This is double plus ungood…
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A U.S. Navy replenishment ship operating in the Middle East sustained damage in an incident which is under investigation, officials said Tuesday.
The damage to the oiler Big Horn comes after the oiler has supplied the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and remains in the region amid heightened tensions over the Israel-Hamas war and Israel’s ongoing strikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Full article, HERE from Navy Times, and HERE from Stars and Stripes.
This poses major problems, as it appears this is the ONLY oiler supporting 5th Fleet right now. And the ship is apparently under tow to Dubai.
Without an oiler, the carrier can’t get fuel for the jets to fly, nor can the ‘small boys’ in the battle group get bunker fuel, limiting what they can do, how far/fast they can go, and limits the entire 5th Fleet’s response to ongoing ‘issues’ in the region.
Pulling an oiler from another location is neither fast nor without a domino effect from wherever they get one. Probably the ‘minimum’ transit time is 9-10 days from Singapore, or 5-6 days from the Med.
This is on top of the issues MSC is already having crewing ships and their ‘plan’ to lay up 17 ships due to lack of crews.
If it wasn’t for bad luck, 5th Fleet wouldn’t have any! And this is really NOT the time that an oiler/fuel needs to be an issue…
All true, but…
Who the Hell is dumb enough to post the damage pic’s on social media, when you are ON the target?
Crew or GPS failure to run aground in one of the most surveyed bodies of water.
Vitaeus, Word I saw was that it may have been floating debris, rather than aground.
We don’t have enough combatants and we don’t have enough support ships. All this was foreseeable and preventable. All it took was “Want To,” and our government doesn’t seem to have that anymore. Maybe we should contract the support side to Elon Musk
But, but… Peace Dividend, “The 1980s called and they want their policy back.” And of course, “We have made a deal with Iran that will prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
Astern refueling with a NATO Coupling or breakable spool, with a commercial ship or ship to ship. I’ll admit to never ever having done it, but it was in either the NWP 14D (or whatever the current revision the Nav is using) , or the NSTM 571 , maybe both . Might even be in the rate training manual Boatswainsmate 3 and 2 (this priceless gem of knowledge may too be superseded, but should be in every mariners locker(civilian or military). Not near as fast ,safe, or doable as an alongside STREAM rig . Every ship should have these never/rarely used in their equipage list ROBB couplings too. The kinda shit that is rarely done that shows up on every advancement exam , like breaking the anchor chain at the detachable link to moor to a buoy running the chain through the bull nose (which I have done- Hong Kong). Everybody laughs at the Deck Apes…till they need one . Best gerry riggers afloat, and all done “by the book(s)” . Fly me out there , on defense contractor pay-tax free of course, and my fat ass would do an astern refueling. It’d be kick ass adventure , as he Hawaiians say, “Eddie would go !!” . But best thing would be , get another oiler ..quick , or fuel pierside somehow somewhere. My memory brain cells are fried , but I know we refueled with another NATO ship from another navy , because it was the first time we saw a “Klein” grip attaching the span wire to the messenger (pretty smart rig) whilst we were still using 3 strand manila to stop it off. We all looked at the “Klein” grip stupified like 3 monkeys and a football , till the brightest of the bunch figured out how it worked , the delivering ship requested it back , we wanted to keep it , thought it was “a gift” LOL !! But naw Man , there’s a way …DGUTS (Don’t Give Up The Ship).
Are there no oilers (even if smaller than modern) in the mothballed fleet? Come to think of it, do we still have a mothballed fleet of any kind?
I remember touring PA naval yard in 1971, there was a lot of iron floating there. I later worked for a company making replacement communications equipment for the mothball fleet as the Navy was required to keep that aspect “ready for use” and electronics deteriorates fast in damp environments.
