USS SAN ANTONIO (LPD-17)
Posted on 10/22/2004 1:41:02 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
The Navy's first ship to bear the name San Antonio will be commissioned in Ingleside as part of a Gulf Coast swing.
The USS San Antonio, christened more than a year ago during a festive ceremony in New Orleans, will officially join the fleet after the commissioning.
A senior Navy official revealed Thursday that Ingleside will be the site for the commissioning, but added "we don't know what the time frame is" because the ship's delivery date is uncertain.
Word of the decision to launch the ship in Texas was celebrated in Washington.
"I am proud to be the sponsor of the most advanced amphibious ship ever built," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said Thursday. "The USS San Antonio represents the future of the Navy and the next generation of our military capabilities."
The San Antonio is a ship of firsts. It's the Navy's first stealth ship, using fewer angles from protruding pieces of steel and a pair of eight-sided twin masts to reduce its radar signature.
It's the fleet's first "gender-neutral" ship, with living quarters and showers for women. Women, additionally, will be able to reach controls on the bridge and other parts of the San Antonio as easily as men will.
It's the first designed entirely on a computer. It also is the first of 12 San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships being built under an ambitious $10 billion program.
The new ship was christened July 20, 2003, on the west bank of the Mississippi River. It will replace four aging classes of amphibious combat vessels, one of them the Cleveland.
Jim Berg, co-chairman of the USS San Antonio Commissioning Committee, served with a battle group that included the Cleveland when he was a Marine helicopter pilot in 1969 during the Vietnam War. He was 24 at the time.
"It's special for me if for no other reason because I was a Marine," said Berg, the 59-year-old owner of Matson Multi Media, an Alamo City audio-video production company.
The San Antonio likely will pay a port call on Galveston before the commissioning. Dignitaries and "friends of the Navy" will join the ship there, if all goes well, for the sojourn to Ingleside, he said. Norfolk, Va., Naval Station will be its homeport.
In some ways, the $850 million San Antonio doesn't differ much from 22 other amphibious transport vessels in the Navy's fleet of 295 ships. Like those other vessels, its main mission is to ferry troops and their weapons overseas on short notice — a prime function of the Marine Corps' role as the nation's expeditionary ground force.
The commissioning committee, headed by former Navy aviator Richard "Tres" Kleberg III, aims to raise $200,000 to $300,000 to help send off the San Antonio in style.
Berg said a commemorative book will be used to raise part of that money.
"When you get a ship named after your city, especially a ship this size and this important to the Navy/Marine team, this is the big leagues," he said. "This is a big thing."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sigc@express-news.net
USS SAN ANTONIO (LPD-17)
Thanks for posting this! Wonder if it'll honor the Klebergs with a King Ranch suite? ;)
Here she is at pier side in pre-commissioning:
Kinda gives a different meaning to "Riverwalk".
Ah, yes. The murky, muddy, oily, stinky Mississippi River at murky, muddy, oily, stinky Avondale Shipyards Hellhole in Avondale, Louisiana.
Ah, the memories.....
Can't be any nastier than the rectum of the south.....Pascagoula. MS.....Litton...UGH!
Other women do great. I had a great girlfriend who was on the same ship, and she understood defense. The vessel we served on handled serious weaponery, and she was part of the weapons department. During a security problem she stopped some officer (who happened to be the problem) by taking him from behind, and had him face down in the passage with a 45 on the back of his head. In the follow-up, he was offended... the captain gave her an award - like he said, anyone can put on a uniform (think terrorist type), unless you know who that person is, during a security problem, do whatever it takes to apprehend them.
So I don't have a problem with women on ships, but women please remember that it is OUR NATION you are defending, gender is not what it's about, it is about accomplishing the mission, think about that before you take an oath to support the greatest country on earth!
ROFL
When the last of a group of 27 DEs was completed at Avondale I went to Litton and applied because there was a new contract at Pascagoula. I had been working on checkout and troubleshooting of the ASROC missile control computer system after being an electronics tech in the military. The "counsellor" saw "Fire Control Tech" on my resume and wanted to send me to the shipyard fire dept.
I just walked back to my car and drove home. I didn't want to work for a company with employment counsellors who were so uninformed.
I still laugh almost uncontrollably about that today every time I think about it.
I had the misfortune of being stationed there a year, when my sub, U.S.S. Sunfish, SSN-649 was going thru refit. It took 3 years to complete a 1 year job.......to this day, when I drive to Florida, I make it a point to avoid the area. I remember seeing the ASROC fire....quite a site!
I agree about Pascagoula but Pensacola is nice and there are parts of the Alabama coast that are also nice.
WOW!
I rode the boats, too.....but before your time.
The first two boats were old diesel boats.
For the last two years of my Navy time I did TAD time on nukes in Charleston then Norfolk because I was in a "critical rating" and we were, apparently, scarce.
Quite a change from the old pigboats to the nukes. :-)
That was in the 60s.
It's always nice to meet a brother one never knew one had and judging by your screen name, in the same state. :-)
The U.S. Navy’s newest amphibious ship, pre commissioning unit San Antonio (LPD 17), underway in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time during her initial at-sea testing. San Antonio returned to Northrop Grumman Ship Systems Pascagoula shipyard on May 3, 2005 for resumption of dockside pre-delivery testing and crew training. Photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems
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