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Construction Contracts
and build roads from this base. But when they scraped off the surface materials
in the desert, they removed the stable base. As a result, the road turned to dust,
or mud if it rained, and vehicles were forced to drive off the road. The
construction technique eventually adopted was to use a road grader to clear any
rubble off the surface of the desert and build up the road above the desert
rather than cut into the desert and apply dust palliative.24
Soldiers and equipment from the 20th Engineer Brigade work on a new road bed.
(U.S. Army photo by SSG Martello, 20th Engineer Brigade, Public Affairs Office)
Rock was generally not available for the base course for roads. Marl, a clay-
type soil rich in calcium carbonate, is quarried in the region and was the most
abundant and cost-effective material for road construction. In fact, it was the
only widely available material in Saudi Arabia that could be compacted for
roads. Marl, a crumbly substance, did not have to be crushed. Its slight moisture
content made it easy to compact. Engineers dug the marl out with bulldozers,
dumped it on the roads with bucket loaders, wetted it down, and compacted it
with graders. Once dried, it had the consistency of concrete. Marl, however,
failed after torrential rains and became very dusty after use by vehicles. In areas
where it failed, high-priced crushed rock was used.
The application of cold mix asphalt-- sand, gravel, and RC-1 (a rapid cure
asphalt)-was another paving process. It was not as good as hot mix asphalt and
could not withstand as heavy a load, but hot mix asphalt required batch plants,
which no longer exist in active Army units. Engineers using hot asphalt needed
a batch plant near the work site because the asphalt hardens over time as it
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