MSC’s Taluga Group Envisions Maritime Logistics Differently

Edward Lundquist November 6, 2024

As the Military Sealift Command (MSC) celebrates its 75th anniversary, it is looking to the future through the eyes of a forward-thinking “innovation cell” named for a ship from its storied past.  USNS Taluga (T-AO-62) was the first Navy replenishment ship that was operated by civil service mariners.

The Taluga Group is a three-person team of Director John Bruening, Dean Vesely and Jerit VanAuker who are focused on capability development and adoption of innovative practices.

The Tulaga Group team have diverse backgrounds to help them look at problems in different ways.  Bruening is a retired navy helicopter pilot; Vesely had a 30-year career as a surface nuclear officer; and VanAuker is a retired limited duty ordnance officer.

“We’re looking at finding new or better ways to use our existing platforms, as well as envisioning different ways to conduct maritime logistics,” said Bruening.

The Taluga Group is working with NavalX, the Navy’s technology accelerator, to find new concepts and technologies, as well as adapt existing capabilities to be able to do something new.  One of the group’s current projects is examining an innovative version of the Jacobs Ladder, used by mariners to climb onto ships—something that seems easy but can often be difficult and dangerous.  

This effort started with the need to provide a safe way to safely embark and debark personnel aboard the Navy’s two large unmanned vessels, Mariner and Ranger, while at sea from small boats or at anchor.  NavalX is investing in the original, patented design from Nautical Structures Industries of Largo, Fla.,  that the Navy refers to as a Modernized Personnel Transfer System (MPTS).

“NavalX got involved because they have the connections with available funding and the right contracting mechanisms, which we didn't have any experience in,” Bruening said.

Bruening  explained that MSC has some ships that have a high freeboard, like the expeditionary fast transports (EPFs), dry cargo/ammunition ships (T-AKEs), large, medium speed roll on/roll off ships (LMSRs) and hospital ships (T-AHs).  “We liked the safety aspect which we could apply to our current ships by installing an automated Jacob’s ladder,” he said.

While the Navy’s new medium and large unmanned surface vessels may not have crews, there will be times that personnel need to come aboard them.  “When a boat crew comes alongside a USV, we can use the automated Jacob's Ladder to provide a safe way to climb aboard the ship.  They come up in a RHIB next to the USV, hit the remote control, and the Jacob's Ladder reels itself out of its drum, comes down the side, and they can then climb the ridged ladder,” Bruening said.

Thinking beyond basic use of a Jacob’s ladder, the group thought about how else MSC could use that capability.  

“We imagined that it could be used to lift a standard Navy litter up to the deck of our hospital ships.  USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) and USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) do have a lift system installed, but it has been unreliable and therefore is not used.  We wanted to see if we could use this Jacob’s ladder not only for its intended purpose, but also for this additional purpose of hoisting litters with patients up to the deck,” said Bruening. “We’re going to install it on Comfort and see how it works.”

Special Delivery

Bruening, Vesely and VanAuker agree that customers tend to take logistics for granted.  “They turn in a requisition and expect the part to show up right away,” said Breuning.

Bruening said MSC’s data analytics team examined the highest priority part requisitions to resolve C4 and C3 CASREPS.  CASREPs are casualty reports submitted by ships to notify higher echelons of significant equipment malfunctions.  C3 and C4 CASREPs indicate that an “equipment deficiency exists in mission-essential equipment that either causes a major degradation, but not loss of a mission area (C3), or causes loss of a mission area (C4).”  What the data showed was that of the thousands of parts MSC delivered to ships at sea in 2018 to fix those problems, 90 percent of them weighed less than 50 lbs.

“In other words, 90 percent of the parts that are breaking your ship weigh less than 50 lbs.,” Bruening said. “When we looked at how all of those parts get delivered, we found that those ships came alongside one of our MSC ships, and we passed it over by VERTREP or CONREP (vertical replenishment or connected replenishment).”

Using a large helicopter to deliver a small part may not be the best use of available resources.