Thinking even further on this topic , and allow me to possibly be mistaken due to aforementioned brain cell loss , when I was on the Nimitz , there was a fuel delivery station on the port side . It was a standard probe , standard hoses . It was owned by 3rd Division and I was in 1st division and was glad because it looked like it would be a pain to do PMS on the piece of shit . There was a complete winch deck to run the seperate winches on the saddle whips. That was on the Nimitz ..sooo if my memory is correct , at that time 88-92 , Nimitz had fuel delivery capabilities to deliver DFM . I could be dead ass wrong , but I think it did , how much DFM was on board I don’t know .. I wish my brain worked…
Yep, found an article about Carl Vinson setting record for fuel deliveries totaling 1 million gallons , article dated Sep 27 2021 USINDOPACIFIC Command , the pic shows FAS station on starboard side, my brain is toast Man
/www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2790275/uss-carl-vinson-sets-milestone-delivers-over-1m-gallons-of-fuel-since-january/
Archived copy of the article at gcaptain.com:
https://archive.is/qDMeB
“US Navy Oiler Runs Aground, Forcing Carrier Strike Group to Scramble for Fuel” (written by John Konrad)
This ARMY helo pilot just wants to say “THANK YOU” to the Navy types giving me an education here.
(And I am worried sick about what is happening to ALL our service branches these days.)
X2 (12B SP5)
Heinlein’s comments about “bad luck” come to mind.
Relevant post here: https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/71852.html
Boatswain, at sea from weird ships has been done before, particularly before and at the beginning of WWII. If my gray matter is in service today, I think those very early refuelings WERE bow to stern. I think Periscope Films on YouTube has a couple of early RAS films but you have to filter past 1,00’s of films and about a week ago a film popped up with various commercial ships fueling and defueling at sea.
Yeah doing workups and certs pre deployment, we called it REFTRA on the west coast, I think the east coast guys called it GITMO, there was a checklist piece by piece of what you had to have on hand , all the fittings down to the last shackle and block had to be on hand be the right ones. Basically these fittings were quick connects or breakable fittings that led to or were directly bolted to a flange . Hence you always had an big axe on an unrep station , the breakable spool had a weakened groove that you could hit to disconnect in case of an emergency breakaway , that we practiced lots and lots of times. M FR’s always wanted to do this shit at night, it works though …military is good at that , it builds up responding without thinking , put a new guy in and it fucks up the rhythm . I tried one time to explain what a boatswainsmate does to an Army guy at the V.A. , He was all stuck on MOS. I tried to explain to him it would depend on what type of ship I was assigned , Gator freighter, cruiser,DDG, it would be different. My favorite ship was a cruiser , I would go do an unrep , then later a VBSS as a coxswain , then we would go to flight quarters for the SH60 and man the flight deck . All in one never ending day . Sleep where you drop use a Kapok for a pillow. Never slept seems like. BMC’s are captains of LCAC’s I think . RHIB boats are killer to drive, I had one with a cummins turbo diesel , run like striped ass ape , most fun I ever had . Nowadays people don’t know what source rates are. Back in the old Navy , there were source rates to be eligible for BUDS , Seals . EN’s , MM’s, HT’s, CTI’s, BM’s and others . Typically , you would work in your rate make E4 (PO3) , and drop chit to request , ideally at your rotation date to give it a go to be a seal . There was no entering the Navy to be a seal after boot camp . You would see seals wearing their rate on their sleeve , with a seal pin above their ribbons , so they’d be an HT with the seal pin for example , the BonHomme Richard fire may or may not have been caused by a disgruntled seaman who failed out of BUDS and was sent to the fleet undesignated . Had he been a rated E4 , he would have been billeted back into a spot in his rate , no love lost and an attaboy for trying . The Navy should go back to source rates to try for BUDS , at least your applicants would be familiar with the Navy and NAV culture and bring to the seals a maritime skillset . I had no interest in it , but still the source rate eligibilty requirement would yield better results . My opinion. Good Night Folks , last Beam of the evening . Night NFO , long winded again.
