U.S. Navy Auxiliary Ships

Repair & Battle Damage Keeping the Fleet in the Fight

Floating industrial plants that could fabricate replacement parts from raw stock, weld shattered hulls, rebuild engines, and rewire electrical systems — all at a forward anchorage thousands of miles from the nearest shipyard. Vulcan-class and Hector-class repair ships turned atolls like Ulithi and Manus into full-service fleet repair bases. A cruiser could come alongside with torpedo damage and sail away with new hull plating. The repair ships made the Pacific advance possible by eliminating the need to send damaged ships home. Read more

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ARB

ARB-1 - ARB-12

Battle Damage Repair Ships (ARB)

Emergency Combat Repair

Converted from LST hulls and designed to go where the fighting was — literally beaching alongside damaged ships in forward areas too dangerous for full-sized repair ships. ARBs carried welding equipment, hull repair materials, and damage control teams that could patch a ship enough to get it back to a tender or shipyard. They operated at Okinawa and the Philippines, repairing kamikaze damage on ships that couldn't be moved. Emergency rooms for wounded warships, built on landing craft that could drive onto any beach. Read more

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ARL

ARL-1 - ARL-42

Landing Craft Repair Ships (ARL)

Fix the Boats That Hit the Beach

Also converted from LST hulls, ARLs specialized in repairing the amphibious fleet — the landing craft, LCIs, LCTs, and LCMs that took damage running onto hostile beaches. They carried spare propellers, ramps, hull plates, and engines specific to amphibious craft. At every major Pacific and European landing, ARLs anchored offshore and repaired landing craft fast enough to send them back for the next wave. Thirty-nine ships dedicated to keeping the amphibious force operational under fire. Read more

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Floating Dry Docks Shipyards That Sailed to the War

AFDL

AFD-1 - AFDL-47

Small Floating Dry Docks (AFD/AFDL)

Auxiliary Floating Docks — Light

Small sectional floating dry docks that could lift destroyer escorts, submarines, minesweepers, and patrol craft out of the water for underwater hull repair, propeller replacement, and bottom painting at forward bases. Towed to anchorages across the Pacific, they eliminated the need to send small combatants back to Pearl Harbor or the West Coast for routine drydocking. A submarine returning from a war patrol could get its hull scraped and propellers inspected without leaving the forward area. Read more

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AFDM

AFDM-1 - AFDM-14

Medium Floating Dry Docks (AFDM)

Auxiliary Floating Docks — Medium

Medium floating dry docks capable of lifting destroyers, light cruisers, and large auxiliaries. Sectional steel construction meant they could be partially disassembled, towed across oceans, and reassembled at forward bases. At Ulithi, Manus, and Espiritu Santo, AFDMs drydocked damaged destroyers alongside repair ships — creating complete shipyard capability thousands of miles from the continental United States. Several remain in active Navy service today, stationed at bases worldwide. Read more

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AFDB

AFDB-1 - AFDB-9

Large Floating Dry Docks (AFDB)

Auxiliary Floating Docks — Big

The largest floating structures the Navy ever built. AFDB large floating dry docks could lift battleships and aircraft carriers out of the water — 90,000-ton capacity in a dock that was itself towed across the Pacific in sections. AFDB-1 at Manus could drydock anything in the fleet. The concept was audacious: build a drydock big enough for a battleship, tow it 4,000 miles through submarine-infested waters, anchor it at a coral atoll, and use it to repair the ships that got hit. The Navy did it repeatedly. Read more

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ARD

ARD-1 - ARDM-4

Auxiliary Repair Docks (ARD/ARDM)

Repair Docks with Machine Shops

Floating dry docks with their own built-in machine shops, welding stations, and repair facilities. Where standard floating docks just lifted ships out of the water, ARDs could actually fix them while they sat in the dock. Submarines, destroyer escorts, and minesweepers could be lifted, have their hulls repaired, propellers replaced, and underwater fittings overhauled — all without a tender alongside. Self-contained drydock and repair shop in one hull. Several ARDMs still operate at Navy bases today. Read more

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Heavy Lift & Crane Ships Moving the Unmovable

T-ACS

T-ACS-1 - T-ACS-6

Auxiliary Crane Ships (T-ACS)

Container Discharge at Sea

Converted container ships fitted with twin pedestal cranes capable of discharging cargo containers at ports with no crane infrastructure. In a contested logistics scenario — a beach, a damaged port, a pier in a country without container handling equipment — T-ACS ships could unload an entire cargo ship using their own cranes. Part of the Maritime Prepositioning Force and Ready Reserve Fleet, these ships represent the Navy's ability to project logistics ashore anywhere in the world, even where the port infrastructure doesn't exist yet. Read more

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Hospital Ships Mercy at Sea

AH

AH-5 - AH-19

WWII Hospital Ships (AH)

