USS vs. USNS
Mark Kimelheim
It's seems that most US Navy ships are called "USS something", meaning United
States Ship something", but I occasionally see "USNS somethingelse", which
presumably means "United States Navy Ship somethingelse". What is the
significance of the USNS designation? Are USNS vessels not commissioned, or
not crewed by active duty Navy, or what?
Just wondering.
Mark.
Jeffrey A Smidt
USS (United States Ship) is the prefix for all US warships. USNS (United
States Naval Ship) is the prefix for all Military Sealift Command Ships.
They are owned (Are at least leased) by the Navy, but crewed by a mixture of
Civilians and Military Crew. Some auxilleries such as tankers, ammo ships,
tugs, oceanographic reaserch ships plus a few others.
--
Jeffrey A Smidt
Thierry Hubert Arlandis
Mark Kimelheim <kimel...@sb.com> wrote:
>
>It's seems that most US Navy ships are called "USS something", meaning United
>States Ship something", but I occasionally see "USNS somethingelse", which
>presumably means "United States Navy Ship somethingelse". What is the
>significance of the USNS designation? Are USNS vessels not commissioned, or
>not crewed by active duty Navy, or what?
>
>Just wondering.
>
Those ships belong to the Military Sealift Command and are manned by
civilian crew. I don't think that they are armed either, at least in
peacetime. Most of them are supply ships or oilers, with some test and
experimentation ships. I am not sure but i think that the T-AGOS ships are
also under the MSC. The Royal Navy has got an equivalent to this, it's
called the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
Thierry
Kim Cochrane
>In article <15MAY199...@sb.com>,
>Mark Kimelheim <kimel...@sb.com> wrote:
>>
>>It's seems that most US Navy ships are called "USS something", meaning
United
>>States Ship something", but I occasionally see "USNS somethingelse",
which
>>presumably means "United States Navy Ship somethingelse". What is the
>>significance of the USNS designation? Are USNS vessels not commissioned,
or
>>not crewed by active duty Navy, or what?
>>
>>Just wondering.
>>
>
>USS (United States Ship) is the prefix for all US warships. USNS (United
>States Naval Ship) is the prefix for all Military Sealift Command Ships.
They
>are owned (Are at least leased) by the Navy, but crewed by a mixture of
>Civilians and Military Crew. Some auxilleries such as tankers, ammo
ships,
>tugs, oceanographic reaserch ships plus a few others. --
>
>Jeffrey A Smidt
>
> jsm...@iastate.edu
Isn,t there a difference in the stack markings between USS and USNS?--
ken cochrane
TScho1
> Isn,t there a difference in the stack markings between USS and
>USNS?--
Yes, MSC ships carry a blue and gold(yellow) band around their stacks.
Those assigned to fleet support tasks also carry their hull numbers like
USN ships, other ships in the MSC don't.
Thomas Schoene
Tscho1.aol.com {It's not my fault, really it isn't}
"I must have left my .sig in my other account"
Alan M. Horowitz
official duties.
It's a great posting for a squid. Private staterooms, good place to make rank,
incredible mess service.
Downside is they underway _all the time_.
John Kelleher
: It's a great posting for a squid. Private staterooms, good place to
: make rank, incredible mess service.
A number of year ago my uncle helped design one of the SLBM missile
transport ships. (Kept a fresh stock of missiles at overseas ports.)
One of the most unique features aboard was specifically put there to
entice civilian crew to join the ship. (Seems that the US doesn't pay
its crews as well as commercial carriers.) So the ship he designed was,
at the time, the only vessel in the navy with a swimming pool!
John
--
kell...@netcom.com
Michael Bradshaw
Cochrane) wrote:
> Isn,t there a difference in the stack markings between USS and USNS?--
> ken cochrane
Blue band on USNS stacks.
Mike
Alan M. Horowitz
>Downside is they underway _all the time_.
Always two side to every coin. Anecdotes claim that these things are little
love boats. Carrier sailors get the fancy ballcaps - but they don't get laid....
Mark Borgerson
no one got laid (at least in the heterosexual way)--no women aboard
then. But we did have great food (while the greens lasted), excellent
quarters (two- or 4-man staterooms for E-3s etc) and hardly ever
rolled more than 3 degrees. The ship had a civilian captain and
crew, and embarked military as the mission required. We did stay at sea
for up to six weeks at a time--often with only two 2-3 day
stops at Pago-Pago for provisions. TDY on the Wheeling was as close
to heaven as an Ensign (or E-3) can get and still be at sea in
uniform.
On the other hand....
I also spend several weeks TDY aboard the USS MCMorris (DE-1052 or
1053 --have to check my souvenier belt buckle) The MCMorris was
cramped, the ship rolled 35 degrees with regularity, and the
food in the wardroom was pretty poor. We were north of Midway in
December and the weather was terrible. That class of DE was diesel
powered and had a round bottom. A bunch of additional superstructure
added a lot of topside weight--which worsened the rolling. All in
all, several weeks of misery for 10 minutes of hard work. I will
say that the captain and crew did their best to accomplish the
mission--none of the misery was their fault. They were real
destroyer sailors and I admire them for doing their job well
under terrible conditions.
Between these two ships, I guess I came out about even. But then I
spent the rest of my three years after OCS all on shore duty in Hawaii,
not exactly hardship duty for the Vietnam-era navy.
Mark Borgerson
Kelly Hall
Alan> Always two side to every coin. Anecdotes claim that these
Alan> things are little love boats. Carrier sailors get the fancy
Alan> ballcaps - but they don't get laid....
Read those Navy News Service postings more carefully: now that the
Navy is putting females onboard carriers, some folks get the fancy
hats *and* get laid.
I understand that adding the extra privacy partitions and female heads
has taken away from berthing areas: I heard Lincoln lost around 200
racks during that conversion. Call me wimpy, but I think carrier
seatime is inconvenient enough without adding hot-racking to the game.
Kelly
--
Kelly Hall <ha...@lal.cs.byu.edu>
http://lal.cs.byu.edu/people/hall.html