Iwo Jima class
| Iwo Jima class | |
|---|---|
_1979.jpg) USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2) 1979 |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Amphibious assault ship |
| units | 7 built, 0 in service |
| Namesake | Battle for Iwojima |
| 1. Period of service |
|
| period of service |
1961–1998 (2002) |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
|
| length |
183.0 m |
| width |
25.6 m (waterline) |
| Draft |
7.9 m |
| crew |
48 officers |
| drive |
|
| speed |
23 kn |
| Armament |
upon commissioning
1980
1990
|
| helicopter |
up to 25 |
| soldiers |
up to 1900 |
The Iwo Jima class was a class of amphibious assault ships in the United States Navy . The seven units of the class were the first ships of the US Navy, which were originally planned and built as amphibious assault ships. They were in the service of the Navy from 1961 to 1998, the USS Inchon, after being converted into a mine support ship, until 2002.
history
Planning and construction
With the increased use of helicopters for amphibious landing operations and the expansion of the so-called “vertical assault” concept, the need for helicopter carriers increased in the US Navy in the 1950s . The Navy took first former aircraft carriers and escort carrier from World War II to meet the demand. The first ship to be converted was the former escort carrier USS Thetis Bay , which was first used in the US Navy from 1955 as CVHA-1 (Assault Helicopter Aircraft Carrier), later as LPH-6. The planned conversion of the USS Block Island was canceled in June 1958 before work began, so that the LPH-1 identifier was never assigned. Among the escort carriers suffering from their outdated and underperforming machinery were three former Essex-class carriers , the USS Boxer (LPH-4) , the USS Princeton (LPH-5) and the USS Valley Forge (LPH ) between 1959 and 1961 -8) .
However, these ships were only to be used temporarily as helicopter carriers; the Navy had already started planning a new class of ship specially tailored to the task in the mid-1950s. On January 27, 1958, construction of the first Iwo Jima-class ship, the USS Iwo Jima , was approved. The construction contract went to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton , Bremerton , where the keel-laying took place on April 2, 1959. After being launched on September 17, 1960, the Iwo Jima was put into service with the Navy on August 26, 1961. By 1966, six more units of the class had been approved, built in equal parts at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania and at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula , Mississippi . The last ship, the Inchon , entered the US Navy on June 20, 1970. The construction costs for the type ship were around 40 million US dollars , the total cost of the Inchon , which was completed at a private shipyard, was 48.9 million US dollars (37.9 million US dollars pure shipyard costs), the New Orleans built at the state naval shipyard in Philadelphia, was $ 60 million.
units
| Identification number | Surname | In service | Off-duty | Whereabouts / fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LPH-2 | Iwo Jima | August 26, 1961 | July 14, 1993 | scrapped |
| LPH-3 | Okinawa | April 14, 1962 | 17th December 1992 | Sunk in 2002 as a target ship |
| LPH-7 | Guadalcanal | July 20, 1963 | August 31, 1994 | Sunk in 2005 as a target ship |
| LPH-9 | Guam | January 16, 1965 | August 25, 1998 | Sunk in 2001 as a target ship |
| LPH-10 | Tripoli | August 6, 1966 | September 15, 1995 | Ballistic missile launch platform |
| LPH-11 | New Orleans | November 16, 1968 | October 1, 1997 | Sunk in 2010 as a target ship |
| LPH-12 | Inchon | June 20, 1970 | June 20, 2002 | Sunk in 2004 as a target ship |
Mission profile
,_1991.jpg)
The ships of the Iwo Jima class served as a permanent base for two battalions of Marines (around 1900 soldiers), even during longer missions and in times of peace. In addition, about 20 helicopters of the medium and heavy transport helicopter squadrons of the Marine Corps were on board , which enabled the embarked troops to be transported by air. These were supplemented by half a Marine Attack Helicopter Squadron , whose attack helicopters were to provide fire support to the ground forces. From the eighties, the ships also carried Harrier vertical take- offs , which served as close air support for landing troops. In addition, the ships offered space for 300 wounded, who could be treated in the on-board hospital.
Since the ships had neither large cargo holds for replenishment transport or the laying of heavy equipment, nor a corrugated deck for disembarking landing craft , they had to be accompanied by transport ships, armored landing ships , dock landing ships and amphibious transport docks during operations .
On the USS Guam from 1972 the concept of the "Sea Control Ship", a light and inexpensive anti- submarine aircraft carrier , was temporarily tested. For this purpose, she was extensively modernized from October 1971 in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and prepared for the use of vertical takeoffs. As of January 1972, the use of AV-8A Harrier and SH-3H-U fighter helicopters was tested on board the ship as part of the "Interim Sea Control Ship" project . At the end of 1973, the carrier was also equipped with an "Anti-Submarine Classification and Analysis Center" that made it possible to identify the located submarines. At the beginning of 1974, the Guam ran out of the Atlantic with the frigates Edward McDonnell and McCandless to test the concept of the Sea Control Ship in a real operational area. After serving with the Sea Control Force (TG 27.2), the Guam was again used as a helicopter carrier on July 1, 1974.
The USS Inchon was used as a mine support ship from 1994 to 2002 and served as a base for mine sweeping operations. Mine-hunting helicopters were used from board.
