ARMY, NAVY PRACTICE WAGING WAR AND KEEPING PEACE.

Byline: Paul O'Donoghue Staff Writer

The Krasnovians and the Mohavians are stirring up trouble outside Barstow in a fictitious war, but the U.S. Cavalry is on its way.

That was the buzz Wednesday at the Naval Construction Battalion Center wharf at Port Hueneme as hundreds of trucks, Humvees and howitzers belonging to the Army's 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment were unloaded for war games at Fort Irwin near Barstow.

As U.S. military presence declines overseas, the cooperative effort between the Navy and Army is part of an effort to increase readiness for speedy deployment of U.S. forces anywhere in the world, said Major Greg Kandt, who was overseeing the operation.

``It simulates what they're going to be doing in wartime,'' said Kandt. ``We are no longer stationed in Europe but in the United States, so we'll be using resources like these to move our men and equipment into the war theaters.''

The unloading operation began Tuesday evening, only two hours after the ship berthed following a two-week voyage through the Panama Canal from Beaumont, Texas, where 550 members of the regiment had embarked from their home base of Fort Polk, La.

The 803 vehicles belonging to the unit simply drove off the 750-foot-long Cape Horn, whose stern opens out in a gigantic ramp.

Tapping the side of a 155 mm howitzer as its barrel was locked down, Capt. Brad Steadman, 29, said his job in time of combat would be to clear targets for the guns.

``We're called the eyes, brains and ears,'' he said. ``What we're doing here is (readying) these bad boys for transportation.''

After being driven off the ship, vehicles lined up and went through a process similar to a checkout counter at a supermarket: Soldiers took inventory of each piece of equipment by passing a hand-held scanner the size of a walkie-talkie over a bar code label plastered on the side of each item.

Nearby, Pvt. Adewale Akerele, 20, of Baltimore also manually entered each piece of equipment onto a written inventory sheet.

``It's to make sure everything is going right,'' he explained.

Every couple hours the scanners were downloaded into a mainframe computer so that Army commanders anywhere in the world can find the location of individual pieces of equipment, officials said.

As each vehicle and piece of equipment passed inspection, it was clustered into mini-convoys of 16 to hit the road to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin near Barstow.

There, the cavalry's job was keep the peace in an escalating feud between Krasnovia and Mohavia, the fictional countries at war, said William Cook, a spokesman for the Army.

``They're Middle Eastern countries and they can't get along,'' said Cook.

``Mohavia has been friendly to the U.S. and the 2nd Cavalry's job is to intervene. But the intervention is going to be increasingly escalating from a peace intervention force to battle and that's the simulation that's going to take place.''

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3 Photos

Photo: (1) This 155 mm howitzer being unloaded at Port Hueneme will be used in war games.

(2--3--Color -- Ran in CONEJO and SIMI only) Above, a soldier directs vehicles being unloaded from a transport ship at Port Hueneme. Right, soldier Jeff Colen helps load a howitzer onto a flatbed.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News