USS Hopper (DDG-70)
 The hoppers with a Seahawk helicopter |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Order | April 8, 1992 |
| Keel laying | February 23, 1995 |
| Launch | January 6, 1996 |
| 1. Period of service |
|
| Commissioning | September 6, 1997 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
8315 tons |
| length |
154 m |
| width |
20 metres |
| Draft |
9.5 meters |
| crew |
26 officers, 315 men |
| drive |
2 propellers, driven by 4 gas turbines; 100,000 wave horsepower |
| speed |
31 knots |
| Armament |
90 VLS cells |
The USS Hopper (DDG-70) is a destroyer in the United States Navy and belongs to the Arleigh Burke class .
history
_stern.jpg)
The Hopper was laid down at Bath Iron Works in 1995 and launched in early 1996. It was named after Flotilla Admiral Grace Hopper . This makes the ship, after the USS Higbee (after Lenah Higbee ) only the second to be named after a woman from the US armed forces.
The Hopper performed its first international exercise in the summer of 1998 ( RIMPAC 98 ), after which it relocated to the Pacific for the first time. By 2002, the destroyer made three trips, including in support of Operation Southern Watch . From June to December 2004, the ship escorted the Expeditionary Strike Group around the amphibious assault ship USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) of the Tarawa class . In 2005 the ship took part in the Fleet Week off San Francisco .
In 2006 the Hopper drove in the Pacific and took part in the CARAT exercise, a multinational maneuver with the navies of Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. In November 2007, the destroyer joined the combat group surrounding the USS Tarawa (LHA-1) for a six-month voyage to the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. On this voyage, the Hopper sailed the Strait of Hormuz in close formation with USS Port Royal (CG-73) and USS Ingraham (FFG-61) . During the passage, the three ships in international waters were approached by five speedboats of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard , which broke into formation, transmitted threatening radio messages and exposed white boxes of unknown content in front of the Ingraham in the water. The incident lasted 30 minutes and was described by the US as "unnecessarily provocative".
On November 1, 2008, the destroyer took part in a National Missile Defense test. The Hopper shot a Standard Missile 3 at a short-range ballistic missile, but missed it. Her sister ship USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60) hit her target in the connected test. In July 2009, during another test, the Hopper hit a ballistic missile and destroyed it around 100 miles over the Pacific. In September the ship moved to the waters of the Middle East . In the summer of 2010, the destroyer took part in the multinational exercise RIMPAC. In April 2011, the Hopper shot down a medium-range ballistic missile in a test in the Pacific. This was the first time that the Aegis combat system , coupled with data from other radar stations, was successfully used against such a missile. The destroyer then moved to the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf for seven months.
Web links
- Entry in the Naval Vessel Register (Engl.)
- official website (English).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Navy Times: Top admiral details US-Iranian encounter ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.)