Bad luck? I say intent. What lame brain though it good enough to man ONE oiler for an entire carrier group. With no reserve. While deployed. To a hostile region. Sitting on a powder keg.
Then, all the other lame brains who thought that is fine.
Instead of being called before the mast, maybe they should all swing from the mast.
All- Yes, LOTS of questions… I’ll defer to Boats on the possibilities, since he’s a deckplate Sailor. Still sucks and will have a major impact.
As long as we keep voting for greedy selfish criminals we will see this type of neglect of military needs. We should have EXTRA oilers, aerial tankers and other support equipment. The “just in time” minimal stock mentality may work for some businesses but it’s insanity for military planning. But the leftists in power would rather flush cash down the crapper on illegal invaders. Not on what needs to be addressed.
At least Dubai has repair facilities, even if it is a lousy liberty port.
Dubai …in the 90’s wasn’t much …stayed at the “Metropolitan Beach Hotel” , the hotels which were few, were all 5 star. The only place to drink was at hotels , liberty attire was button up shirts and long pants . Later the UAE built the new pier at Jebel Ali , near Dubai, out in the middle of no where, the USO , had a mobile KFC , a mobile Burger King , and a shwarma stand that was the best bet for bbq lamb shwarmas . They also had a phillipino band that could play anything from Beatles to Frank Sinatra to Lyrnrd Skynrd , sounded just like anything you asked . It was weird drinking beer in the middle of nowhere getting hammered with a Flip band jamming . Got spit on at the gold souk and cussed out in Arabic while buying some jewelry for the wife, oh well … Also got drunk at … I think was the “Chicago Beach Hotel” with a wealthy Saudi who was there with two “wives” , he basically set up an open bar , money was nothing.. Crazy world. Now Dubai is much bigger, but still wouldn’t be my choice for a liberty port , unless you are a wealthy person . Reading a local paper there they had a “wanted list” for contract laborers that went off the fenced in work compounds and didn’t show up for work and or split and made a run for it . Once saw, while sitting in a taxi at a stop sign, an Arab dressed man in a Chevy Caprice Classic, stop his car , walk around to the passenger side open the door and yank out a female pssgr, slap the dogshit out of her, pop the trunk, and throw her in and slam the trunk shut, and speed off. Crazy shit. The whole place gave me the creeps. Culture shock..yeah , it’s like the 20th century meets medieval mindset.
Was there in 78 and mid 2000 for oilfield. Tried to support our troops by taking books to the USO and giving rides to sailors stranded out at the port. Totally agree. Middle Ages meets Modernaty and Midernaty loses.
Let me quote the last sentence in the investigation:
No New Lessons Learned.
All- Thanks, and yes, that whole region IS an eye opener to Americans… Rat, you are probably correct, dammit…
Everyone who is throwing a cracker in the soup is correct. What would we do if we had a real Navy shooting war where our UNREP capability was strained by battle damage and sinking? See, we don’t even plan for that. The Navy has become a joke.
A boat with a bunch of holes in it , beyond the point of quick fixes with Damage Control measures, will fill with water to the point of losing buoyancy and sink . Abandon ship.. hope your life jacket works and you can look for life raft that hopefully deployed as it should. Ain’t no need for an UNREP at that point , same thing with an uncontrolled fire . Ain’t no where to run , every sailor is a firefighter , or has a role to do , in case of such an event . In the old days of boilers , the standard Navy response to a boiler explosion was “place head between legs and kiss your ass goodbye”. I am not making light of your comment at all Sir , but that is a fact of life working on a ship that may get shot full of holes or even shot once in just the right spot , you run that risk and live with it , submariners…shoot Man that is even more horrendous to think about . Sucks but true, a plane with no wings won’t fly , and a ship that loses buoyancy won’t float . Also you wouldn’t believe the number of sailors that can’t swim , but with the current body fat waivers they would float really well and hopefully attract the sharks first.