Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
So, the baggie concept, then, was sort of an open area and then the tank or piece of
equipment would be on the hard stand, wrapped in this plastic or whatever the material was.
A:
Yes. It was all in a separate shelter with a separate dehumidifying device that would operate
for that bag.
Q:
I suppose the idea was, on first blush, that you don't have to build walls and a roof and all
that, so it must be cheaper, I mean, until you think about how costly the bag is, I guess.
A:
You would have to talk to those who thought it up.
Q:
This is really an interesting evolution of an idea here. So, the POMCUS storage sites, then,
were probably more elaborate and more expensive than the theater reserves or the
ammunition storage sites, is that right?
A:
Well, it's hard for me to say because for ammunition you need bunkers with concrete walls,
metal doors--you'd really have to run a cost analysis. A theater reserve site often had
controlled-humidity warehouses. Some of them had open areas. Even POMCUS sites had
some things stored in the open, like trailers. You would have to run out the cost to see, and it
would vary by site.
On a POMCUS site you had the complexity of having different things. You had the tank and
then you had the radios, which we'd pull off the tank and store in a separate area. The
weapons systems were stored in another area secured just for that. Then there was fuel. The
vehicles were topped off on the way out. There was a whole bunch of these different kinds of
things. In the controlled-humidity warehouses, the vehicles park side by side, bumper to
bumper.
I should mention one other thing. We didn't build just the controlled-humidity warehouses.
There was another idea that was retained to be tried. This was something called the stress
tension structure. The structure was a rather large fabric-over-frame kind of structure for
multiple vehicles that had cost benefits. We were going ahead to procure six of them to try
out. The 18th Engineer Brigade did a good job of constructing the six stress tension
structures.
Q:
Do you remember if there were different program terms for POMCUS, theater reserve
storage, and ammunition storage? Were they considered different programs or were they sort
of folded into the general POMCUS facilities program?
A:
No, they were separate programs. There was another panel run by the DCSLOG that was
addressing ammunition. Ammunition is a very complex problem because you're always
upgrading guns, systems, and ammunition. Ammunition items you don't need any more
because you have a modernized kind of gun, are still in tons in ammunition bunkers, taking
up space. We also didn't have space necessarily where we wanted it. We wanted so much of
it forward, so much of it back, for flexibility. So, the Army had a separate steering
committee, run by the DCSLOG's assistant for supply and maintenance, for ammunition. He
was involved not just with facilities, but for procurement--how much do you buy of this
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