TAVTS completes sea trials

An innovative ship-to-ship vehicle transfer system developed from combined Cargotec resources successfully completed U.S .Navy sea trials earlier this year.

The "Test Article Vehicle Transfer System" (TAVTS) is sesigned to transfer military vehicles between ships at sea to support Army and Marine Corps land forces as part of the ] Navy's Sea Base strategy,

Sea trials of TAVTS were carried out by the Navy's Strategic and Theater Sealift Program Office (PMS 385) which is part of PEO Ships. "This landmark capability will be a significant enhancement for future sea-basing logistics operations," says Captain George M Sutton, program manager for PMS 385.

During the trials, the Navy demonstrated the transfer of vehicles between the surrogate "mobile landing platform" (MLP) Mighty Servant 3 and the "large medium-speed roll-on/roll-off"(LMSR) ship, USNS Soderman.

The test demonstrated a self-deploying ramp system installed on the MLP and a new self-deploying sideport platform installed on the LMSR vessel. Deployment and retrieval of the ramp is controllable by one person. In case of failure, the system can safely continue to support vertical and horizontal design loads and allow emergency ship separation while carrying a vehicle weighing up to 72.5 tonnes (160,000 lb) anywhere along the length of the ramp.

Personnel and vehicles were successfully transferred between the ships in high Sea State 3 and low Sea State 4 during several days of testing in the Gulf of Mexico. Vehicles transferred included high-mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs), HMMWVs with trailers, medium tactical vehicle replacements, logistics vehicle system wreckers, amphibious assault vehicles, M88 tank recovery vehicles, and M1A1 main battle tanks.

Cargotec regional sales manager Jeffery Siegel says "TAVTS resulted from close co-operation between our ramp technology experts and our offshore specialists, who contributed in-depth knowledge of heave-compensation technologies."