Assessing the value of PBS/Bithess geosynthetic in military contexts

摘要

Creating value from engineering interventions in military contexts includes achieving a better quality of outcome or making something happen quicker, sooner, or using a lesser quantity or quality of resource than might otherwise be the case, hence in simple terms cheaper. It includes potentially enabling an event to take place or freeing up resource for other higher value activities that might not otherwise happen. Prefabricated bituminous surfacing (PBS) or 'Bithess' was a geosynthetic manufactured in considerable quantities during World War Ⅱ for Allied forces in campaigns from 1943 to 1945. This bituminous geomembrane sheet was primarily used as an expedient for sealing compacted soil road and airfield surfaces from subsequent deterioration by weather. PBS demonstrated significant value to the engineering teams supporting fighting forces in France, Italy and Burma by allowing rapid construction of forward airfields, thereby ensuring that fighter plane cover (with the limited flight range of that era) could maintain tactical contact with their rapidly-advancing ground forces. It was of particular value for road construction in Burma in: (ⅰ) controlling great thicknesses of fine dust present during the dry season and (ⅱ) allowing earthen roads to be compacted and sealed undertaken before the onset of the monsoon. Extremes of weather made the few, generally unmetalled roads virtually impassable to standard, wheeled traffic, with serious consequences for maintaining an army's fighting effectiveness. Using PBS Allied forces were able to secure crucial Line of Communication routes, building all-weather roads, minimising imported materials, reducing construction programme and minimising mechanised construction plant.