US Navy ships heavy armour to Gulf-shipping sources

LONDON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy has booked a large ship to carry tanks and heavy armour to the Middle East Gulf this month as the Pentagon presses home a case for ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, shipping sources said on Wednesday.

The U.S. Military Sealift Command chartered a U.S. flagged general cargo ship to sail from the southeast U.S. coast to an unspecified port in the Middle East Gulf for discharge in late September, they said.

This is the third shipment of arms and military hardware in a month using commercial shipping, which military analysts say shows the U.S. Navy has probably exhausted the capacity of its own fleet and resorted to the open market.

The formal tender document, seen by Reuters, shows the ship will carry 67 seperate pieces of "track general cargo, containerised cargo and rolling stock" measuring 56,000 square feet (5,202 sq metres), slightly larger than a soccer pitch.

Military experts say the dimensions and weight of the pieces specified in the document almost exactly match those of the standard U.S. Abrams battle tank.

"This ship can easily carry tanks," a shipping industry source familiar with the U.S. military tendering process.

Military analysts say that the movement of heavy armour from the U.S. southeast coast to the Gulf mirrors similar movements ahead of the 1991 Gulf War and is key signal that the superpower is building up fire power in the region ahead of a military strike.