February at Buckley, which went so far as to have us cutting and pasting little vehicles onto aircraft floor plans, making sure everything would even fit before calculating the moments (axle weights x length from given point in the aircraft. the aircraft has lifted as much a 500,000 pounds. Although its max rated load is quite a bit less, it is often exceeded. And before anyone points it out, yes I'm aware that 500,000 is very close to the combined weight of max fuel capacity and max load, but that's not what I'm talking about.

What got me wondering about this was the realizaton that 2 major Army posts are located in the middle of the country....Riley and Carson. My last recollection was that 4th ID and 1st ID were the units there and they were both Mech with Armor. Then it was how long would it take to get them somewhere and where would they go to get shipped overseas. I also thought about Hood, but then figured that they could get a quick rail to HOuston ad go by sea. Or maybe a small combined arms unit could be run to San Antonio to get lifted by C-5.

What is the current TOE of a tank platoon and tank company? In my day it was 5 and 17 respectiviely, but I heard it was changed to 4 in a platoon.

This is what happens to you if you are an old Armor guy and you've been involved with logistics as a civilian. LOL

either Rail to the nearest Port... or in some cases grab PREPO stuff on land or Ship........ then all they need to move is the "bodies & belongings"

If its a tank pure company (no task force or Cav stuff) its currently 4 tanks per plt and 3 plts per co making 12 tracks plus the CO and XO leaving you with 14 tanks. 1sg has his 113.

I was armor about 8 yrs ago before I went active and became a scout.
-Dan

Every Army Post has an airfield capable of landing C-5s at it. Again, it depends on what, how much, how fast you need the stuff there as to whether it goes by air, sea, rail, or a combo of the above. The capability is there though.

When 3 ID deployed to Kuwait for OIF, we used all the above methods. Even with my Radar Battery, part of an MLRS Bn, we used them all. We railed tracked vehicles from Ft Stewart to the port of Savannah, GA and Jacksonville, FL for sea movement; drove wheeled vehicles for sea movement to the ports and air movement to Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah to load them onto AF Aircraft (C-5s and C-17s), and drew vehicles and equipment from the APS-5 PrePo stocks in Kuwait. Then we used contracted commercial aircraft to get all the Soldiers to Kuwait and marry them up with their vehicles.

Ah, that sounds a lot like the old Belfast: take a box of eggs to Singapore, or a tank to the other end of the runway ...

seán

Thanks, it is fun sometimes just to speculate off the wall things. So I could get a tank heavy combined arms battalion airlifted with around 30 or so C-5's. From what i read, we have enough C-5's we could probably get a Brigade of 2 tank and 1 infantry BN moved someplace. Maybe even throw in an Artillery battery to boot. I've ridden one of those beasts from Dover to Ramstein one year. It is a pretty awesome experience getting in one of those.