For Want of an Oiler: The Fragile State of America’s Afloat Logistics Fleet
- Thread starter SoonerP226
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Maybe we need some form of airlift oil replenishment system. Maybe some form of gigantic bladders of oil towed to station by subs.
All it takes is a little innovation.
Woody
All it takes is a little innovation.
Woody
I don’t think you’re grasping the sheer volume of petroleum products they’re using. These oilers are not small ships—the Big Horn is about 3/4 the length of the USS New Jersey (BB-62) and almost 200’ longer than an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer—and they’re as big as they are for a reason.
The only aircraft that could carry a useful amount of oil can’t land on a carrier, and none of the ships they’d be refueling can even come close to their stall speeds, so aerial refueling isn’t going to work. Even if you could develop a giant bladder that could survive being towed by a sub, the Navy isn’t going to saddle the cream of their war machine crop with resupply missions—after all, they outsourced that whole mission to the Military Sealift Command so they wouldn’t be saddled with it to begin with.
We can thank Obamanation for sending a few of our AOEs to the bottom as targets. The Kilauea and the Niagara Falls. Those were a few regulars that worked in my areas. All part of shrinking the ghost fleets. Im sure a few more are reefs now.
We could have a 600 ship fleet but the Merchant Marines who keep the United States Navy loaded with supplies and fuel are so undermanned it wouldn’t matter.
If you know a young person looking for an adventure refer them to the Merchant Marine’s!
I work in the logistics world for the Department of Navy and times are tough supporting our Sailors. Material is hard to come by to manufacture replacement parts but skilled labor to keep the ships afloat is almost nonexistent these days. The USNS fleet is probably 90% civilians and every one of them are over worked.
If you know a young person looking for an adventure refer them to the Merchant Marine’s!
I work in the logistics world for the Department of Navy and times are tough supporting our Sailors. Material is hard to come by to manufacture replacement parts but skilled labor to keep the ships afloat is almost nonexistent these days. The USNS fleet is probably 90% civilians and every one of them are over worked.
Sal points out in the video that they replaced military sailors on the support vessels with civilians because they could keep the civilians at sea longer. That makes no sense, which somehow makes sense in context…
The civilians have always manned the USNS ships for the most part. Active duty Sailors usually love getting sea time on them, the accommodations (compared to a USS vessel) are luxurious, lol.
I work with a retired Chief who has underway time on a couple of supply ships and he has some great stories. I hope we can figure out how to remedy the replenishment at sea role, we are toast without a toaster if not.
I work with a retired Chief who has underway time on a couple of supply ships and he has some great stories. I hope we can figure out how to remedy the replenishment at sea role, we are toast without a toaster if not.
It doesn’t matter if the carrier can sail around the world twenty times without refueling if it doesn’t have the jet fuel to launch the birds.
A friend used to talk about his time in the Navy back in the Cold War, and he said one of the ways they showed their dominance was by doing simultaneous underway refueling and replenishment, which was something the Soviet navy wasn’t capable of doing. It’s sad to think that we might not even be able to do underway refueling at all…
And food, ammo, repairable and consumable material and things that most folks never consider.
I hated being at sea with only boxed milk and kiwi left on the mess decks. It is rare for that to happen nowadays but during the 80’s it happened way too often.
I do not eat kiwi fruit because of those days and boxed milk will never cross these lips again.
I hated being at sea with only boxed milk and kiwi left on the mess decks. It is rare for that to happen nowadays but during the 80’s it happened way too often.
I do not eat kiwi fruit because of those days and boxed milk will never cross these lips again.