Painted white with red crosses, brightly illuminated at night, and unarmed under the Geneva Convention — hospital ships operated alongside the fleet at every major battle of WWII. USS Comfort, USS Solace, USS Relief, and their sisters received casualties directly from the beaches by boat and helicopter. At Okinawa, kamikaze pilots attacked hospital ships despite their protected status — USS Comfort was hit on April 28, 1945, killing 28 and wounding 48. The white ships went everywhere the fleet went and treated everyone who was brought aboard. Read more

1,000-Bed Floating Hospitals

The largest hospital ships in the world. USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort — converted San Clemente-class supertankers — carry 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms, a 5,000-unit blood bank, and a full medical staff capable of treating mass casualties. They've deployed to every conflict from Desert Storm to Iraq, and to humanitarian disasters from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. During COVID-19, Comfort deployed to New York City and Mercy to Los Angeles. Two ships that represent American medical capability and humanitarian commitment worldwide. Maintained in reduced operating status by MSC, they can activate and sail within five days. Read more

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Intelligence & Surveillance The Ships That Watched and Listened

AGR

AGR-1 - AGR-16

Radar Picket Ships (AGR)

Early Warning Sentinels

Converted Liberty ships and other hulls fitted with long-range radar and stationed at fixed ocean picket stations to provide early warning of Soviet bomber attacks approaching North America. Part of the DEW Line-at-sea concept, AGRs operated at lonely stations in the North Atlantic and Pacific, maintaining radar watch 24 hours a day. Miserable duty — weeks on station in heavy seas, doing nothing but watching a radar screen. Replaced by shore-based over-the-horizon radar and AWACS aircraft in the 1960s. The ships the Cold War forgot. Read more

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AGS

AGS / T-AGS

Surveying Ships (AGS)

Charting the Ocean Floor

Every chart the fleet uses to navigate was surveyed by a ship like these. Surveying ships map the ocean floor, measure water depths, identify underwater hazards, and produce the hydrographic data that becomes naval navigation charts. During the Cold War, T-AGS ships mapped the ocean floor for submarine operations — identifying thermocline layers, undersea ridges, and deep channels that SSBNs could use to hide. Today, the Pathfinder-class T-AGS ships (T-AGS-60 to T-AGS-67) continue the mission. Submarines can't hide in water that hasn't been surveyed. These ships survey it. Read more

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T-AGOS

T-AGOS-1 - T-AGOS-23

Ocean Surveillance Ships (T-AGOS)

SURTASS Submarine Trackers

The most secretive auxiliary ships in the fleet. Stalwart-class and Victorious-class T-AGOS ships tow the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) — miles-long passive sonar arrays that detect submarine acoustic signatures at ranges the Navy doesn't discuss publicly. They feed data directly to shore-based processing centers as part of the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System. Impeccable-class SWATH-hull ships (T-AGOS-23) represent the latest evolution. Civilian-crewed by MSC, these ships have been quietly tracking submarines for four decades. The ocean surveillance mission that began with SOSUS hydrophone arrays now rides aboard these ships. Read more

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Rescue & Salvage Saving Ships and Submariners

ARS

ARS-5 - ARS-53

Rescue and Salvage Ships (ARS)

The Last Call Before a Ship Is Lost

When a ship is burning, sinking, grounded, or dead in the water — salvage ships respond. Diver-class (ARS-5) ships of WWII raised sunken vessels at Pearl Harbor and pulled ships off reefs across the Pacific. Bolster-class (ARS-38) ships served through Korea and Vietnam. Today's Safeguard-class (ARS-50) carries deep-sea diving teams, heavy towing gear, firefighting equipment, and salvage pumps. They've pulled destroyers off sandbars, towed disabled carriers, fought fires on burning ammunition ships, and recovered classified equipment from the ocean floor. Four ships — always forward deployed, always the last resort. Read more

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ASR

ASR-7 - ASR-22

Submarine Rescue Vessels (ASR)

Purpose-built to rescue the crews of sunken submarines. The McCann Rescue Chamber — first used in 1939 to save 33 men from USS Squalus at 240 feet — was the pioneering system. Chanticleer-class and Pigeon-class ASRs carried the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV), capable of mating with a disabled submarine's escape hatch at depth and extracting crew. When USS Thresher was lost in 1963 and USS Scorpion in 1968, the submarine rescue force proved that some depths are beyond rescue — but the mission endures. Today, the Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System (SRDRS) is flyable by C-5 aircraft to wherever it's needed. Read more

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Fleet Support & Services The Unglamorous Essentials

AW

AW-1 - AW-4

Distilling Ships (AW)

Fresh Water for the Fleet

Ships whose sole mission was producing fresh water — 120,000 gallons per day from seawater distillation plants. At forward bases across the Pacific, distilling ships provided the drinking water, boiler feed water, and washdown water that sustained entire anchorages full of warships. Before reverse osmosis made every modern warship self-sufficient, fresh water was a critical logistics commodity. Four ships converting seawater to survival. The most boring and most essential auxiliary in the fleet. Read more

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AN

AN-1 - AN-103

Net Laying Ships (AN)

Before sonar and ASW patrols, the primary defense against submarine and torpedo attack in harbors was a steel anti-torpedo net stretched across the entrance. Net laying ships installed, maintained, and recovered these nets. On December 7, 1941, the anti-torpedo nets at Pearl Harbor had been opened for routine traffic — a gap the Japanese midget submarines attempted to exploit. After Pearl Harbor, every anchorage in the Pacific got torpedo nets, and net layers were among the first auxiliaries to arrive at newly captured bases. One hundred three ships dedicated to a defensive technology as old as harbor chains. Read more

Undersea Communications

Cable ships lay and maintain the undersea communication cables and surveillance arrays that span the ocean floor. During the Cold War, they installed and maintained the SOSUS hydrophone network that tracked Soviet submarines across the Atlantic and Pacific. Today, USNS Zeus (T-ARC-7) maintains military fiber optic cables that carry intelligence and communications traffic the Navy doesn't acknowledge publicly. The cables on the ocean floor carry more classified military data than most satellites. These ships tend the wires. Read more

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AP/APA

AMPHIBIOUS FORCE

Transports (AP/APA/AKA)

Troops and Cargo to the Beach

Attack transports (APA) carried assault troops and their landing craft. Attack cargo ships (AKA) carried the vehicles, ammunition, and supplies those troops needed ashore. Together they formed the backbone of every amphibious assault from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. Bayfield-class APAs and Andromeda-class AKAs could put a fully equipped Marine regiment ashore with everything they needed to fight. At their peak, the Navy operated over 500 transports and cargo ships — the bridge between American industrial power and the beaches where that power was applied. Read more

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Prepositioning & Sealift Ready to Deploy — Anywhere

T-AK/T-AKR

MPS SQUADRONS

Maritime Prepositioning Ships

A Marine Brigade Loaded and Waiting

Fourteen ships loaded with everything a Marine Expeditionary Brigade needs to fight — tanks, artillery, ammunition, fuel, water, food, medical supplies, and vehicles — anchored at Diego Garcia, Guam, and the Mediterranean. When a crisis erupts, Marines fly to the nearest airfield and their equipment sails to meet them. MPS ships cut deployment time from months to days. During Desert Storm, MPS ships from Diego Garcia had Marine equipment ashore in Saudi Arabia within weeks of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The ultimate expression of American power projection: an entire brigade's worth of equipment, floating and ready. Read more

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T-AKR

T-AKR-300+

Bob Hope & Watson-Class

Large Medium-Speed Roll-On/Roll-Off

The largest sealift ships in American service. Bob Hope-class and Watson-class LMSRs can load an entire Army heavy brigade combat team — Abrams tanks, Bradleys, Strykers, and everything else — through drive-on stern ramps and side ports. Nearly 400,000 square feet of vehicle deck space per ship. These are the ships that deploy the Army. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, LMSRs delivered over 90% of the equipment that fought the ground war. The Navy and Army don't always agree on much, but they agree on this: without sealift, the Army doesn't deploy. Read more

Mothballed cargo ships, tankers, and vehicle carriers maintained in reduced operating status by the Maritime Administration, ready to activate within 5 to 20 days for surge sealift. The Ready Reserve Force is the nation's insurance policy against a conflict that demands more sealift than the active MSC fleet can provide. During Desert Shield/Storm, RRF ships activated and delivered. The problem: the fleet is aging, with average ship age exceeding 45 years. Readiness exercises have exposed ships that can't get underway. The RRF is America's sealift reserve — if it works when called. Read more

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Specialized & Experimental The Odd Jobs of the Fleet

AGOR

AGOR / T-AGOR

Research Vessels (AGOR/T-AGOR)

Oceanographic Research

Oceanographic research vessels operated by the Navy, NOAA, and academic institutions under Navy contract. They study ocean acoustics, deep-sea geology, marine biology, and underwater phenomena that directly support naval operations — particularly submarine warfare. Understanding how sound travels through water is the foundation of anti-submarine warfare. Every tactical advantage a submarine or its hunters have comes from oceanographic data these ships collected. The line between pure science and naval intelligence has never existed on these ships. Read more

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T-AGM

T-AGM / USNS

Missile Range Ships (T-AGM)

Tracking What Goes Up

Ships stationed downrange of missile test corridors to track ICBM and SLBM test flights. Equipped with precision radar, telemetry receivers, and optical tracking systems, T-AGMs recorded the performance data of ballistic missile tests that couldn't be observed from land stations. USNS Observation Island tracked Trident missile tests for decades. USNS Howard O. Lorenzen (T-AGM-25), equipped with the Cobra King radar, continues missile tracking and space surveillance missions. The ships that watched America's nuclear deterrent prove itself worked. Read more

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