News Story: Big Supply Ships May Get Reprieve - For Now

Supply class T-AOE (Wiki Info - Image: Wiki Commons)

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

WASHINGTON — They’re the biggest supply ships operated for the US Navy, and the fastest. Rarely does a deployed carrier strike group travel without one. But they’re also the most expensive logistics ships to run, and that’s made them the target of planners eager to reduce operating costs.

The result is a classic cost-versus-capability debate that continues to be played out behind the scenes in Washington and at fleet headquarters in Norfolk and Pearl Harbor.

“They” are fast combat support ships — T-AOEs in Navy lingo — designed to carry enough fuel, ammunition and supplies to supply a carrier group. The 49,000-ton ships are powered by the same gas turbines that drive the fleet’s cruisers and destroyers, reaching speeds approaching 30 knots.

The four ships of the Supply class were commissioned in the 1990s as Navy-manned and operated fleet units, but were transferred to the Military Sealift Command (MSC) in the 2000s. Even with civilian mariners, their crews number around 160 sailors, and each ship costs about $75 million per year to operate.

Matched up against older oilers — at around $40 million per year — and newer dry cargo ships running about $50 million a year, the T-AOEs became attractive inactivation candidates for a Navy scrambling to reduce spending any way it can. By 2013, the service announced it would inactivate the Bridge in September 2014 and the Rainier a year later.

Read the full story at DefenseNews