The U.S. Army, every few years, would break out a series of pontoons and boats and practice creating a pier where none existed before to land vehicles and cargo. It usually went pretty well, and it almost never generated any attention.
Sometimes, weather would get in the way, and so the last time the service successfully speared a pier into a beach was 2020. But it wasn’t a capability that drew a lot of attention.
That all changed in March when the system, known as the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, was hauled out for a mission facing intense international scrutiny — delivering aid to Gaza. While the pier would help offload nearly 20 million pounds of aid, a stream of issues, breakdowns, injured service members and delays have led to questions about the Army ability to build these piers and the health of the service’s watercraft community.
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There were the three injuries — including one so severe that the service member never returned to duty — the circumstances of which were never explained. The pier broke apart, leaving several Army boats and their crews stranded on the beach in Gaza. While the soldiers were evacuated fairly quickly, it took several days for the Israelis to return all the boats into the water.
But the pier concept isn’t just about delivering aid. It’s a capability that military strategists…
