Abraham Lincoln Running Out of Gas as Navy Oiler Runs Aground

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The Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS Big Horn is seen in this 2015 US Navy handout photo by U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Ryre Arciaga.

The only U.S. Navy oiler—a ship used to carry fuel for carrier-borne fighters—in the Middle East is damaged after reportedly running aground and taking on water.

GCaptain, a site that covers the Navy, published a photo of what it described as a “flooded mechanical space” inside the oiler, the USNS Big Horn. The site said the ship had run aground of the coast of Oman while supporting the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group.

Senator Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a statement today raising an alarm about the issue.

​​“I am troubled about reports that the Navy’s sole fleet oiler in the CENTCOM region has been rendered temporarily inoperable. If we cannot fuel our ships, our capabilities will be greatly diminished,” Wicker said. “The Big Horn’s problems also speak to a larger challenge – we are woefully in need of a larger logistics fleet, which is the lifeline for our global military presence. I hope this incident serves as a wake-up call that it is high time to fix our shipbuilding industrial base and support our merchant mariners.”

Wicker asked a series of questions, including what caused the damage and when another vessel would arrive in the area “to fill the capability gap.”

The former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, a retired admiral, James Stavridis, also expressed concern. “Combat capability is based on sustained reliable logistics. If these reports are true, this is a potential serious challenge to navy firepower in the Middle East,”  Stavridis, who is now vice chair of the Carlyle Group, said in a social media post. “We have other options and other ships, but this shows that war is logistics in the end.”

GCaptain says the Navy has launched five new John Lewis class oilers, with double hulls unlike the older Big Horn. But “none of the new oilers have been cleared to leave the continental United States,” the GCaptain article says.

The lack of U.S. military readiness has become a bipartisan political issue in Washington, with a recent report of the Commission on National Defense Strategy warning that America “is not prepared,” and recommending a sharp increase in defense spending.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is a nuclear-powered carrier but the planes aboard the ship burn jet fuel.