Posted on 03/29/2024 1:20:35 PM PDT by rxsid
“Huge Problem”: The Pentagon’s Rapid Wartime Response Cargo Ships Are Trapped in Baltimore After Bridge Collapse
By Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge • Mar. 29, 2024
(ZeroHedge)—Two high-speed military cargo ships are stuck in the Port of Baltimore following Tuesday morning’s collapse of the 1.6-mile-long Francis Scott Key Bridge. The major US East Coast port has been paralyzed for several days as the bridge collapse prevents inbound and outbound vessel traffic along the harbor’s channel.
Using the automatic identification system, or AIS, data that tracks commercial vessels, three bulk carriers, two general cargo ships, one vehicle carrier, one tanker, and four Ready Reserve Force vessels (RRF), along with the container ship Dali that struck the bridge, are trapped in the harbor, according to the shipping blog gCaptain.
The three bulk carriers include:
The vehicle carrier is:
The tanker is:
The US Maritime Administration (MARAD) Ready Reserve Force vessels include:
According to the military blog The War Zone, (TWZ), Algol class vessels are “some of the fastest cargo vessels of their general size anywhere in the world.” These ships are part of the RRF, a subset of vessels within MARAD’s National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) that provide surge sealift capability to the Pentagon for overseas conflicts.
TWZ said the activation process of RRF vessels takes about five to ten days. The vessels are operated with a skeleton crew until called upon.
RRF are stationed at major marine ports around the US.
TWZ noted the Algol class vessels have been called into action several times over the last three decades:
Algol class have been called upon multiple times since they entered US service. Just five of these ships were responsible for transporting 20 percent of US cargo sent from the United States to Saudi Arabia during the first phase of Operation Desert Shield in the immediate run-up to the First Gulf War. The ships would go on to deliver 13 percent of all cargo that arrived in Saudi Arabia from the United States in the full course of that conflict.The US military subsequently used Algols to support operations in Somalia and the Balkans in the 1990s, as well as the opening phases of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s.
Breitbart News’ Kristina Wong reported on Thursday that “The Department of Transportation will not say how many National Defense Reserve Fleet Ships are Stuck” in the Baltimore harbor.
Baltimore Bridge Mess: DOT Will Not Say How Many National Defense Reserve Fleet Ships Stuck https://t.co/Nz7FPPQ2QT via @BreitbartNews— Kristina Wong 🇺🇸 (@kristina_wong) March 28, 2024
The current readiness of the RRF fleet is unknown. And just like that, part of America’s RRF fleet was taken out not by a missile or suicide drone, but a container ship that allegedly suffered a catastrophic ‘electric issue’. America’s enemies are taking note.
The Ready Reserve Force (RRF)
Vessels
The program began with 6 vessels in 1977 and now consists of 48:
42 roll-on/roll off (RO/RO) vessels, including
8 Fast Sealift Support (FSS) vessels,
7 LMSR's (Large, Medium-Speed, Roll-on/Roll-off)
4 auxiliary craneships, and
2 aviation repair vessels
[Why are zero of these ships US flagged?]
Maybe so they can get into neutral ports that might bar ships of combatant nations.
Or maybe just cheaper.
Uh oh here go the tin foil guys…
Now they have to insert “not so” in front of “rapid” in the name of the outfit.
Meh. They just happened to be at the dock. If there were a real emergency and they had to clear harbor there would be an exit made in a week tops.
Roman Empire ~450AD. Nothing truly Roman anymore.
We need to reactivate Jessi the body ventura
The collision does look like an accident butthe Democrat Party dragging its heels in opening the shipping channel isn’t. Checked the port l8ve cam earlier, they still haven’t even backed to ship off the wreckage.
If another “coincidence “ like this happens then we know we’re being played.
Which means they are likely to conjure another type of “coincidence” the next time.
No one bothers to read Edward Gibbon’s book anymore…
Figures, published in 1776…
No reason, then, to believe that “no sabotage” was involved with ramming a bridge abutment and closing a vital port for the eastern United States.
Of course, it looks like an “accident”. All the best sabotage does.
A “black swan” incident that has ramifications far beyond the actual chain of events. And all negative.
Categorical imperative - CLEAR THAT CHANNEL WITH ALL DELIBERATE SPEED. But judging from past performance of the current crew in the Oval Office, that could take YEARS, when weeks could do it.
Algol class vessels are “some of the fastest cargo vessels of their general size anywhere in the world.”
= = =
Hey
Better make them run on batteries.
CLEAR THAT CHANNEL WITH ALL DELIBERATE SPEED.
= = =
Sorry.
The bridge residue is now home and shelter for numerous endangered bacteria and virii.
Can’t move it.
A U.S. flagged vessel has to be built in the United States and manned by U.S. crews. Steel and labor are far cheaper in shipyards abroad, as are foreign crews.
Congress has sort of made up for this with the Jones Act, which requires that any intrastate shipping be done by U.S. flagged vessels. This has created a bunch of lucrative niches - Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Gulf platform supply, coastwise crude and products shipping.
A while back Amazon Prime was showing a multi-part lecture series (well done, btw) with a chapter-by-chapter explication of Gibbon’s massive tome.
/snort...that’s funny until that ends up happening -
As opposed to fighting without winning (e.g., Vietnam).
That is a problem.
The Battle of the Coral Sea had barely concluded when Task Force 17 under the command of Rear Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher was ordered to return to Pearl Harbor as fast as the crippled Yorktown’s condition would allow. Despite hull damage that caused her to trail an oil slick ten miles long, the carrier was able to reach a sustained speed of twenty knots. The voyage to the naval base would take eighteen days. During that time, the Yorktown’s damage control teams succeeded in patching so cleanly the bomb hole in her flight deck that it would appear never to have been damaged. Meanwhile, her skipper, Capt. Elliott Buckmaster, prepared an action report for Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz that included a detailed list of the carrier’s damage. It would be a preliminary estimate of what would repairing the Yorktown would require.
Dated May 25 and delivered by plane while the Yorktown was about a hundred miles from Oahu, the report that Nimitz read was sobering. A 551-pound armor-piercing bomb had plunged through the flight deck 15 feet inboard of her island and penetrated fifty feet into the ship before exploding above the forward engine room. Six compartments were destroyed, as were the lighting systems on three decks and across 24 frames. The gears controlling the No. 2 elevator were damaged. She had lost her radar and refrigeration system. Near misses by eight bombs had opened seams in her hull from frames 100 to 130 and ruptured the fuel-oil compartments. Rear Adm. Aubrey Fitch, aboard the damaged carrier, estimated that repairing the Yorktown would take ninety days.
“We must have this ship back in three days.”
– Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet
Nimitz didn’t have the luxury of waiting ninety days. Thanks to excellent codebreaking work by Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort and his intelligence team, Nimitz knew that the Imperial Japanese Navy planned an amphibious assault on the strategic island of Midway on June 4. Leading the attack would be its Kidō Butai, the carrier strike force that had attacked Pearl Harbor. Despite being outnumbered in carriers, planes, and other ships, Nimitz was determined not to let Midway go the way of Wake Island – at least not without a fight. But, when he sent his task force into harm’s way, he wanted it to be as powerful as possible.
************************************************************
Nimitz and Fletcher would have the Francis Scott Key bridge cleared and fixed in 1 week.
The DEI Democrat morons in charge of Baltimore will take 1 decade while stealing billions.
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