USNS John Lewis (T-AO-205)


USNS John Lewis is a United States Navy replenishment oiler and the lead ship of her class. She is part of the Military Sealift Command fleet of support ships.

Design and construction

announced the assignment of the name John Lewis to T-AO-205 on 6 January 2016. According to the Naval Vessel Register, construction was authorized for the first six ships in the class on 30 June 2016. She is named for United States Representative and civil rights leader John Lewis. The contract price for John Lewis is $640,206,756. The John Lewis class will be equipped with a basic self-defense capability, including crew served weapons, degaussing, and Nixie Torpedo decoys, and has space, weight, and power reservations for Close In Weapon Systems such as SeaRAMs, and an Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Defense System.
National Steel and Shipbuilding Company began construction of John Lewis on 20 September 2018, with completion scheduled for November 2020.

Other ships in class

The Navy plans to purchase 20 of these ships, with six of them already ordered.
In July 2016, US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus advised Congress that he intended to name the Military Sealift Command's oilers after prominent civil rights activists and leaders: