U.S. Navy Names Five New Ships

Sec­re­tary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced today the next five Navy ships; three Arleigh Burke class guid­ed-mis­sile destroy­ers, the USS John Finn, the USS Ralph John­son, and the USS Rafael Per­al­ta, and two lit­toral com­bat ships (LCS), the USS Sioux City and the USS Oma­ha.

Mabus named the three destroy­ers after Navy and Marine Corps heroes whose actions occurred dur­ing dif­fer­ent con­flicts which spanned sev­er­al decades, but were unit­ed in their uncom­mon val­or. The lit­toral com­bat ships were named after two Amer­i­can communities. 

John Finn, who retired as a lieu­tenant, received the Medal of Hon­or from Adm. Chester Nimitz for dis­play­ing “mag­nif­i­cent courage in the face of almost cer­tain death” dur­ing the Japan­ese attack on mil­i­tary instal­la­tions in Hawaii dur­ing Pearl Har­bor. Marine Corps Pfc. Ralph Hen­ry John­son was posthu­mous­ly award­ed the Medal of Hon­or for shout­ing a warn­ing to his fel­low Marines and hurl­ing him­self on an explo­sive device, sav­ing the life of one Marine and pre­vent­ing the ene­my from pen­e­trat­ing his sec­tor of the patrol’s perime­ter dur­ing the Viet­nam War. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Rafael Per­al­ta was posthu­mous­ly award­ed the Navy Cross for self­less­ly cov­er­ing a grenade with his body to save his fel­low Marines from the blast dur­ing Oper­a­tion Iraqi Freedom. 

“Finn, John­son and Per­al­ta have all been rec­og­nized with some of our nation’s high­est awards,” said Mabus. “I want to ensure their ser­vice and sac­ri­fice will be known by today’s sailors and Marines and hon­ored for sev­er­al decades to come by a new gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­cans and peo­ple from around the world who will come in con­tact with these ships.” 

The Arleigh Burke class destroy­ers will be able to con­duct a vari­ety of oper­a­tions, from peace­time pres­ence and cri­sis man­age­ment to sea con­trol and pow­er pro­jec­tion. All three ships will be capa­ble of fight­ing air, sur­face and sub­sur­face bat­tles simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and will con­tain a myr­i­ad of offen­sive and defen­sive weapons designed to sup­port mar­itime war­fare in keep­ing with the Navy’s abil­i­ty to exe­cute the Depart­ment of Defense’ defense strategy. 

“The lit­toral com­bat ship is a major part of the future of our Navy,” Mabus said, point­ing out LCS is fast, agile, and oper­ates with a small­er crew and can per­form oper­a­tions in both shal­low and deep waters. 

“I chose the name for our two new lit­toral com­bat ships after Mid­west­ern cities from America’s heart­land, to hon­or the patri­ot­ic, hard-work­ing cit­i­zens of Sioux City, Iowa, and Oma­ha, Nebras­ka, for their sup­port of and con­tri­bu­tions to the military.” 

Sioux City and Oma­ha will be out­fit­ted with recon­fig­urable pay­loads, called mis­sion pack­ages, which can be changed out quick­ly as com­bat needs demand. These mis­sion pack­ages are sup­port­ed by spe­cial detach­ments that will deploy manned and unmanned vehi­cles and sen­sors in sup­port of mine, under­sea and sur­face war­fare missions. 

Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wis., will build the Free­dom vari­ant, the USS Sioux City, which will be 378 feet in length, have a water­line beam of 57 feet, dis­place approx­i­mate­ly 3,000 tons, and make speed in excess of 40 knots. Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., will build the Inde­pen­dence vari­ant, the USS Oma­ha, which will be 419 feet in length, have a water­line beam of 103 feet, dis­place approx­i­mate­ly 3,000 tons, and make speed in excess of 40 knots. 

Media may direct queries to the Navy Office of Infor­ma­tion at 703–697-5342. For more news from sec­re­tary of the Navy pub­lic affairs, vis­it http://www.navy.mil/SECNAV .

More infor­ma­tion about the lit­toral com­bat ship class is avail­able online at http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=1650&ct=4 .

More infor­ma­tion about the Arleigh Burke class destroy­ers is avail­able online at http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=900&ct=4 .

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →