Can we design an oil tanker that meets our complex demands for environmental protection, economical operation, and crew safety? This volume evaluates and ranks a wide variety of tank ship hull designs proposed by experts around the world. Based on extensive research and studies, the book explores the implications of our rising demand for petroleum and increase in tanker operations; U.S. government regulations and U.S. Coast Guard policies regarding designs for new tank vessel construction; how new ship design would affect crew safety, maintenance, inspection, and other technical issues; the prospects for retrofitting existing tankers to reduce the risk of oil spills; and more. The conclusions and recommendations will be particularly important to maritime safety regulators in the United States and abroad; naval architects; ship operators and engineers; and officials in the petroleum, shipping, and marine insurance industries.

Strategic mobility is crucial to our capability to provide a credible conventional deterrent to infringements on our worldwide interests. It is the key to a major element of our defense policy -- the firm commitment to timely deployment of combat forces and suporting equipment to Europe to counter a Warsaw Pact threat against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The inability of planners to count on clear-cut and unambiguous indications of Warsaw Pact preparations for attack compound the already serious problems of resupply and reinforcement in the NATO arena. This is a discussion of our defense transportation system that current capabilities and organizations may not be sufficient to meet likely strategic deployment requirements for either long or short war senarios. Future conflicts may well involve an increase in the tempo of warfare, with resulting increases in the consumption of war-fighting materials, placing even greater demands on the transportation resources that make up the strategic mobility capability.