Anew ship, the U. S. Navy’s largest and fastest attack transport, joined the Fleet in August, 1958. The USS Paul Revere (APA-248) was converted to a military type from a Mariner type cargo ship (C4-S-la, as designated by the Maritime Administration), the SS Diamond Mariner.
The Paul Revere is the fourth of five ships obtained by the Navy from the original 35 Mariner ship construction program. Two ships were converted to the USS Compass Island (EAG-153) and the USS Observation Island (EAG-154) to be used in the development program leading to the Polaris weapon system. The third was described in the July, 1959 Proceedings, the attack cargo ship USS Tulare (AKA-112). The remaining ship is now undergoing conversion to a second attack transport, the USS Francis Marion (APA-249).
The purpose of the attack transport in naval warfare is threefold. First, she should be able to carry a large body of equipped troops from one location to another at high speed. Second, means should be provided to land the troops and their equipment expeditiously and under widely varying conditions of beach terrain or port development. Third, the ship should be equipped with logistic and command support for the troops ashore to the greatest amount possible.
Relatively high sustained sea speed was included in the design of the Mariner type cargo ship for national defense purposes and the Paul Revere can maintain a sea speed of twenty knots with an endurance of 10,000 miles at this maximum speed. Accommodations for a reinforced battalion of Marines are provided in addition to the accommodations for the regular Navy crew. Large hold spaces are available to transport the equipment and supplies required by the embarked troops. The ship, as converted, has a cargo deadweight capacity of about 3,000 tons. Vehicle stowage in the hold has been provided with a special ventilation system to permit operational testing of the vehicles while the ship is at sea with hatch covers closed. Habitability features have been given considerable attention in the conversion of this ship. Special modular furniture has been provided in the crew’s quarters with a locker for each berth, berth lighting, adjustable ventilation, and foam rubber mattresses. The troop quarters, while more austerely furnished than those of the crew, are more commodious than in previous attack transports
The second requirement for landing troops and equipment has been taken care of with provisions for conventional landing craft methods, and in addition, by the vertical envelopment technique using helicopters. Multiple boat stowages are provided. Four Welin davits have been installed. These are of a new type which permits the landing craft to be stowed two-deep at the davits. This type of installation permits rapid handling of personnel carrying landing craft (LCVP). In addition, the ship is equipped with deck stowage for additional boats including heavy equipment carrying landing craft (LCM). These deck stowages are serviced by several 10-ton cargo booms and two sixty-ton booms for handling tanks and other heavy lifts. An interesting feature of the cargo handling equipment provided is the quadropod design of the forward and after masts on which the sixty-ton and some of the ten-ton booms are stepped. The hatch covers are of the folding type to permit expeditious handling. The helicopter facilities, installed in the Paul Revere for the first time in any attack transport, consist of the helicopter landing platform provided aft. To provide a rapid means of delivering cargo and troops to the helicopter platform an elevator has been installed. This elevator has a weight carrying capacity of eight tons.
The third function of command and logistics support has been given considerable attention. Command facilities include communications and adequate specially fitted command stations to enable the Paul Revere to serve as headquarters for a three-battalion landing operation. One of the most interesting- systems installed is a newly developed method for rapidly setting up a communications operational plan. Old style patch panel and manual switching methods have been replaced with a dial system. This permits a rapid and automatic means of selecting pre-set frequencies, and greatly reduces the time to make changes in operational frequency plans. Adequate troop radio spaces are provided; a flag plot is installed; and a supporting arms coordinating center has been included. Of course, the very extensive command and control facilities provided in a ship designed for this purpose alone have not been attained, but significant improvements over existing attack transports have been made. In addition to these command and control facilities the Paul Revere has extensive medical facilities on board. These include a thirty-bed hospital with two fully-equipped operating rooms, three auxiliary operating rooms, and adequate dental facilities. This large scale medical support capability is highly important for a ship taking part in amphibious operations.
Length |
564 feet |
Beam |
76 feet |
Draft |
25 feet 6 inches |
Sustained Sea Speed |
20 knots |
Endurance |
10,000 miles @ 20 knots |
Propulsion |
17,500 SHP, single screw, steam geared turbine |
Displacement Full Load |
16,800 tons |
Cargo deadweight |
2,800 tons |
Troops Capacity |
Reinforced battalion |
A number of references have been made to the Mariner type (C4-S-la) Maritime Administration cargo ship design in recent issues of the Naval Institute Proceedings. Of particular interest are the articles by Captain Rutter on the Attack Cargo Ship in the July, 1959 Proceedings and by Mr. Hamshar on page 133 of the April, 1959 Proceedings. A historical review of the origins of this design and the present status of its use should prove interesting to the reader.
The excellent paper by Vito L. Russo and E. Kemper Sullivan, both of the Maritime Administration staff, on the “Design of the Mariner Type Ship” in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (Volume 61, 1953) supplies a thorough and most interesting story of the design goals, the various mutually antagonistic requirements, and the compromise solutions reached in this ship design.
The actual preliminary design of the Mariner class cargo ship began in 1948. The basic conditions and circumstances existing at that time were such as to deter rather than to induce new cargo ship construction by U. S. operators. However, as stated by Russo and Sullivan, “the outstanding character of ships which foreign competitors were building at increasing tempo, the necessity for maintaining a competitive position against these ships, and the necessity for meeting national defense requirements imposed by changed circumstances, demanded the design and construction of faster and larger cargo ships to implement the U. S. Merchant Marine and to make available complete and checked ship designs for ready adaption to emergency requirements.
The problem was to produce a ship design which would meet Navy requirements for auxiliary ships converted from the design and at the same time to design a cargo ship for commercial use. A cargo ship designed for a specific operator and for a given trade route can be tailor-made to fit the nature of the cargo to be carried, the port facilities to be encountered, etc. A ship like the proposed Mariner had to be extremely versatile as to cargo capacity, handling facilities, and other commercial characteristics if it was to satisfy the varying needs of the operators. The basic decisions were taken to design a twenty-knot sustained sea speed ship (faster than any existing U. S. cargo ship) with operational characteristics similar to those of the Maritime Administration C-3 design which had been well accepted by U. S. operators. These operational characteristics were: cargo deadweight 10,300 tons; bale cubic 750,000 cubic feet, reefer cubic 30,000 cubic feet; permanent bunker capacity as required for an endurance of 12,500 miles at twenty knots.
The advent of the Korean war moved the Mariner type rapidly from the preliminary design stages to the construction stage, and 35 of these ships were built between 1953 and 1954.
As described by Mr. Hamshar in the article cited above, the advent of these large, fast ships was greeted with something less than whole-hearted enthusiasm by U. S. operators. There was no great rush on their part to undertake the operation of these ships, until high speed foreign cargo ships began to prove their worth. Then in 1954 when the price for the sale of the Mariners was set by Congress to “make them among the outstanding bargains in Maritime History” they were readily sold. The Navy was able to save only five of these ships from the general rush for the purpose of making the various conversions already mentioned.
At the present time plans are being made by at least three U. S. operators to build new ships which are essentially Mariners in hull and machinery design, with special interior and topside arrangements to meet the operator’s needs. Descriptions of these ships can be found in Marine Engineering Log for May 31, 1959. These “preview ships” include three fast freighters for the American Mail Line, two large cargo liners for the Pacific Far East Line, and planned additions to the American President Line.
The USS Paul Revere, our newest and largest attack transport is a fine example of the value of cooperative design of our merchant fleet with the planned inclusion of national defense features so that a great potential exists for efficient emergency military use of commercially successful designs.