What every unit putting assets in INDOPACOM needs to know.

Something you can’t miss when you’re in the heart of INDOPACOM is that the climate represents one of the forces you’re fighting. Some combination of heat, humidity, salt air, and precipitation are attacking your assets everyday. In many places even the soil is corrosive because it’s coral-based and sandy.

The result is one of the most corrosive environments on earth. In some places there’s nowhere to hide. On Guam, for example, the wind carries salt spray across the whole island. Combine that with 75 inches of annual rainfall and humidity that is continually above 70% and you can see why corrosion is such a threat to readiness.

As was said in the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs,

“…the environment is characterized by high temperatures, humidity, extreme levels of ultraviolet rays, wet saline atmosphere, and lots of rain causing a tremendous deterioration to the natural environment, equipment, ships, vehicles, facilities, infrastructure, and even the people. ¹ ”

A corrosion-mitigation/prevention plan is essential as more military assets are cycled into or through INDOPACOM. It’s not going to do much good to move assets into the region if they end up being unusable.

Any number of assets arrive in an unusable state because the journey over was enough to cause damaging corrosion. And corrosion isn’t picky. It attacks everything from electronics and aircraft hulls to soft packaging and spare parts.

Fortunately there are steps you can take to mitigate and even prevent the effects of corrosion, but you have to get ahead of the problem because the pace of corrosion makes it hard to catch up.

There’s arguably no bigger risk to equipment readiness in INDOPACOM than corrosion, which means corrosion-mitigation and prevention are critical success factors. To learn more about how you can get ahead of the problem, and stay ahead of the problem, give us a call to discuss your particular needs.

1 Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, August 1, 2022