Gray Steel and Black Oil is the first full-length treatment of the development of the fleet oiler concept in the U.S. Navy. The author, Thomas Wildenberg, authoritatively addresses the logistics of how fleets are able to stay at sea in an operational mode, a long-ignored but extremely important subject. For example, in World War II refueling at sea provided the U.S. Navy with the mobility it needed to accomplish its island-hopping advance toward Japan, as advocated in War Plan Orange.

He explains how underway replenishment enabled U.S. carriers to range freely across the Pacific in the first months of the war, and later to remain on station far from their bases for weeks at a time.

Today the refueling capability of a navy is as important as ever. With this book Wildenberg charts the concept from the first fleet oilers of World War I onward. He examines the Navy's plans between the wars, documents the experience of World War II, and covers the postwar transition period, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. Numerous tables on ship design and capabilities, descriptions of ship types, photographs of every class of U.S. Navy fleet oiler, and ship drawings are also included.