When operating in concert with a Henry J. Kaiser-class replenishment oiler the Lewis and Clarks have replaced the Sacramento-class fast combat support ships.

[2] The first of the fourteen ships, USNS Lewis and Clark (T-AKE-1), was placed in service with the Military Sealift Command (MSC) in June 2006.

While identical in configuration to T-AKE-3 to -14, their mission is to provide selective offload of cargo for resupply and sustainment of U.S. Marine Corps forces ashore.

[9] USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE-4) entered the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet area of operations 24 July 2008, marking the arrival of the first Lewis and Clark-class combat logistics support ship in service to the 52,000,000-square-mile (130,000,000 km2) region.

[10] This article includes information collected from the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Web site navsea.mil and that of the contractor NASSCO.