USS San Antonio (LPD 17) has undergone initial Sea Trials

US Navy fact Sheet, Northrup Grumman, Navy Technology | 15 May 2005 | Jeff Head

[Jeff Head]

USS San Antonio (LPD 17) on Sea Trials in the Gulf of Mexico

The first ship of class, the USS San Antonio (LPD 17) set sale into the Gulf of Mexico on April 29, 2005, to undergo sea trials and returned on May 3, 2005. This is the first picture available of her sailing and comes from the Northup Grumman site. She represents our latest generation of medium sized (as compared to the much larger Wasp LHD class) Amphibious Assault ships for the 21st century.

Her lift capabilities, her self defense capabilities, and her electronic, sensors, maintenance and battle space management capabilities make her more than up to her principle mission of transporting the US Marine Corps "mobility triad" – that is, Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAAVs), air-cushioned landing craft (LCAC) and the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft – to trouble spots anywhere in the world.

The USS San Antoino is the first in a class of twelve vessels. The class will replace the functions of all of the LPD 4, LSD 36, LKA 113 and LST 1179 classes of amphibious ships.

Artists Renderings :

[Jeff Head]

Thought soe of the NAval and military enthusiasts here on FR would be interested in this.

[Jeff Head]

Thought the Naval/Military enthusiasts and others here on FR would be interested in this.

[Darksheare]

Cool.

[ken5050]

Way cool...M Marines get one of us as Chief of Staff, and now we get our own Navy..

[RaceBannon]

Dont forget old Marines!

[Prophet in the wilderness]

We know this ship has some stealthy capabilities, but, what other advantages that this ship have in lower maintenance, combined capabilities as in other class ship designs to save money instead of building 2 or 3 other ship designs have it all in one ship design and save money ?
By having these new ship designs, are we having better military capabilities, lower maintenance cost, a safer environment for our Marines ?

[M Kehoe]

Good afternoon. Thanks for the ping.

I hope you are feeling well.

5.56mm

[Darksheare]

LOL!

It looks lightly armed.
But that's probably just the angle of the image, and the fact that they use pop top missile magazines.

[Squantos]

Cool Jeff, Thanks for the ping, hope yer well......

What configurations or numbers of hovercraft, V22's, helo's, Marines etc will that carry / deliver ?

Do ya have a link for that data ?

Stay safe !

[bbenton]

Wow they really can pack that thing can't they? It looks like a toy though. Bring back the Battleship I say. Dump the Navy flagship and future bazillion dollar shore artillery pork barrel and redesign the battleship. Getting blasted with rail gun fire from over the horizon is scary but catching a 2700lb 100 yard crater producing projectile from the scariest ship ever built is "more scary".
What happens when we need to blockade the Persian gulf and all we have are billion dollar unarmored targets to park there. What would scare China more the 7th fleet or a Battleship parked in the Taiwan straight? (Probably the 7th fleet but I am an optimist. And I know we could very very easily blockade the Persian Gulf if we wanted to) If we go to war with a real nation we are going to need a cost effective way of pounding the beach to hell before we send the Marines in.
Sorry about the off topic, I am sure that ship and her sisters will perform better than anything anyone else has.

[Jeff Head]

Amen...this class is long awaited. Between these twelve ships (when completed) and the eight Wasps and the five Tarawa's we will have the capability to field 12 full Expeditionary Strike Group forces. Awesome.

[Eastbound]

Very, very nice!

Noah: 'Huh. If you think that's something, my next boat is gonna have a football field AND an Indy-style race trace out-rigged all around the gunnels.'

[Jeff Head]

They are safer and more efective and efficient than the older ships. In a large watime scenario, they would operate in Marine Expeditionary Strike Groups where they are combined with other Amphibious vessles, escort vessels, etc.

[ken5050]

It is lightly armed...it relies mainly on escorts for defense...

[Darksheare]

OOg.*wincing*
I don't like that idea.

[LibKill]

Navy and Marines working together for victory!

[Jeff Head]

We still have two of the Iowa class battleships, modernized in the 1980's with Tomohawk cruise missiles, Harpoon missiles, CIWS and retaining their 16" guns in the reserve fleet.

We could activate those in a dire crisis.

USS Iowa action with 16" guns after modernization (note the Cruise Missile Armored Box Launchers).

USS Iowa luanching a cruise missile.

[WKUHilltopper]

Bring back the Iowa class BBs!

[Spktyr]

Um, this is an amphibious assault carrier, not a major combatant. The major combatant ships will cover this thing as it heads for the beach.

Battleships cannot carry modern troops and their equipment if it is optimized for the surface combatant role. It needs the space for ammo. Therefore, a combat transport is needed, and that's what this is.

[Jeff Head]

It is much better armed than the ships it replaces. It will have two Mark 31 Mod 0 RAM missile launchers totaling 42 missiles, two Mk 46 Mod 1 30mm CIWS, and two Mark 26 Mod 18 50-calibre machine guns.

When ready, it will also receive a Mk 41 16 cell VLS for the evolved Sea Sparrow missile and the SSDS (Ship Self Defence System) Mk 2. SSDS will be an integration of all the ship's self-defence systems and will include multi-function radar, Advanced Integrated Electronic Warfare System and infrared search and track system (IRST).

Now, the ship will sail in Expeditionary groups with escort vessels like Arleigh BUrke destroyers, but it will be capable of assisting greatly in its self defense with these systems.