The Taluga Group wanted to find a better way to deliver those parts, and looked at using an unmanned aerial vehicle UAV that could carry those packages and deliver them to a ship at sea.  In fact, they’re making progress.  “Being able to deliver 90 percent of CASREP parts by a small UAV will do wonders in increasing our logistics capability at standoff ranges.  We started with a 200-mile combat radius—today we’re looking at 1,000 miles,” said Bruening.  “This is doable.”

The Taluga Group is working on this problem with NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command) and their rapid prototyping division—and the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) at Pax River, Md., which calls the process Rapid Prototyping, Experimentation and Demonstration (RPED).

“They’ve got a great team supporting us in developing a drone that can do this,” said Bruening.  “We’re studying how to fly a drone autonomously to a ship at sea that’s moving; how to fly in a communications or GPS denied environment, and how to operate a drone like this for extended periods that doesn’t require 15 people.  I want to be able to open up a suitcase, pull it out, load the part, tell it where to deliver the part, then hit ‘go.’  We’re good at sailing T-AKEs and T-AOs.  But our mariners are not drone operators, and we’re trying to minimize the extra workload we’re putting on our people.  So, we want to keep the concept simple—fly 1,000 miles to deliver 50 lbs.  We’ve been testing this, and have actually worked it into a fleet battle problem and used it to deliver some simulated CASREP parts from an MSC vessel over to Marines on the beach, and then the aircraft returned to the ship. We’ve also delivered parts to an aircraft carrier while pierside at Naval Station Norfolk. We proved we could do it, and do it autonomously.  And we’ve kept it simple—Hit the button, it links up with SATCOM, and off it goes.”

Bruening said the Navy has been testing drones such as the Skyways V2.6B and Martin UAV V-Bat 128 drones for logistics, but they can support other missions.  “We’ve been working with the Air Force.  They’re looking at small UAVs for search and rescue.  We’ve actually done the hard part—getting the autonomy as well as the ‘launch and recover’ to work.”

The Taluga Group is also looking at DARPA’s AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY (ANCILLARY) ISR drone program, which is designed to carry a 60 lb. sensor payload with long endurance.  “If it can carry 50 lbs. then we can handle 90 percent of our needs,” said Bruening.

“If we look beyond CASREP parts, we can see a value in making high-priority deliveries for things like blood,” added VanAuker.  “There’s a different twist to this mission, because the cargo needs to be kept at a specific temperature.”
Another example of the Taluga Group looking at using existing capability for a new purpose envisions delivery of relatively small shipments is using unmanned surface vessels (USVs), especially after observing a GARC (Greenough Advanced Rescue Craft), made by Maritime Applied Physics Corporation (MAPC), of Baltimore, Md., being used for anti-terrorism force protection (ATFP).  

“We were working with Fleet Forces Command during one of our local ATFP exercises, and they were using a weaponized GARC for the ATFP mission.   Think of it like a super jet-ski, about 15 feet long and five feet wide.  It weighs 4,000 lbs. and can carry 1,000 lbs., and carries an LRAD (long-range acoustic device), a laser dazzler and a gun.  We wanted to see if we could use this autonomous, advanced super jet-ski to escort one of our HVUs (high value units).  We envisioned providing this type of USV to our T-AKEs and T-AOs to give them a self-contained way to protect themselves when they pass through choke points or high threat areas.  Our maritime security detachments can lower one into the water, and use its autonomy to monitor, patrol and defend the ship,” Bruening said.  

“Then we looked at it from a logistics perspective.  It has a big open area in the center, and can carry 1,000 lbs.  If we removed the LRAD, the dazzler and the gun, now we have an open container to carry those 1,000 lbs. and go 400 miles.  We looked at it as kind of a pickup truck with a roller bed that you could load up with whatever you needed to put in it.  We tested this at Key West by loading the GARC and sending it out to an expeditionary fast transport (EPF).  They used a remote-control actuator to open the cover and then used the EPF’s crane to pick up items from inside the GARC.  In looking at distributed maritime operations, and needing to resupply Marines ashore at a remote location in a contested area, we might not want to get the EPF in too close.  But we can reach out to those Marines with 1,000 lbs. of what they need from a very safe distance.  And it’s not so expensive that we can’t afford to lose it.”  

According to Bruening, there are a lot of companies out there looking at the problem of how to navigate in a contested environment.  “We’re going to figure it out.  It’s just going to take time and resources.”

