Keeping warships supplied at sea

[wlbblw]

When missile cruisers & destroyers had the older mechanical launchers, the ships had to bring reloads & boosters aboard with a system of booms, lines, & rigging. The rounds were secured to elevators on the top deck of the missile house that took them down into the missile magazines where they would be assembled, tested, & stored. Conventional gun ammo & powder were also brought aboard that way.

After those ships were retired, the first generation of vertical missile launch ships had provisions for reloading at sea, but it proved to be more trouble than it was worth & the system was deleted from newer construction.

[ghosttech]

On a Perry class frigate (on both ffg42 and ffg28), if we had the helos onboard, we would perform VERTREPS both on the foc'sle and the flight deck aft.

if a regular UNREP we'd just take the high-line at midships and they sling the stuff down to us.



then the painstaking task of putting everything away began...

[Al]

I served aboard a Fletcher class Destroyer in the middle 60s and all of our replenishing at sea was by High-line. We refueled from Tankers or Carriers, got ammunition, stores, and Movies, also a time or two we sent injured Crew over to the other ship for medical care. I remember a destroyer which was replenishing from a carrier during somewhat rough weather, going down into a trough and coming back up in under the flight deck of the carrier, the results being the loss of the Main Battery Fire Control director, the pilot house was flattened down by a couple of feet, the mast aft of the pilot house went over the side, and the forward stack has a slice in it that looked like a machete would. If I remember correctly, the only casualties was a crewman with a leg injury from being hit by something falling on him. We saw the ship in Norfolk before she was towed to Portsmouth shipyard for repairs.

[pcolachap]

It depends on the size of the ship. The Saipan, now decommissioned, was a helicopter carrier and a fossil fuel burner.
We would take fuel for the ship and also JP5 for the aircraft, helos & harriers. We were alongside about an hour and a half to two hours. Destroyers, I would guess, would be a little over an hour. The nuke aircraft carriers still have to take aboard fuel for their planes. I don't know how long that takes. Mike

[mopar tim]

Cool video. never seen this done before very cool indeed. One question how long are you connected to the Tanker?.

[Don_Detloff]

And that was on a calm day. Throw some seas in there for some fun.

[pcolachap]

Ah, John Sherwin, happy memories for me. This is typically referred to as an "unrep" for underway replenishment. Often it is accompanied by helicopters bringing supplies from the Military Sea Lift Command ship to the warship referred to as a "vert rep" . In 1998 aboard the Saipan (LHA) we replenished one last time before leaving the Med. There was a pretty good sea running and a Spruance class destroyer on the other side of oiler. It was a scene right out of Victory at Sea TV series. We later thought it would have been great to use that theme song as a "break away song". Forgive my remenising. Mike

[John Sherwin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAlATn4xm4I