What is a Fleet Tug?   More correctly, what WAS a Fleet Tug?  The United States Navy had always had a need for a large contingent of Sea-going vessels that were capable of salvaging and towing.  These ships, much larger than a small harbor tug, typically had crews that ranged from 50 to 150 sailors (depending upon the size and era of the ship).  They were sea going ships and could not only sail around the world but could tow an aircraft carrier astern at the same time.  They were well armed ships with a large 3" gunmount forward, two 40mm guntubs aft and two 20mm anti-aircraft guns on the bridge wings and participated in many ferocious fights with aircraft during WW-II.  

Pre WW-II the Navy used the "Bird" class vessels, designated AT's (Auxiliary Tugs) and they were supplemented during WW-II with the much more capable hhhh class.   Lipan and her sisters were diesel electric drive, as compared to steam power on the Birds, and developed 3,000  total shaft horsepower.  To distinguish between the two type of vessels the older less-capable AT's were renamed ATO and the newer type were named ATF.  The Bird class was slowly phased out as more ATF's were launched.   

At the end of the war the Navy started downsizing its mammoth fleet of thousands of ships.  ATF's were needed for much of the towing associated with this mothballing of ships but after things had stabilized there was no longer a need for 200 tugs and similar towing/salvage vessels and many of these relatively new ships were mothballed or sold to foreign countries (particularly Latin America), where many of them STILL serve today after more than 60 years of life.

The Navy discovered in the years after WW-II that the relatively small size of the ATF (for a sea-going vessel) made it ideal or other uses (intelligence gathering, counter-intelligence, and many classified missions) and the ships were used extensively for those purposes in Korea and Vietnam.   After Vietnam more ATF's were sold, scrapped and mothballed as the Navy continued to downsize to about a thousand total ships.  Some were transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard and used for drug interdiction in the Caribbean and the Florida Keys.  Slowly but surely the remaining ATF's were nibbled away until the last two (The USS Paiute and the USS Papago ) were mothballed around the turn of the century.

Today's U.S. Navy has shrunk to around 200 surface ships.   With such a small (but extremely potent) Navy, there is no need for a fleet of ATF's to service them.  When the occasional need arises the Navy simply contracts with civilian sea-going tug companies.   An era has passed, but not forgotten.  Checkout the USS Tamaroa website and see how NAFTS (National Association of Fleet Tugs Sailors) has rescued the former ATF USS Zuni from the scrap pile and is restoring her.

Back