Watchdog finds significant issues with US Army’s boat fleet

US Army boats, which carried out the temporary Gaza pier mission earlier this year, are poorly maintained and largely unprepared to meet the military’s growing mission in the Pacific, a new government oversight report said this week.

US Army boats, which carried out the temporary Gaza pier mission earlier this year, are poorly maintained and largely unprepared to meet the military’s growing mission in the Pacific, a new government oversight report said this week. The Government Accountability Office released a report on Wednesday that concluded there are “wide-ranging” issues facing Army watercraft, which limit the Army’s ability “to meet mission requirements in the Indo-Pacific theater where the need for Army watercraft is most pronounced.” Despite Army policy requiring the vessels to be at least at a 90% mission capable rate — meaning the vessels are ready to perform their mission — the boats currently have a less than 40% capable rate this year. Overall, the fleet of watercraft has dropped by nearly half since 2018, going from 134 vessels to 70 as of May this year, in part due to divestment of vessels in 2018 and 2019. “Army officials stated that these low mission capable rates, along with the smaller size of the watercraft fleet after divestment, hinder operational readiness and the ability to meet mission requirement,” the report said. “Army officials also stated that with such low rates, usually fewer than half the vessels in the fleet are available at any given time.” The Army’s watercraft came under significant scrutiny this year during the troubled temporary pier mission meant to increase humanitarian aid flow to Palestinians in Gaza. CNN reported in June that the vessels responsible for the temporary pier — called the Joint Logistics Over the Shore, or JLOTS —  were not well resourced or maintained by the Army. “Army boats have not been ready, capable, or in a mindset they’ll have to do something dangerous or in the real world … for decades now,” a retired warrant officer and former chief engineer on Army watercraft told CNN at the time.