In 1973 and 1974, the 28th Surgical Hospital (Mobile) (Army) (
MASH) helped phase-in new designs for operating rooms and patient facilities from the previous canvas tents. Since then, all other configurations of army deployable hospitals have been inactivated or reconfigured to the CSH configuration. The last to convert was the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. In the mid-1970s the
Medical Unit, Self-contained, Transportable (MUST) designation was applied. During the
Cold War, with conflict possible against the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, active duty MUST units were staffed by all the basic personnel necessary (e.g., medics, X-ray techs, pharmacists, cooks, clerks). Doctors, nurses and specialists would be mobilized and mate up with the unit in the field. The unit would be flown to West Germany, withdraw pre-positioned complete hospital MUST equipment and military vehicles from warehouses and then deploy. It contained all necessary functions to provide care for 200 beds, including two intensive care units, eight medical wards, an emergency room, four operating rooms, an orthopedic room, a laboratory, an X-ray, a pharmacy and the unit's transport vehicles. It consisted of hard containers, which would be transported to the designated site, then the wheels would be removed and then expanded. They housed the operating rooms, laboratory, X-ray, and pharmacy. Inflatable shelters were used to provide double wall insulated areas for the patient care areas of the hospital. These "inflatables" required a power system called a "utility pack" (also known as a "U-pack" or "power station") to provide utility services, heat, cooling, inflation, hot water, and filtered air from chemical, biological, and radiological contaminants. The utility pack was powered by a
centrifugal flow gas turbine engine (Libby Welding Co. Model LPU-71, Airesearch Model PPU85-5, AmerTech Co. Model APP-1, or Hollingsworth Model JHTWX10/96). It provided electricity at 60 Hz AC, 400 Hz AC, and 24 VDC. At 250 beds, the hospital required eight U-packs. Each consumed of jet fuel per hour. After several years of using inflatables they were abandoned in the mid-1980s, largely due to the weight of the inflatables, and the amount of fuel required just to keep the tents from collapsing. Under the 1980s "Army of Excellence"
Table of Organization and Equipment, the MASHs had the task of providing enough emergency, life-saving surgery so that patients could live to be evacuated to hospitals further to the rear from the fighting line. The Combat Support Hospitals were 200+ bed hospitals that, after the MASHs, were next closest to the front line. The CSHs "specialize[d] in performing surgery on patients whose condition [was] not life-threatening." Behind the CSHs, but still within the
Corps rear area, were the 400-bed evacuation hospitals, which provided resuscitative and restorative care. The basis of allocation for planning purposes was one MASH, one CSH, and two EVAC hospitals per
Division supported, for a total of 1,060 beds per Division. General Hospitals in the
Communications Zone (if one were established) or in the Continental United States would provide definitive care. Actual bed requirements would be driven by combat intensity and the theater evacuation policy. == Field Hospitals ==