Calls
Five of the seven ships were used off the coast of Indochina during the Vietnam War . Other missions took place outside Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war and after the attack on the US base in Beirut . The USS Iwo Jima , Okinawa , Guadalcanal , Guam and Tripoli were part of the US fleet during Operation Desert Storm . In 1992 and 1993 the Guam , Tripoli and Inchon were also involved in Operation Restore Hope off Somalia .
Damage and incidents
In 1981 a serious incident occurred on deck on the USS Guam when on July 19 a CH-53 helicopter collided with two other helicopters while approaching and fell on the flight deck. Four sailors were killed.
At the end of October 1990 on the Iwo Jima there was a material failure on a main valve in one of the boiler rooms, causing the valve to burst and the boiler room to be flooded with steam. All ten machinists present died. The cause was the use of faulty fastening screws and a lack of verification of the work carried out in Bahrain.
On the morning of February 18, 1991, the USS Tripoli ran into a mine in the Persian Gulf, the explosion of which tore a five by seven meter hole in the hull of the ship and flooded some departments. The damage was repaired at the Arab Shipbuilding and Repair Yard in Bahrain.
Retirement and whereabouts
With the commissioning of the first ships of the more versatile and modern Wasp class , the 30-year-old Iwo Jima class was decommissioned at the end of 1992; six of the seven ships were decommissioned by August 1998. Only the Inchon remained in use in its new role until 2002. Five ships have since been sunk as target ships, and another has been scrapped.
The USS Tripoli was converted into a mobile launch platform for ballistic missiles (e.g. Lance ) between 2004 and 2006 . Since then it has been used for missile defense tests under the control of the US Army as part of the THAAD project .
technology
Hull and drive
The Iwo Jima class ships were 169.47 meters long and 25.6 meters wide at the waterline. The overall length was 183 meters, the maximum width at the height of the flight deck 31.9 meters. With a maximum operational displacement of 18,300 standard tonnes, the ships had a draft of 7.9 meters, the empty displacement was 11,000 standard tonnes.
It was driven by two 600 psi (4.1 MPa) steam boilers that supplied a 22,000 WPS (16 MW ) geared steam turbine . This drove a single shaft with a single propeller 7 meters in diameter. The top speed was about 23 knots . The fuel supply of 2800 tons allowed a range of about 13,000 nautical miles at 16 knots cruising speed .
The propulsion system caused strong vibrations on board, and at speeds of 21 knots or more, some areas of the ship were almost uninhabitable.
Armament and Electronics
,_1987.jpg)
When commissioned, each ship had four 3 "twin guns, 50 caliber length . Two guns were in front of the island, the mounts of these guns were closed on the last three ships of the class. Two more guns were located aft, one at each rear corner of the The 3-inch guns had a rate of between 45 and 50 rounds per minute, the 5.9 kg explosive shells had a range of over seven nautical miles, and the maximum height of fire was over 9,000 meters The guns were gradually reduced to two from the beginning of the seventies, instead the ships received first one, then a second eight-fold starter Mark 25 for RIM-7 Sea Sparrow , added the Mark 115 fire control radars.In the 1980s, two Phalanx CIWS were installed on board to repel approaching missiles.
When commissioned, the ships had an AN / SPS-12 from Radio Corporation of America as 2D radar, which was soon replaced by the improved AN / SPS-40 . An AN / SPN-10 all-weather approach system from Bell Corporation was first used for approach monitoring; this was replaced by the improved AN / SPN-35 , which was also used on the Tarawa-class ships . The ships had a URN-20 TACAN system for navigation, WLR-6 jammers were available for electronic countermeasures, and from the 1980s the AN / SLQ-32 system.
Flight deck and aircraft
The continuous flight deck enabled up to seven helicopters to take off at the same time. The hangar, which was connected to the flight deck by two elevators, one of which was foldable, offered space for up to 20 CH-46 Sea Knights or 13 CH-53 Sea Stallions . Normally, four CH-53, ten CH-46 and six AH-1 attack helicopters were accommodated on board for close-up support. In addition, there are usually one or two light UH-1 Huey liaison helicopters . Up to four AV-8A Harrier were also temporarily stationed on board . 1500 tons of JP-5 fuel were carried on board for the aircraft .
Web links
- Iwo Jima class on globalsecurity.org (English)
Footnotes
- ↑ History of Block Island in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships , as of November 2, 2009
- ↑ a b c Stefan Terzibaschitsch : Sea power USA . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-86047-576-2 . P. 567
- ↑ a b Iwo Jima class on globalsecurity.org (English), as of November 2, 2009
- ↑ a b c Stefan Terzibaschitsch: Sea power USA . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-86047-576-2 . P. 570
- ^ Stefan Terzibaschitsch: Sea power USA . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-86047-576-2 . P. 569
- ↑ dtic.mil: Mobile Launch Platform (MLP) Environmental Assessment ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ staradvertiser.com: Sinking feeling (English)
- ↑ a b Stefan Terzibaschitsch: Sea power USA . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-86047-576-2 . P. 568
- ↑ Sea Control Ship at globalsecurity.org , as of November 2, 2009
- ↑ dcfp.navy.mil: Anatomy of a Catastrophic Boiler Accident ( Memento of the original from August 25, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. As of November 2, 2009
- ↑ dcfp.navy.mil: Tripoli Keeps on Ticking ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. As of November 2, 2009
- ↑ 3 "/ 50 (7.62 cm) Marks 27, 33 and 34 , as of November 2, 2009
- ↑ a b Iwo Jima Class at THE NAVY AND NASA: From Sea to Space ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. As of November 2, 2009
