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Sisler, Seay load Army combat materiel (11/29)

The U.S. Military Sealift Command has issued the following news release concerning the Seafarers-crewed U.S. military support vessels USNS Sisler and USNS Seay. Ships load 3rd ID cargo in Savannah Two of the U.S. Navy’s largest ships will load Army combat equipment in Savannah, Ga., beginning this week in preparation for their trips to the Middle East in support of the global war on terrorism. Together, Military Sealift Command's large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ships USNS Sisler and USNS Seay will load more than 514,000 square feet of military cargo for the 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., as part of the rotation of U.S. forces in the Middle East. The cavernous 950-foot ships, each with giant stern ramps that extend from the ship’s main deck down to the pier, are ideally designed to move massive military equipment. Nearly 2,250 wheeled and tracked vehicles will be driven aboard and then lashed securely to the reinforced decks of the two ships’ interiors, each ship has a cargo-carrying capacity of more than 380,000 square feet. Each ship also has two pair of 110-ton shipboard cranes that will make it easy to load the more than 300 containers expected to be lifted into the ships’ massive cargo holds. Forty helicopters will also be stowed inside the ships' hulls. Sisler and Seay, both noncombatant veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom, are two of 19 LMSRs acquired by the U.S. Navy beginning in the mid-1990s. Together, the LMSRs have moved more than 2,139,000 square feet of combat cargo in support of the global war on terrorism. That represents only a portion of the total U.S. military cargo moved aboard a mix of government-owned and chartered ships operated by the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command since September 2001. In total, more than 62,764,000 square feet have been moved by sea in support of the effort. Seay is ordinarily kept pier-side in Philadelphia in reduced operating status with a small cadre crew embarked. The ship was activated Nov. 25 and began sailing for Savannah on Nov. 29. Twelve Army personnel will embark the ship in Savannah and will serve as cargo supervisors to monitor and maintain vehicles and equipment while at sea. Sisler is usually assigned to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and dedicated to prepositioning Army combat gear at sea in strategic locations. The afloat prepositioning concept allows equipment to be moved ashore quickly as war fighters are flown into a theater of operations. Sisler’s cargo was previously off-loaded in theater, making her available to transport equipment for the 3rd ID. The LMSR ship program was introduced following the Persian Gulf War of the early 1990s. A congressionally mandated study determined that 19 LMSRs were needed to improve the U.S. military’s rapid response capabilities in wartime or during other contingencies. The aircraft carrier-sized cargo ships were custom designed for military equipment and were built for the U.S. Navy because the U.S. merchant fleet had no comparable militarily useful cargo ships. MSC operates more than 110 noncombatant, civilian-crewed ships that replenish Navy ships at sea, chart ocean bottoms, conduct undersea surveillance, strategically preposition combat cargo at sea around the world and move 95 percent of military equipment and supplies used by deployed U.S. forces. -USN-