Vertrep !

delft said:

Seeing men manhandling packages that were just delivered by helicopter reminded me of an anecdote in one of Nicolas Monserrat's books about his time in corvettes in the early '40's. The ship's ammunition was replenished by a sailing barge and he said the sailing barge's cargo handling equipment was more modern than the corvette's.

Click to expand...

Do you know what a "knee knocker" is on a ship? Pallet jacks are good from the flight deck into the hanger (if the ship isn't rolling too much!), but not any further. Stowing freight requires strong backs. Modern US warships have a couple of wide companionways and wide, gently sloping ladders on the normal replenishment route from deck to the storage lockers to make unrep go faster, but you can't run the whole pallet through the ship. Most passageways are barely wide enough for two sailors to pass each other in.
The exception of course are the replenishment ships which have big elevators and wide decks for fork lifts to move freight all the way from the hold to the STREAM rig or flight deck. You would love watching forklifts struggling for traction when the ship rolls. It's nothing like a stationary warehouse.

I can imaging. I was only once on board a warship, for several hours on the Dutch aircraft carrier Karel Doorman, in the port of Rotterdam about 45 years ago. I have read that passage ways have become a little wider on newer ships. The ship was sold to Argentina in 1969 and became the 25 de Mayo.

My previous reply was somewhat abrupt, I'm sorry. But I do feel that one should think of mechanizing the handling of vertrep loads on board the combat ships, perhaps allowing vertrep at higher sea states and wind speeds and especially on smaller ships.