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Afghanistan 3 with a capital L.


doing out here is logistics


What we are


and while redeployment is only a small part of the whole, it is seen as a focus. Its success is not just about the physical removal of troops and equipment from a land locked country but also about accountability, responsibility and regard to the value of money for the British taxpayer. “We need to get the maximum return for treasury to


justify the costs of what we are doing out here,” adds the Air Commodore. The bill for redeploying the 11,000 TEUs of material and


3,000 vehicles and equipment worth £4 billion has been set at £300m and every penny of it, as well as all the equipment and materiel, has to be accounted for even the 40 per cent of all materiel that will have to be disposed of in theatre. Major Lucy Anderson, Office Commanding Reverse


Support Chain (RSC) Squadron, which is physically processing the materiel and equipment out in theatre prior to redeployment or disposal says: “What we are doing out here is logistics with a capital L.” The process she says is: “basically like packing up a


house. Good order sees you packing clean dishes and glasses in a box with protection packaging, and labelling the box so that when you get to the new house everything can go straight to its allocated place and is easily available for you to use immediately; rather than disorder, which sees you bunging stuff in any old box; clean and dirty together, and spending months, if not years, sorting it out the other end.”


Surplus to requirements Major Anderson explains that platforms (individual goods used by the military such as vehicles, generators etc) won’t be sent back until the operational commander decides that it is surplus to requirements in theatre. Once that decision is made, says the Major, the next


step is to work out whether or not it can be consumed in theatre; for example can surplus ammunition be used for training, do other units require it? Can it be disposed of in theatre? And finally can it be redeployed? “There are two drivers behind that,” says Royal


Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Lt Colonel Robert Cosgrove who has a unique overview of the process having spent two years planning the redeployment ahead of its beginning in October 2012 as lead logistics planner at the Permanent Joint HQ in the UK. “Is there a need for it in the future and is there a place for it in the future. In both cases there has to be value for money taking into account transport costs. Certain items are just not worth bringing back to the UK.” It all depends on the materiel and the state that it is in.


“It is quite a harsh environment out here and some materiel has been out for a long time – it has seen better days,” says Major Anderson. “Demilitarised, or equipment and materiel that cannot be used against us, goes to a contractor for disposal in Afghanistan.” The rest is considered warlike scrap and needs further


what happens to it all when it arrives at the strategic base, its final destination. The Air Commodore and his 130-strong team at Joint


Force Support HQ as well as looking after the personnel, infrastructure, training and commercial support for British troops in Afghanistan, are the ones tasked with ensuring that the first stage of redeployment goes smoothly – at least for the six months that they are in charge – and is done with value for money in mind. “We have tried to be logistically quite efficient –


something I think that would be common sense to most people but perhaps not always the path we have gone down,” says the Air Commodore. Indeed the MoD in past years has come under severe


criticism for its woeful supply chain management and a lack of accountability. But that is all in the past. The whole UK military set up is undergoing radical reorganisation


logisticsmanager March 2014


and/or specialist destruction before it can be disposed or indeed removed from theatre. Materiel and equipment includes fire extinguishers, batteries, gas cylinders, broken or damaged military vehicles, rubber tyres, old gym equipment, rocket tubes, brass ammunition cases, miles upon miles of electric wire and broken or damaged ISO containers. Looking round the impeccably kept warlike scrap yard,


which has piles and piles of equipment stacked like with like, it’s hard to consider any of it warlike let alone attractive to criminal and terrorist organisations (ACTO). But Major Anderson explains: “Fire extinguishers can be used as a charge but they are not cost effective to send home,” she points to two parallel lines of red metal in the corner, “so they are destroyed and disposed of in Theatre which is far more cost and time effective.” The fire extinguishers used to be chopped up but


squashing them was found to be far more effective and took a fraction of the time. Batteries are another headache, even when they are considered empty there is still enough charge in them to


Fire extinguishers can be used as a charge but they are not cost effective to send home... so they are rolled over with a tank.


Agility in numbers


4,502 – Total pallets of misc. items sold (Apr 13 – Jan 14 (inc)). 4,678 – Total containers sold (Apr 13 – Jan 14 (inc)) including those moved via the Gravel Soak Lot. 95 – Total vehicles sold since the start of the project. 26 – Containers (168 pallets) sold forward from the Forward Operating Bases (1 Jan 14 – 14 February 2014) saving 14 very expensive road moves.


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