Monday, December 28, 2015

11 new ships including 3 attack submarines to join U.S. fleet in 2016

David Larter, Navy Times
25 December 2015
The fleet is set to grow in 2016, commissioning 11 new hulls and decommissioning just three — all Los Angeles-class attack boats.
The ship count will be bolstered by six new littoral combat ships, including the Detroit, Montgomery, Gabrielle Giffords, Little Rock and Omaha.
The fleet will also welcome two technological marvels to the waterfront, the destroyer Zumwalt and the carrier Gerald R. Ford, which is set to be commissioned by early summer, officials say.
The Virginia-class attack submarines Illinois and Washington will join the silent service, but the sub community will lose the attack submarines Albuquerque, Corpus Christi and Houston.
The latest amphibious transport dock, the John P. Murtha, is also slated to be commissioned in 2016, as is the latest Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the John Finn, named for a chief aviation ordnanceman who earned the Medal of Honor for machine gunning Japanese planes during the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Expeditionary Fast Transports — formerly designated as joint high speed vessels — Brunswick and Carson City will both join the family at Military Sealift Command, but the fast combat support ship Rainier is being decommissioned.

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