USS Freedom (LCS-1)

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Freedom on the quay wall
The Freedom of the quay wall
Overview
Order May 2004
Keel laying June 2, 2005
Launch September 23, 2006
1. Period of service flag
Commissioning November 8, 2008
Technical specifications
displacement

3000 ts

length

115.5 m

width

13.1 m

Draft

3.7 m

crew

15 to 50 permanent crew, 75 on duty

drive

two MT30 - gas turbines (each 36 MW) + 2 Colt Pielstick diesel engines

speed

47 knots

The USS Freedom (LCS-1) is the lead ship of the new class of Littoral Combat Ships (German ships for coastal combat control ), the Freedom class .

history

USS Freedom in the South China Sea, image 2013

The ship was commissioned from Lockheed Martin's Marinette Marine Shipyard in Marinette , Wisconsin in May 2004. The keel was laid on June 2, 2005. The ship is the first surface warship to be built on the Great Lakes in over a century .

On September 23, 2006, the Freedom was launched. Her godmother was Birgit Smith, widow of Paul Ray Smith , who died in Iraq in 2003 . The shipyard's first system tests began in May 2008, and the first test drives on Lake Michigan followed on July 28 . On September 18, 2008, the ship was handed over to the US Navy. The commissioning took place on November 8th in Milwaukee . Freedom spent the following weeks visiting ports in the northern United States and Canada. In December, the ship reached Hampton Roads , where it was stationed at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in early 2010 . After being in the shipyard from January to March 2009, the crews tested the ship from there. In February 2010, the ship carried out exercises with the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and the cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) . On February 17th, the first mission of the Freedom began . It was used in the Caribbean to fight smugglers. The crew was able to confiscate over five tons of cocaine in four operations. The Freedom then went to its new home port in San Diego. From there she was assigned to the multinational exercise RIMPAC in June .

One of the gas turbines was damaged during practice drives off California on September 12, 2010. Blades had broken out of the turbine and damaged the interior. With its diesel engines, the ship was able to continue its journey. The Navy used the damage to test the replacement of an entire turbine, which was not carried out in the San Diego naval base, but in the small base in Port Hueneme .

In March 2013, the ship, freshly "spoiled" in a multi-colored camouflage, set out on an eight-month mission to Southeast Asia; The base in the operational area was Singapore's Changi Naval Base . The ship returned to San Diego just before Christmas 2013.

In the spring of 2014, the use of manned and unmanned helicopters to fight against small, fast enemy boats was practiced. In the summer of 2016, the ship took part in the RIMPAC naval maneuver in the Pacific Ocean.

See also

Web links

Commons : USS Freedom  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files