FAS | Military | DOD 101 | Systems | Ships ||||
Index | Search | Join FAS

Ready Reserve Force (RRF)

The Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration (MARAD) maintains cargo ships in the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) to provide prompt sealift support in the event they are needed for the rapid deployment of military forces. The RRF was created on 14 February 1977 specifically to enhance the readiness of sealift to respond rapidly in any contingency. The RRF (a quick response subset of the NDRF) is a select group of ships within the NDRF, which are relatively modern, highly militarily useful ships, rigorously maintained to meet Coast Guard and American Bureau of Shipping standards.

Ships for the RRF are acquired by upgrading selected ships from the NDRF, transferring merchant-type ships from the Navy, or direct purchases from U.S. or foreign owners. All RRF vessels must have both a high degree of military utility and a significant remaining useful life. MarAd contracts with established ship managers for maintenance and repair, activation, manning and operation Readiness of the RRF is tested by no-notice activations of randomly selected ships or scheduled activations for military cargo operations and exercises. RRF ships are also used as platforms for cargo handling training by Navy and Army reserve units. Some RRF vessels also receive modifications and improvements to make them more militarily useful.

The RRF includes RO/RO cargo ships, breakbulk ships, barge carriers, Auxiliary Crane Ships (ACSs), tankers, and two troop ships for surge sealift requirement which are capable of handling bulky, oversized military equipment. There is a shortage of RO/RO ships on the commercial market making RRF ships especially valuable. Thirty-one of the required 36 RO/ROs needed in the RRF, based on the Mobility Requirements Study (MRS) and MRS Bottom Up Review Update (BURU), have been acquired. To attain the program total of 36 RO/ROs, five more ships need to be purchased and upgraded. These five ships represent 550,000 square feet of capacity — a heavy brigade's worth of lift. The RRF is expected to increase to a total of 100 ships with the addition of five more roll-on/roll-off vessels and one auxiliary crane ship by 2000.

Some ships in the RRF are strategically located at outport locations to avoid congestion, be closer to actual military cargo loading ports, and to provide quick response to military force requirements, while other RRF ships are at other sites in CONUS and overseas. The Outporting Program provides contracted lay berths for RRF ships near the expected loading ports for defense cargoes. At year's end, 53 RRF vessels were assigned to outport locations, 20 on the East Coast, 10 on the Gulf Coast, and 20 on the West Coast. Three small, shallow-draft tankers are outported in Japan. MARAD berths 11 ships in its Ready Reserve Fleet at the former Alameda Naval Air Station navy base.

The Ready Reserve Force is managed by MARAD, but starting with fiscal year 1996, the RRF is funded from the Navy-controlled National Defense Sealift Fund, not through the Department of Transportation's budget as in the past. On average, it costs between $2 million and $3 million per ship per year to maintain the RRF ships in 4- to 20-day readiness status. The FY 1998 level for the RRF is $302 million. MARAD will maintain the current readiness level of the RRF with the $260 million requested by DOD for FY 1999 activities through planned capacity reductions.

They are crewed by Maritime Administration (MARAD) personnel in an increased state of readiness that would permit their activation within four, five, ten and twenty days to meet surge military sealift requirements in the event of war. The highest priority vessels, which are all Roll-on/Roll-off (RO/RO) ships, are maintained in a status which permits reliable activation within 4 or 5 days at their berth sites, allowing expedited loading of critical surge DOD equipment. These vessels have Reduced Operating Status (ROS) crews of merchant mariners aboard carrying out a planned maintenance program. The ROS crews become a part of the operating crew that serves on the activated vessels. The outport and ROS crew provisions greatly enhance the probability of successful activation as has been demonstrated in all recent vessel call-ups. RRF vessels have consistently exceeded activation requirements. When activated, RRF ships come under the operational control of the Military Sealift Command, and are crewed by civilian American seafarers whose normal jobs are aboard the tankers, grain carriers, containerships and other US-flag merchant ships serving the nation's domestic and foreign commerce. More than 3,100 merchant mariners would be required to crew all 98 ships.

MARAD carries on a program of planned periodic activation of RRF vessels. High priority vessels perform an annual sea trial (4 and 5 day readiness status vessels). Lesser priority vessels perform sea trials in alternate years consistent with their particular readiness status. This program was established to further enhance the probability of successful activation by providing a real time insight into the material condition of the vessels. This enables MARAD to make timely maintenance decisions and repairs and better allocate resources.

