Joint Force Quarterly
Abstract
In recent conflicts, military medical providers have set impressive records for battlefield care, setting a “golden hour” precedent. In a conflict with the People's Republic of China, however, the “golden hour” aspiration will be severely challenged if not untenable. Here, the paradigm will be Distributed Maritime Operations, air superiority will be challenged, and vast distances exist between treatment locations. With patients potentially being held for hours or days, updated medical treatment strategies, logistics methodologies, and transport capabilities will be necessary. This paper focuses on leveraging Military Sealift Command platforms for multi-mission usage by transporting medical supplies to Navy ships in contested zones, and then being configurable to transport patients away from contested areas with medical capabilities onboard to support. World War II offers the most salient parallel for this concept, and small-scale practical efforts are already underway. Here, [the author(s)] apply lessons from World War II to argue that reconfigurable multi-mission Military Sealift Command platforms are best suited for this support concept and that the small-scale efforts already underway should be leveraged to go large-scale. Following this strategy would provide the best opportunity for robust maritime medical coverage in Distributed Maritime Operations, should a conflict occur requiring it.
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