TAVTS - Ship To Ship Vehicle Transport

This image comes via Information Dissemination and shows TAVTS in action. What is TAVTS? The US Navy’s Team Ships program tells us:

The Test Article Vehicle Transfer System (TAVTS) will demonstrate the transfer of vehicles between a surrogate Maritime Pre-positioning Force (Future) (MPF(F)) Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) ship and a side port platform on a large medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) ship.

The two primary components of TAVTS are a self-deploying ramp system that will be mounted to a surrogate MLP and a self-deploying sideport platform system that will be mounted to an existing LMSR ship. The TAVTS system is intended to operate through sea-state 3 conditions.

The Navy expects TAVTS to be delivered and begin testing in FY09. Testing is scheduled to last for approximately two months.