Activations

The first large-scale activation of RRF ships came in support of operations in the Persian Gulf in 1990 and 1991. On short notice, 3,000 civilians seafarers volunteered to crew the 79 RRF ships activated. In all, U.S.-flag ships with civilian American crews carried about 80 percent of the supplies needed by American and Allied forces in that conflict. In addition to RRF ships, this included U.S.-flag ships in commercial service and commercial ships under charter to the military, as well as cargo ships dedicated to military service.

In 1992, several RRF ships operated in support of humanitarian efforts in Somalia.

In 1994, 14 RRF ships were activated to support America's armed forces in Haiti. More than 400 civilian American seafarers were required to crew them. All were activated ahead of schedule, with an average activation time of 3.1 days.

In support of the deployment of NATO's Rapid Reaction Force intervention in the Bosnia conflict, President Clinton committed the United States to supply sealift capability to move vehicles, ammunition and support equipment to Croatia. Two MARAD RRF ships, the CAPE RACE and CAPE DIAMOND (homeported in Jacksonville) were called upon to carry NATO's cargo in support of Britain's 24th Air Mobile Brigade. The CAPE RACE and CAPE DIAMOND carried more than 92 percent of the total cargo transferred from the UK to Croatia. Included were 2,015 military vehicles, 232 containers and 3,629 pallets of breakbulk cargo. Upon completion of the final delivery, the CAPE RACE was released for return to the United States, stopping briefly at Rota, Spain, to pick up a load of U.S. military cargo on its way to Norfolk.

Ready Reserve Force Ship Manager Contracts
June 1998

Ship Manager	Contract Amount Term	RRF Ships Assigned	Where Located
Apex Marine Ship Management Lake Success, N.Y.	$7,870,195 5 years $13,792,725 5 years $5,074,365 5 years $9,052,940 5 years $1,384,143 3.25 years	Cape Juby Cape Johnson Cape Taylor Cape Texas Cape Trinity Cape John Cape Jacob Diamond State Equality State Gulf Gulf Trader Banker	JRRF Baltimore Houston Houston Houston BRF BRF Houston Houston BRF BRF
Interocean Ugland Management Corp. Voorhees, N.J.	$10,923,265 5 years $6,257,735 5 years $4,620,530 5 years $6,257,735 5 years $10,844,615 5 years	Gopher State Flickertail State Cornhusker State Cape Mendocino Cape May Comet Meteor Cape Fear Cape Mohican Wright Curtiss Cape Nome	Prepositioning Ship Cheatham Annex, Va. Cheatham Annex JRRF Norfolk, Va. NAS Alameda, Calif. NAS Alameda SBRF Oakland, Calif. Baltimore Port Hueneme, Calif. JRRF
Keystone Shipping Services, Inc. Bala Cynwyd, Pa.	$9,575,500 5 years $9,575,500 5 years $9,575,500 5 years $13,822,690 5 years $9,452,330 5 years	Cape Kennedy Cape Knox Cape Victory Cape Vincent Admiral Callaghan Cape Orlando Cape Henry Cape Horn Cape Hudson Green Mountain State Beaver State	New Orleans New Orleans Beaumont, Texas Beaumont San Francisco San Francisco San Francisco San Francisco San Francisco Bremerton, Wash. Bremerton
Mormac Marine Enterprises, Inc. Stamford, Conn.	$2,028,988 5 years $3,983,130 3.25 years $4,097,519 5 years $8,882,610 5 years $2,104.350 5 years	Lake Scan Cape Catawba Cape Lambert Cape Lobos Cape Archway Cape Alexander Cape Alava Cape Ann Cape Avinof Mission Buenaventura Mission Capistrano	JRRF JRRF Cheatham Annex Wilmington, N.C. Wilmington Baltimore Baltimore JRRF Baltimore Baltimore BRF BRF
Marine Transport Lines, Inc. Weehawken, N.J.	$1,821,710 3.25 years $10,155,570 5 years $10,155,570 5 years $10,155,570 5 years $1,821,710 3.25 years	Cape Cod Cape Chalmers Cape Edmont Cape Ducato Cape Decision Cape Douglas Cape Diamond Cape Domingo Cape Bon Northern Light	JRRF JRRF Charleston, S.C. Charleston Charleston Charleston Charleston Charleston SBRF SBRF
Ocean Duchess, Inc. Houston	$3,036,000 5 years	Alatna Chattahoohchee Nodaway	Tsuneishi, Japan Tsuneishi, Japan Tsuneishi, Japan
Patriot Contract Services, LLC Walnut Creek, Calif.	$6,895,110 5 years $9,247,810 5 years $8,384,140 5 years	Cape Breton Cape Bover Cape Blanco Cape Borda Cape Gibson Cape Girardeau	Alameda, Calif. Alameda Alameda Alameda Alameda Alameda
Pacific-Gulf Marine, Inc Gretna, La.	$1,242,027 3.25 years $1,242,027 3.25 years	Pioneer Commander Pioneer Contractor Banner Courier	BRF BRF BRF BRF
Sea-Land Service,Inc. Charlotte, N.C.	$13,729,875 5 years $8,860,450 5 years $9,299,650 5 years $8,860,450 5 years	Cape Race Cape Ray Cape Rise Cape Washington Cape Wrath Cape Intrepid Cape Island Cape Isabel Cape Inscription	Portsmouth, Va. Portsmouth Portsmouth Baltimore Baltimore Tacoma,Wash. Tacoma Long Beach, Calif. Long Beach
V Ships Marine, Limited Mineola, N.Y.	$3,722,850.00 5 years $3,305,660 5 years $8,458,890 3.25 years $14,631,130 5 years	Cape Florida Cape Flattery Cape Farewell American Osprey Potomac Chesapeake Mount Washington Keystone State Gem State Grand Canyon State Petersburg	BRF BRF BRF Prepo Prepo San Francisco Houston Alameda Alameda Alameda Port Arthur, Tex.

