quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
Anybody know how long a super carrier can sustain flight operations without needing to take on more fuel for the aircraft? How about the other non-nuclear vessels in the carrier group? How long can they go without gassing up?.

Captain's don't like to let their tanks go below 70%, that said a Nimitz-class can go a month with 'normal cyclic' operations before people get nervous. If they ran the needle down to E, they could drain an oiler and would need a second, the problem is, it would take an entire-day to transfer that much fuel during at-sea UNREP hence, more frequent UNREPs = shorter times hooked-up overall. Considering the tempo is jumped-up quite a bit in the Red Sea, they're probably taking on jet-fuel every 10-12 days to keep the tanks top'd. The small boys depends on what they're doing, refueling can be every 5-days or, every 30-days; really just depends on the tempo, how much dashing-about they're doing, distance between ports vis-a-vie an available oiler, etc.

I believe during Desert Storm, some others can comment, when the air campaign got going, the six carriers were split into thirds doing a week-long rotation cycle: one section doing day-time ops, another section doing night-ops and a third off-line getting replenished and major maintenance getting done. After a week the carriers would rotate their schedules.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
If they ran the needle down to E, they could drain an oiler and would need a second

Really? You're saying a Nimitz class carrier can hold over 7,600,000 gallons of fuel? I find that difficult to believe.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
If they ran the needle down to E, they could drain an oiler and would need a second

Really? You're saying a Nimitz class carrier can hold over 7,600,000 gallons of fuel? I find that difficult to believe.

My understanding a Nimitz can carry around 3mil gallons of JP5 fuel. Oiler capacity is at least double that amount but, they're also carrying marine diesel and other fuels. How much jet fuel is carried versus the other fuels, no idea.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: corsair,

Got it. Nevertheless, that's a shitload of refined fuel.

The Navy will describe this as a “successful docking with a planet” or “contact with a submerged object, specifically, Asia.”

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
These ships are part of Military Sealift Command and are crewed primarily with civilian mariners. I spent 120 days on one as a cadet back in '99 to 2000. Horrible job. A lot of turnaround as mariners tend to get stuck onboard for months past their scheduled discharge date because reliefs are so hard to come by. It was bad 20 years ago and as far as I know as only gotten worse. Great if you are young and fresh and eager to accrue a shitload of sea time and upgrade your license fast, but terrible if you want any type of home life.

Still, these are typically competent crews. The issue of course is the Navy bureaucracy. Too early to say what happened here, but having just one tanker available to fuel that whole fleet is where the incompetence comes into play in my opinion.

THIS, how do they only have one refueling tanker in an entire region???

Not to mention, you just need to keep an eye on the 1 refueling ship to eventually find every other ship in the region to start tracking them.