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Unique RED HORSE equipment key to success, savings

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Kimberley Harrison
  • U.S. AFCENT Combat Camera
CAMP DWYER, Afghanistan --  The land here is vast and wide; hot and dusty. It fills your filed of view for miles on end yet it is remains difficult to acquire the necessary resources for a 1 million square foot runway.

Camp Dwyer, located in the Garmsir District of Helmand Province, presents a unique deployment environment for the RED HORSE Airmen assigned to the 809th Expeditionary RED HORSE Squadron here.

Luckily the HORSEmen, clearly distinguished by their bright red hats, have two pieces of deployable equipment which will save the Air Force time and money.

"The most unique part of this [deployment] is that we do everything ourselves," said Capt. Oliver Barfield, site commander, deployed from the 820th RED HORSE Squadron, Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. "We have our own quarry, we have our own concrete plant and we're self-sufficient so we can produce everything for ourselves...except for the cement."

"When it came to beginning the construction portion of building the runway, it all began with the rock crusher," said Tech. Sgt. Brandon Mathis, rock crusher operations Non-Commissioned Officer in-Charge, deployed from the 820th RHS.

The rock crusher, a machine designed to reduce large rocks into smaller rocks, gravel, sand or rock dust, has already saved the Air Force $3.5 million just for the base course produced so far, with an expected overall savings of just under $8 million, according to Sergeant Mathis.

"Projected concrete sand savings alone is $320,000 just from producing our own and not having to go through contractors," said Durham, N.C., native Sergeant Mathis.

By locating the crusher near a quarry, it saves time, energy and transportation costs.

"By providing our own sand, stone and trucks, we've taken three very big aspects out of the equation by having our own plant," said Staff Sgt Josh Barker, heavy equipment operator, deployed from the 200th RHS, Camp Perry, Ohio.

With this piece of machinery, the red-hat HORSEmen can quarry their own materials by using resources that is naturally available in this austere environment.

"We have a 50,000 square foot hole in the ground that we're digging out of," said Sergeant Mathis. "The quarry itself is around 75,000 square feet, including all the land used for the stock piles of material we're producing."

One of the many benefits of having an on-site crusher is the amount of material the RED HORSE Airmen are able to produce compared to local contractors.

"The contractors couldn't keep up with the amount of sand--or quality of sand-- we needed," said New Albany, Ohio, native Sergeant Barker.

"Once we were able to produce our own sand, it actually saved us quite a bit of money and a lot of time," said Sergeant Mathis, who has about seven and a half years experience working with quarries and rock crushers. "We can produce three to four hundred tons a night per shift, whereas the contractor was only able to supply us about two hundred tons per night in a 12-hour shift."

Because of the increased amount of material the rock crusher plant can produce, the newly set-up $3M concrete batch plant can now run fully operational without delays, which was an issue in the past.

"The best part of the concrete plant is that it's quick and it has a much larger capacity," said Sergeant Barker. "We are three to four times faster than the other plants on Dwyer. We can produce one batch for one truck, but the other plants takes four batches or more for one truck...because they have to run more batches, it takes them much longer to get it to the site where it's needed."

"The batch plant can put out so much concrete in a night that they've actually run out of sand before they could finish off a certain amount of feet on the runway," said Sergeant Mathis. "With us being able to produce our own sand, they are able to continue without stopping."

The concrete batch plant, located just down the road from the quarry, is where cement, water and aggregates are mixed together to make the concrete necessary for the runway.

"With the size of the plant we have, it's big enough to cover more concrete output than what the other batch plants here on Camp Dwyer can do together," said Tech. Sgt. Douglas Fox, batch plant NCOIC, deployed from the 820th RHS.

This is good news to the night paving crew who need the concrete in order to complete their job by the scheduled completion date of late summer..

"Our goal is to complete at least 600 feet a night in the 12 hours we work," said Master Sgt. Jon Narvarte, slip-form paving operations NCOIC, deployed from the 820th RHS. "It takes about 425 cubic meters of concrete for about 600 feet of runway."

Having an on-site batch plant makes this goal accessible as each dump truck can hold 8 cubic meters of concrete which equals over 53 loads of concrete per night.


"This piece of equipment is vital to the runway project and the fact that it's on site really helps with our time," said Sergeant Fox. "Essentially this is going to save the Air Force money and time because we do not have to purchase it [concrete] and we can create a lot more getting it to the people out on the runway to do their job."

The team overcomes any obstacles that come up, such as the dust and heat, by adapting to their environment in order to continue this unique mission.

"Everything we're doing right now with the crushing capabilities and the batch plant is very unique," said Glouster, Ohio, native Sergeant Fox. "It's something that's not done every time we deploy...it's definitely something new for me to see all done at once."

At this time, the batch plant operations have saved more than $750,000 and expect to save another $2.6M throughout the remaining job.

This project has been a unique mission showcasing special capabilities for a RED HORSE team.

"This is the first paved runway built by a RED HORSE unit since Vietnam," said Stockton, Calif., native Sergeant Narvarte.

"This is also the first time a RED HORSE unit has ever operated a batch plant in Southwest Asia," said Sergeant Fox. "The batch plant and the rock crusher are all special capabilities unique to RED HORSE...it's not something you typically see other military engineering units take on."