I have hesitated for a long time in writing about underway replenishment. For I was mostly an engineer. I'd sit either in Main Control or in the Oil & Water Lab and monitor the progress of refueling. If the ship wasn't taking on fuel, then I'd normally be in Main Control to keep an eye on the plant. There were a few times as an ensign that I was technically "officer in charge" of the forward refueling station, but make no mistake about it: The Second Class Bosun's Mate ran it. My job was to look for safety violations, like someone stepping into the bight of a line.
So I don't know a whole hell of a lot about Unrep. The blogger over at Chaotic Synaptic Activity served aboard an unrep ship. What to me was a weekly or so affair for fuel and monthly for supplies was what he did.
So first, let's talk about supplies.
In port, in the US, supply was more or less a constant thing. If you really needed something, you could walk a chit though at the local supply center.
If the ship was deployed, then all but the most critical parts came on a monthly basis. Sometimes, it came in port. There would be a series of trucks showing up at the pier. An "all hands" working party would be called away to unload them and then pass the supplies from the trucks, up the gangway, through the ship and down into the storerooms. The Supply Officer and his chiefs acted as traffic directors. Department Heads and the XO were safety observers. Everyone else who was not on watch, including chiefs and junior officers, were in the working party. it took several hours.
In-port resupplies of that magnitude were rare. All of the goods had to be brought by a supply ship to another pier or port and offloaded into trucks. There were, understandably, security concerns that ranged from basic theft to terrorism. In foreign ports, the trucks had to be guarded for customs reasons. Both the Navy and the country where the resupply was taking place pretended that the trucks were never in the country.
And it was a pain in the ass. In a foreign port, where the idea was to try and get time of to see the sights (or get drunk and/or laid), nobody wanted to spend a precious day in port humping truckloads of supplies.
The vast majority of monthly resupply evolutions were done at sea.
The Solstice, or On the Road Again ...
5 hours ago
3 comments:
DDG early 70s and under way other than crossing the Atlantic we refueled every 2 or 3 days. Some restocking every 2nd or 3rd refueling. It obviously wasn't totally necessary, but readyness and all that. In the North Atlantic in winter was the most fun underway refueling. The British had a lot different procedures back then, as in they trailed a the refueling hose that we picked up, no sailing next to each other. Of course the seas were a lot choppier than farther south or in the Med, making side by side refueling a lot tricker.
I dunno. The seas kicked up by a Mistral in the western Med were no joke for underway replenishment. It was too rough to resupply the Ike from an AFS one time. Our propeller was often fully visible to the carrier. Hard to maintain constant speed that way.
Well yes the Med could be fun at times but the NA in winter was always fun. Sometimes too much fun.
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