USA — Navy Christens Littoral Combat Ship Fort Worth

The Navy will chris­ten lit­toral com­bat ship (LCS) Fort Worth, Sat­ur­day, Dec. 4, dur­ing a 10 a.m. CST cer­e­mo­ny at Marinette Marine Corp. ship­yard in Marinette, Wis.
The ship’s name rec­og­nizes the city of Fort Worth, Texas. For more than 150 years, the patri­ot­ic cit­i­zens of Fort Worth have sup­port­ed the Navy and the men and women in uni­form. Home to Ranger out­posts, train­ing facil­i­ties, avi­a­tion depots, and defense man­u­fac­tur­ing, Fort Worth has answered the call when­ev­er the nation need­ed it.

For­mer Deputy Defense Sec­re­tary­Gor­don Eng­land­will deliv­er the prin­ci­pal address at the cer­e­mo­ny. Rep. Kay Granger of Tex­as­will serve as the ship’s spon­sor. The cer­e­mo­ny will be high­light­ed by Granger break­ing a bot­tle of cham­pagne across the bow to for­mal­ly chris­ten the ship, which is a time-hon­ored Navy tradition. 

Des­ig­nat­ed LCS 3, Fort Worth is an inno­v­a­tive com­bat­ant designed to oper­ate quick­ly in shal­low water envi­ron­ments to counter chal­leng­ing threats in coastal regions, specif­i­cal­ly mines, sub­marines and fast-sur­face craft. It is capa­ble of speeds in excess of 40 knots and can oper­ate in water less than 20 feet deep. Fort Worth will address a crit­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties gap in the lit­torals. Car­ry­ing out the Navy’s mis­sion, it will serve to enhance mar­itime secu­ri­ty by deter­ring hos­til­i­ty in trou­bled waters, main­tain­ing a for­ward pres­ence, and by its abil­i­ty to project pow­er and main­tain sea control. 

A fast, agile, and high-tech­nol­o­gy sur­face com­bat­ant, Fort Worth will be a plat­form for the launch and recov­ery of manned and unmanned vehi­cles. To meet increased demand for mis­sion-tai­lored pack­ages, its mod­u­lar design will sup­port inter­change­able mis­sion pack­ages, allow­ing the ship to be recon­fig­ured for anti­sub­ma­rine war­fare, mine coun­ter­mea­sures, or sur­face war­fare mis­sions on an as-need­ed basis. The LCS will be able to swap out mis­sion pack­ages pier­side in a mat­ter of days, adapt­ing as the tac­ti­cal sit­u­a­tion demands. The mod­u­lar approach also allows us to incor­po­rate new or improved sys­tems into the fleet as advanced tech­nolo­gies mature, pro­vid­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty and evolv­ing capa­bil­i­ty. These ships will also fea­ture an advanced net­work­ing capa­bil­i­ty to share tac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion with oth­er Navy air­craft, ships, sub­marines and joint units. 

Fort Worth will be manned by two rota­tion­al crews, Blue and Gold, sim­i­lar to the rota­tion­al crews assigned to Tri­dent sub­marines. These core crews will be aug­ment­ed by one of the three types of mis­sion pack­age crews as well as an avi­a­tion detach­ment. The prospec­tive com­mand­ing offi­cer of the Blue crew is Cmdr. James R. Blanken­ship, from Iron­ton, Ohio. The prospec­tive com­mand­ing offi­cer of the Gold crew is Cmdr. War­ren E. Cup­ps, from Fort Worth, Texas. Upon being com­mis­sioned in the future, Fort Worth will be home­port­ed in San Diego, Calif. 

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

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