The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol to identify their ships by type and by individual ship within a type. The system is analogous to the pennant number system that the Royal Navy and other European and Commonwealth navies use.
The United States Merchant Marine refers to either United States civilian mariners, or to U.S. civilian and federally owned merchant vessels. Both the civilian mariners and the merchant vessels are managed by a combination of the government and private sectors, and engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine primarily transports cargo and passengers during peacetime; in times of war, the Merchant Marine can be an auxiliary to the United States Navy, and can be called upon to deliver military personnel and materiel for the military. Merchant Marine officers may also be commissioned as military officers by the Department of Defense. This is commonly achieved by commissioning unlimited tonnage Merchant Marine officers as Strategic Sealift Officers in the United States Navy Reserve.
Military Sealift Command (MSC) is an organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the United States Navy. Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and ocean transportation for all US military services as well as for other government agencies. It first came into existence on 9 July 1949 when the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) became solely responsible for the Department of Defense's ocean transport needs. The MSTS was renamed the Military Sealift Command in 1970.
HSV-2 Swift is a hybrid catamaran. She was privately owned and operated by Sealift Inc., and was originally built under the JHSV program as a proof of concept. As part of this program, she was directly leased for evaluation from her builders by the United States Navy Military Sealift Command from 2003 to 2013, primarily as a mine countermeasures and sea basing test platform. Later during her official naval career she was mostly used for fleet support and humanitarian partnership missions.
The Philippine Navy (PN) is the naval warfare service branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. It has an estimated strength of 25,000 active service personnel, including the 12,500-strong Philippine Marine Corps. It operates 81 combat ships, 12 auxiliary ships, 25 aircraft and 8 unmanned aerial vehicles. It shares the responsibility of patrolling the maritime borders with the Philippine Coast Guard, a formerly attached unit which became a separate maritime law enforcement agency in 1998.
The Mark V SOC was a marine security, patrol, and special forces insertion boat used by the United States Navy and manufactured by VT Halter Marine Inc. It was introduced into service with the US Navy SEALs in 1995. It was removed from service in 2013.
The Republic of Vietnam Navy was the naval branch of the South Vietnamese military, the official armed forces of the former Republic of Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. The early fleet consisted of boats from France. After 1955 and the transfer of the armed forces to Vietnamese control, the fleet was supplied from the United States. With assistance from the U.S., the VNN became the largest Southeast Asian navy, with 42,000 personnel, 672 amphibious ships and craft, 20 mine warfare vessels, 450 patrol craft, 56 service craft, and 242 junks.
USNS Safeguard (T-ARS-50),, is the lead ship of her class and the second United States Navy ship of that name.
USNS Able (T-AGOS-20) is a Victorious-class oceanographic survey ship in the service of the United States Navy's Military Sealift Command.
USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23) is an Impeccable-class ocean surveillance ship acquired by the U.S. Navy in 2001 and assigned to Military Sealift Command's Special Missions Program.
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 U.S. allies or partner nations as of 2015. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction, and five other carriers planned. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the U.S. Navy is the third largest of the U.S. military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 290 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of June 2019.
Bollinger Shipyards is an American constructor of ships, workboats and patrol vessels. Its thirteen shipyards and forty drydocks are located in Louisiana and Texas. Its drydocks range in capacity from vessels of 100 tons displacement to 22,000 tons displacement. The firm was founded in 1946.
The Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport (EPF) is a United States Navy–led shipbuilding program to provide "a platform intended to support users in the Department of the Navy and Department of the Army. The Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) program is a cooperative effort for a high-speed, shallow draft vessel intended for rapid intratheater transport of medium-sized cargo payloads. The EPF will reach speeds of 35–45 knots and will allow for the rapid transit and deployment of conventional or special forces as well as equipment and supplies." The vessels are a part of Military Sealift Command's Sealift Program. The class was previously designated as "Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV)", but was redesignated in September 2015.
An Expeditionary Transfer Dock (ESD), formerly the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP), are designed to be a semi-submersible, flexible, modular platform providing the US Navy with the capability to perform large-scale logistics movements such as the transfer of vehicles and equipment from sea to shore. These ships significantly reduce the dependency on foreign ports and provide support in the absence of port availability. The class also houses a sub-class variant called the Expeditionary Mobile Base (ESB), formerly the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB).
USNS Spearhead(T-EPF-1) is the first Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport to be operated by the Military Sealift Command. USNS Spearhead was christened on 17 September 2011.
USNS Montford Point (T-ESD-1),, the lead ship of her class of Expeditionary Transfer Docks (ESD), is a ship named in honor of African American Marine Corps recruits who trained at Montford Point Camp, North Carolina, from 1942 to 1949. After $115 million was allocated for long-lead time material and advanced design efforts, in late 2010 General Dynamics's National Steel and Shipbuilding Company was awarded the contract, worth approximately $500 million, to build the first of three planned vessels.
The Marine Branch (1918-1986) was a branch of the Royal Air Force (RAF) which operated watercraft in support of RAF operations. Just days after the creation of the RAF itself, the Marine Craft Section (MCS) was created with the transfer of Royal Navy Air Service (RNAS) vessels and personnel to the new service. Originally tasked with the support of RNAS, and later RAF, seaplanes, Marine Craft Section was to achieve its greatest size during the Second World War, and achieved fame for its role in air-sea rescue operations. After the war MCS was granted full branch status on 11 December 1947, however post war the role of the new branch became greatly reduced with the end of the British Empire, the withdrawal of flying boats from service, and the increasing use of helicopters in air-sea rescue. The branch was disestablished on 8 January 1986.
BRP Tarlac (LD-601) is the lead ship of her class of landing platform docks in service with the Philippine Navy. She is the second ship to be named after the Philippine province of Tarlac, one of the provinces considered to have significant involvement in the Philippine Revolution of independence against Spain.
United States