July 28, 2007: The U.S. Navy
is so pleased with the performance of its new fleet of T-AKE supply ships
(which replaces a larger fleet of separate ammo, cargo and fuel ships), that it
has ordered another. Eventually, the navy hopes to get a dozen of them, each
costing about half a billion dollars. The ships are built mostly to commercial
standards, which keeps costs down, and speeds up construction. Currently, six
are in service and four are on order. The T-AKE is the grandchild of the
Servron. Developed out of necessity during World War II, because of a lack of
sufficient forward bases in the vast Pacific, the service squadrons (Servron)
became a permanent fixture in the U.S. Navy. Ships now normally stay at sea for
up to six months at a time, being resupplied at sea by a Servron. New
technologies were developed to support the effective use of the seagoing supply
service. Few other navies have been able to match this capability, mainly
because of the expense of the Servron ships and the training required to do at
sea replenishment.
The twelve T-AKEs will replace
16 existing supply ships that are reaching the end of their 35 year service
life this year. The T-AKE is a 41,000 ton (displacement) ship that is 689 feet
long and move along at 32 kilometers an hour. The crew consists of 99 civilians
and eleven military personnel. There are berths for 209 people on the ship. The
ship can carry 7,000 tons of cargo and 2,380 tons of fuel (nearly a million
gallons). Two helicopters (CH-46 or MH-60) can be carried. The first ship of
the class is the "Lewis and Clark."
