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Morrow Project Reconstruction Fleet

Page history last edited by Michael 5 years, 3 months ago

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Background and Planning

 

     Planning for the rebuilding of civilization after the War meant arranging for tools, shelter, supplies and equipment to support hundreds of thousands -- maybe millions -- of persons. The sheer amount of space required to safely and securely store all of this equipment, and the need to make it available where needed after the War, was a major concern. The supply caches for the field teams wouldn't really be enough; underground depots to hold tens of thousands of cubic meters of supplies were expensive and hard to keep secret.

     An additional, relatively low-cost supplement to the depots were the ships of the Reconstruction Fleet. They would carry tools, seeds, libraries, vehicles, etc., and would survive the War by hiding in the southern oceans.

     The Morrow Project's research and development program for fusion generators was at a point in 1975 where the planners could conceive of using nuclear power for most Project vehicles and installations.

 

Conversion

 

     In the late 1970s, one of the Council of Tomorrow companies (the United Consolidated Corporation) purchased five T2-SEA-A1 tankers from the "mothball fleets"; one was dismantled for spares, and to provide a short midbody extension of the other four hulls. The ships were converted at the Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company's yard in Baltimore, Maryland into four cargo vessels, ostensibly for hazardous waste storage and transport. The conversion emphasized buoyancy, accident survivability, and protection for the crew from radiation and toxic substances.

     Features of the conversion included:

 

  • removal of the nearly all of the oil-handling and pumping equipment

  • the eight main oil tanks were converted to a single large cargo hold with an intermediate "tween" deck; this hold is 14.6 meters wide

  • railway tracks were laid along the cargo hold decks and on the upper deck -- three tracks in the holds, and on the main deck (below the spar deck, that is). The upper cargo hold can't fit full-height boxcars under the beams, however.

  • the original side tanks were turned into a mesh of watertight flotation and ballast compartments, with underdeck passages on either side.

  • a single large cargo hatch was installed midships, and runs through the upper and second deck, 20 meters long by 16 meters wide; a few smaller (less than 2 meters) hatches are placed for construction or repair convenience. The spar deck has a gap about 22 meters long, above this hatch.

  • two 270-ton capacity cranes were added on the spar deck, near the cargo hatch. They each have a 24 meter long boom - so they can reach out to 14 meters from the sides of the vessel 

  • the original mid-ship "bridge" house was detached and placed atop the after house

  • a large repair/construction shop was added, with vehicle-size watertight doors leading out onto the main deck

  • the engine spaces, deck house crew areas and the cargo hold were protected from NBC threats

  • modern, fully-enclosed motor lifeboats were fitted on gravity davits, as well as a 7 meter rigid inflatable boat on a small crane for quick rescue and crew transport. The lifeboats can each carry 40 persons, the inflatable boat can carry 15 including the helmsman at 30 knots. The four LCVP craft are also carried on davits, and can be launched almost as quickly as the regular lifeboats.

  • the keel was reinforced (the T2 class was known for problems in that regard) and a 1-meter deep void/double bottom created below the cargo hold

  • large amounts of carbon-dioxide fire-smothering equipment were added

  • a wash-down system was fitted, to remove contamination from the exterior

  • two "spar decks" were installed 10 meters above the main decks; helipads and landing lights were placed on these.

  • improved communications equipment

  • some features of an EMP hardening scheme, such as acrylic windows, shielded cables, and lots of replacements for antennas. When possible, power lines and electrical cables are run within the hull (rather than above deck). Equipment using modern electronic components (integrated circuits, semiconductors and transistors for example) is installed or stored in shielded cabinets. This process can perhaps be explained by a vague concern about loading radioactive waste near a malfunctioning reactor (for example); plus the requirement for thorough ship-washing is more easily met by having a clean, cable-free deck.

     

     The ship names, after conversion, were the Fort Ross, the Fort Stevens, the Fort McHenry, and the Fort Mackinac.

     Each ship would have four LCVP-type landing craft carried on gravity davits, plus two lifeboats, two LARC-LX amphibious cargo trucks, some rigid inflatable boats, pontoons, etc.; really, though, they're meant to find some docks after the War to allow them to offload their cargo. The Project also created four LST-type ships, stored in coastal underground bunkers, to carry supplies from the Reconstruction ships to distant locations.

 

In Service

 

     After conversion, the four ships sailed off to wait for business; as planned, lawsuits and environmental regulations meant they never got near any hazardous waste. But, at various harbors, they were gradually loaded with their Project cargo, and fitted with a few items that might have raised the eyebrows at a shipyard -- most notably two or three Project fusion reactors (after 1982) and several dozen "freeze tubes", four Med Units, and a Bio-Comp (plus probably more carried as cargo). Once loaded, the ships traveled to some easily-overlooked harbors in the South Seas, and eventually got their full crew of about 45 persons (plus 55 persons in cryo-sleep). Ownership was eventually transferred to Morrow Industries.

 

note the Morrow Industries logo on the stack

 

Characteristics

 

     The T2 tanker was chosen by the Project because of their turbine-electric propulsion system, and their low price:  $180,000 in 1982. The ships are 171 meters long, 20.7 meters wide, and have a loaded displacement of about 22,000 tons (at a draft of 8.2 meters) -- empty weight is about 5200 tons. The electric motor needs about 5.4 megawatts of electrical power to reach a top speed of 15 knots - two of the Fusion Generator Mk 2 reactors produce 6 megawatts total. A few of the T2 ships have bigger electrical motors which will turn 7.5 megawatts of electrical power into a top speed of 16 knots -- if the Project got one of those, it's need three reactors in the engine room. About 57 people can be accommodated in the fitted cabins; of course, thousands more could be briefly transported, especially after the cargo is offloaded. The ships still have their boilers and steam turbines, partly for flexibility, but mostly since it'd have been expensive and odd to have them removed without replacements at the shipyards.