Key: JRRF=the James River Reserve Fleet site in Virginia.; BRF=the Beaumont, Texas, Reserve Fleet; SBRF=Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in California; Prepo=serves as a maritime prepositioning ship for the armed forces.

Sources and Resources

National Defense Reserve Fleet
Humanitarian supplies, equipment arrives in Central America aboard RRF ships Military Sealift Command Newsrelease 14 Dec 1998 -- Residents of Central America got an early Christmas present from the United States as military earth-moving equipment and other construction materials arrived in the region aboard Military Sealift Command's Ready Reserve Force ships.
Transportation Secretary Slater Announces $1.1 Billion in Contracts To Keep Ships Ready for National Defense June 12, 1998 -- Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater today announced the award of 39 performance-based contracts to 10 American ship-owning and -operating companies to manage 89 ships which compose the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) of militarily useful ships maintained in a high state of readiness.
Augmenting the fleet: Cargo delivery system proves its worth Military Sealift Command Newsrelease 13 Jun 1997 -- The modular cargo delivery system [MCDS] MCDS is a mechanized cargo transfer unit. Ships with MCDS installed can conduct underway replenishment services with other US Navy ships, assisting and augmenting the Navy Combat Logistics Force in times of war. By 1991 the 14 MCDS units had been installed on RRF ships.
SHIPS, CREWS HONORED IN BALTIMORE FOR DEFENSE READINESS SUPPORT MAR 12-97 -- The Maritime Administration today honored two Baltimore-based cargo ships, Cape Wrath and Cape Washington, their crews, and the Baltimore maritime community for their support of national defense sealift programs.
Cape Kennedy and Cape Knox Added to Ready Reserve Force MAR 12-96 - MARAD maintains these ships in reduced operating status with 10-person crews, ready for sailing within four days notice.
CIVILIAN SEAFARERS, RRF SHIPS SUPPORT NATO MISSION IN BOSNIA MAR 12-95 -- Defense Department's Transportation Command ordered the activation of two Ready Reserve Force (RRF) cargo ships to support NATO forces in Bosnia.

FAS | Military | DOD 101 | Systems | Ships ||||
Index | Search | Join FAS

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/rrf.htm
Maintained by Robert Sherman
Originally created by John Pike
Updated Wednesday, October 28, 1998 4:59:22 AM

FAS | Military | DOD 101 | Systems | Ships |||| Index | Search | Join FAS

Ready Reserve Force (RRF)

Activations

Ready Reserve Force Ship Manager Contracts June 1998

Sources and Resources

FAS | Military | DOD 101 | Systems | Ships |||| Index | Search | Join FAS

FAS | Military | DOD 101 | Systems | Ships ||||
Index | Search | Join FAS

Ready Reserve Force Ship Manager Contracts
June 1998

FAS | Military | DOD 101 | Systems | Ships ||||
Index | Search | Join FAS