The US Navy is reengineering commercial oil ships for military use

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-reengineering-commercial-oil-ships-for-military-use-2015-1


The US Military Sealift Command mobile landing ship USNS John Glenn off the coast of Point Loma, CA.

The Navy is making progress building a new class of ships configured for sea-basing and expeditionary missions as a way to help account for a shortage of amphibious assault ships and forward-position Marines, sailors, special operations forces, air assets and ship-to-shore connector vehicles, service officials said.

So far, the Navy has built and delivered two of five planned Mobile Landing Platforms, or MLPs — commercial oil ships re-engineered for military sea-basing and transport missions. In total, the service plans to build five MLPs with the last three termed Afloat Forward Staging Bases, or AFSBs – MLPs designed with a flight deck to support aviation operations.

“The delivery of MLPs 1 and 2 are complete. MLP 3 is under construction and will be the first AFSB variant,” said Lt. Kat Dransfield, Navy spokeswoman.

The MLP is a massive 80,000-ton, 785 foot-long commercial Alaska-class crude oil carrier configured to perform a range of military missions such as amphibious cargo on-load/off-load and logistics support. The MLP can reach speeds of 15 knots, has a draft of 29-feet and can carry a crew of 34.



Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/01/29/navy-builds-a-new-class-of-sea-basing-ships/#ixzz3QP1wMFyL

[newfie11]

1. MIC must move forward nt

[MADem]

2. Sounds like a cheap solution to a thorny problem--much better than shore basing, that's

for sure, and using an existing platform and repurposing it with the described modifications is much more cost-effective than creating a new vessel that does the same doggone thing, "just because," from scratch.

This sounds good--hope it performs to expectations.

[bluedigger]

3. And they are arming their own support ships, too.

"Under budgetary pressure, the Navy is putting forward an incredibly logical concept called "Distributed Lethality," under which it could add more weapons and combat capabilities to existing combat ships, as well as to ones that have never had any offensive capabilities at all."

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/us-navy-looking-to-arm-its-logistics-ships-with-missile-1681064

As the article points out, we need to spend some money arming the vessels we already have so that they can defend themselves, as opposed to investing in new vessels in general.

[dembotoz]

4. understand crude oil is rather toxic--wonder how they clean it enuf to be safe

[Basic LA]

5. Interesting concept

What caught my eye is the term Sealift Command, & though a Navy vet, I don't remember hearing of this until just yesterday while reading the Vietnam-era novel Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone.
Also, it's unusual that this revamped tanker "can reach" 15 knots, since that's at the bottom end of the range for most ships.