 

     Here's a cross-section of the cargo space:

 

scale is 50 pixels per meter

 

Armament and Military Equipment

 

     Essentially none by naval standards; though several V150 vehicles, lots of Project heavy weapons (machine guns, mortars, flamethrowers, etc.), and dozens of persons with Project basic equipment would keep the vessel safe from minor piratical threats.

 

Contents

 

     There's about 12,000 cubic meters/12,000 tons of "stuff" in each vessel. This includes a few dozen Overland Train modules (although control cars have to be carried under the spar deck, due to their height), four AirScouts, some other Project vehicles (likely types are XR-311, Commando V-150, Commando Ranger) at least 16 electric forklifts (for use aboard or at dockside); two LARC-LX amphibious cargo trucks; a couple of fusion-powered railway locomotives; railway boxcars or flatcars might be carried (although there should be plenty of those still around in the decade after the Atomic War); a couple of fusion-powered frontloaders and bulldozers; a dozen or so "rough terrain" forklifts and lots and lots of cargo in conexes, on pallets, in boxes, bags, drums, etc.. Either a 5-trailer 200 barrel oil refinery, or a 20-trailer 500 barrel refinery, is carried. Six hundred semi-permanent inflatable concrete-permeated canvas shelters (enough to house 6000 persons), the same types as found in Depot Alpha. Several dozen cryo-berths, including a few empty ones for medical emergency use. Repair components and consumables for the ship itself, everything from light bulbs and hand towels to heavy-duty pumps and 20mm thick steel plates for hull repairs; lubricants and paint, etc.

     Perhaps the entire contents of the six specialty caches of an Agricultural team?

     Two of the ships (the Fort Ross and the Fort McHenry) have about 500 P-Series pontoons and accessories, which can be used to make piers, barges, bridges, etc., along with some of the (now electrically-powered) big outboard motors used to move the barges. The other two ships each have only about 50 of the P-Series blocks.

     Some equipment model numbers:

 

  • Allis-Chalmers electric forklifts, with capacities from 907 to 5443 kg. These would be for use shipboard and dockside. Don't even have to convert them or anything! Plug them into the ship to recharge.

  • Case model M4K articulated rough-terrain forklifts (Army model MHE-237). Diesel, 1800 kg capacity. Includes tow hitch.

  • Chrysler model MLT-6CH fork lift truck, rough terrain, with roll-over cage. Diesel, 2721 kg capacity

  • Clark model MR-100 fork lift truck, rough terrain (Army designation MHE-165 or MHE-173) . Diesel or petrol, 4535 kg capacity

  • Clark model MHE-DPH-70 fork lift truck, rough terrain. 78 HP diesel, 7030 kg capacity, 5.4 m lift, 22 kph unloaded, 19 kph loaded on paved surfaces. Enclosed cab can probably be set up with NBC seals.

 

     In addition,  2.5 kg of food per person per day had to be provided; and spare clothing, laundry soap, etc. for the active crew. Actual persons aboard varied a bit, but average about 45 persons. Seven years of provisions for that many persons is 288 tons of preserved food, and about 100 tons of other consumables.

 

Service Histories

 

Fort McHenry

 

     Fort McHenry is the only one of the Reconstruction ships with a post-War history known to the Project in North America.

 

The Morrow Project

-- according to Puerto Rican official history

     In March of 1990, the SS Fort McHenry arrived at San Juan, and put its considerable resources to work assisting the population. There were 45 people aboard the ship, plus some more in cryosleep berths. The Project was a secret branch of the United States government, prepared in case of atomic war.

     The ship's cargo included many fusion reactors, most of them small enough to power trucks or armored cars. Amazing medical devices, and thousands of tons of emergency supplies and equipment, saved hundreds of thousands of lives on the island.

     The last member of the Fort McHenry's crew died of old age in 2022; however, 13 members of the crew are preserved in cryosleep berths in Morrow Castle. The ship was eventually beached in 2025, and stripped of most of its equipment; the hull remains as a warehouse on the Miramar waterfront. One of the reactors powers El Marlin -- or the city of Miramar, when the ship isn't hunting pirates.

     By 2140, any educated citizen had heard about the Morrow Project -- but it was about as well-known as the Marshall Plan to ordinary citizens of 2015, or the Commission for the Relief of Belgium during WW1. "They were helping, I'm pretty sure."

     La FundaciĆ³n Morrow was founded by the government to take over the scientific and reconstruction efforts begun by the crew of the Fort McHenry. They control the distribution and usage of remaining Morrow equipment, and access to the archives made by the Project. Most of the reactors are still in operation, providing about one-fifth of the island's electrical supply in 2140.

 

the Fort McHenry at San Juan, circa 2020 AD

Comments (1)

Michael said

at 8:20 pm on Nov 1, 2017

Inspired by an article (well, maybe the "Professional Notes" section) in the US Naval Institute "Proceedings" (July, 1984) and excellently depicted as the "Mobile Continuity Force" vessel in Shipbucket. The USNI article isn't easily available online, but a Shipbucket forum discussion is: http://z11.invisionfree.com/shipbucket/ar/t232.htm

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