Additive Manufacturing

Bruening said the Taluga Group sees a future in additive manufacturing to create parts for the ships that need them.  “MSC delivers a lot of parts.  But if we can make a part on demand using additive manufacturing, that’s even better,” he said.  “We can make the part on one of our ships, and deliver it by drone.”

The challenge isn’t just the 3-D printer.  According to Bruening, it’s important to have the specifications and digital files for those parts, as well as the correct stock materials, to make a part that meets Navy standards.  “In some cases, we would have to transfer a lot of data back and forth, and we’re looking at free space optics, which is a secure way to transfer information at a very high bandwidth using light.”

Delivering fuel to ships at sea usually requires specialized vessels.  But the Taluga Group is evaluating a containerized astern fueling system, capable of passing fuel using a 700-foot hose, that can be placed on the fantail of a ship.

EMCON

Ships can be vulnerable when any radars or communications equipment are radiating.  So, the Taluga Group has been investigating ways to help ensure their ships are not emitting when in EMCON, or “emission control.”
“We’ve conducted a study using four different commercial-off-the-shelf spectrum analyzers, and took them aboard ship to look for sources of RF emissions during EMCON.  We set up test conditions on a ship and tried all four of them.  We liked the handheld device that we could walk around the ship with.  When a ship sets EMCON, we can take the device out to the weather decks and see if somebody has their cell phone on, or a wi-fi hotspot,” said Vesley.  “Eventually we need to get the cost down so we can put one or two on every ship.”

While the number of emitters on ships used to be limited, today everyone with a cell phone is a potential emitter.

Not only is a CLF ship and its cargo valuable, but it potentially could lead an adversary to a carrier strike group in EMCON and heretofore not detected.

“We can also increase of likelihood of detecting emissions using a small UAV with a three-dimensional view, and downloading the data on the ship for analysis, and determine what emitters and antennas are still radiating,” VanAuker said.
Similar to the Afloat Training Group for the combatants, MSC has an Afloat Training Team that trains the CIVMARS so they can get certified.  “I’d like to see the trainers have a couple of them to take aboard our ships so they verify that EMCON has been properly set, and show the crews where they still have something transmitting,” said Vesley.  “There’s another group that follows that certifies the crews, and they can have a couple of these to verify that the crew does indeed know how to properly set EMCON.”

Vesely said such a device could also  be useful for Navy ships or Marine units.  A common UAV built with a modular architecture could also be reconfigured for inspecting for corrosion and preservation issues, battle damage assessment, search and rescue.  “We’re looking at one system that the Department of Interior uses that has the right payload and endurance to go around a ship with a predetermined profile for a variety of missions,” Vesely said.

Refueling at sea is usually accomplished using very specialized ships.  But the Taluga Group is testing out a new containerized system that can be placed on the fantail of a ship.  The system has a 700-foot hose, and turns the host ship into an oiler that can refuel other ships, especially smaller ships and boats.  Since the astern refueling rig is made by a Norwegian company, VanAuker said MSC is using the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) program that helps to test systems and technologies from foreign allies and partners to satisfy valid defense requirements quickly and economically.

According to VanAuker, the plan is to test the system out using an offshore supply vessel, which has plenty of deck space.  “OSVs have the room back aft for containers, and their decks have the fittings to secure cargo and containers.  The astern refueling rig container is secured to the deck of the OSV using the existing ISO locks, and jumper hoses are installed between the rig and fuel risers.  The power comes from umbilical cords connected to the electrical distribution system.  It's going to have two reels—six inches for DFM (diesel fuel marine) and two and a half inches for JP 5 (jet fuel for aircraft). It’s literally plug and play.”

With an OSV, the rig is closer to the waterline than many other types of ships, which is one of the reasons OSVs are suited for this mission.

“We received Foreign Comparative Test funding to buy the rig, put it in the container, and design and conduct the test,” VanAuker said.
Bruening said that in most cases there isn’t funding for something new.  So, we’re looking at existing systems and technologies that we can adapt from a logistics lens.  And we’re working with organizations like NavalX, and DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit to provide the resources to develop these concepts and technologies.”

“We’re trying to figure out how we can utilize other people’s goodness,” Bruening said.

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