USS Lake Erie (CG-70)

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Lake Erie in Pearl Harbor, 2007
The Lake Erie in Pearl Harbor, 2007
Overview
Order February 25, 1988
Keel laying March 6, 1990
Launch July 13, 1991
1. Period of service flag
Commissioning July 24, 1993
Technical specifications
displacement

9750 tons

length

173 meters

width

16.80 meters

Draft

10.2 meters

crew

approx. 390

drive

Four gas turbines, two shafts with a total of 80,000 hp

speed

30+ knots

Armament

2 launchers for anti-ship missiles, 2 triple torpedo launchers, 2 guns 127 mm, 122 VLS cells

motto

Courage, Determination, Peace (German: courage, determination, peace )

The USS Lake Erie (CG-70) is a guided missile cruiser of the United States Navy and belongs Ticonderoga-class cruiser to. The cruiser entered service in 1993 and was based in Pearl Harbor , Hawaii , with the United States Pacific Fleet . From 1998 it was modified, since then the Lake Erie has served, among other things, as a test ship for the sea-based component of the National Missile Defense .

Name and motto

Perry during the battle

The Lake Erie was after on Lake Erie Battle named, during the American-British war on September 10, 1813 took place. The outnumbered American fleet under Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the Royal Navy under Commander Robert Heriot Barclay that day . This victory was one of the reasons the British Crown agreed to the peace treaty of 1814.

The motto of Lake Erie is courage, determination, peace , in German courage, determination, peace . This is to honor the fighting soldiers from the battle of Lake Erie: The Navy justifies this with the fact that the soldiers had the courage to fight, the determination to win and saw peace as their goal. As a motto saying the cruiser also leads Do not Give Up the Ship (dt .: Do not give up the ship ). This is also derived from the battle. Perry had had the slogan written on his flag of war, which waved on the top mast of his flagship, the USS Lawrence . It was the last words of his friend James Lawrence , who had fallen in command of the USS Chesapeake in June and after whom Perry had named his ship.

technology

More about the technology can be found in the article on the class under Ticonderoga class (cruiser)

The stern of Lake Erie

As a Ticonderoga-class cruiser , the ship, fully laden, displaces 9750 tn.l. Water and is 173 meters long with a width of 16.8 meters. The cruiser is powered by four gas turbines LM-2500 from General Electric powered and has a top speed of 30 knots .

The armament of Lake Erie consists of a vertical launching system for anti-aircraft missiles RIM-67 Standard Missile 2 , missile torpedoes RUM-139 VLASROC and cruise missiles BGM-109 Tomahawk . Eight anti-ship missiles AGM-84 Harpoon can also be fired from two canisters . In addition, the cruiser has two 5 ″ Mark 45 lightweight guns , two phalanx close-in-weapon systems (missile defense) and two torpedo launchers for Mark 46 torpedoes .

The main mission of the ship, when not conducting weapons tests, is to provide air defense for aircraft carriers. For this, the Lake Erie can fall back on the Aegis combat system, which, thanks to four phased array antennas, allows seamless 360 ° surveillance over a range of approx. 200 nautical miles around the ship.

history

construction

The construction of CG-70 was approved by the United States Congress on February 25, 1988 as the 24th Ticonderoga-class cruiser along with four other cruisers of the class. As Shipyard for the later Lake Erie was Bath Iron Works in Bath , Maine selected. The keel of the ship was laid there on March 6, 1990. After a construction period of over a year, the cruiser was launched on July 13, 1991. This was followed by around two years for equipping the ship with weapon systems and working inside the ship on the equipment pier and for the first shipyard test drives. The official entry into the US Navy fleet on July 24, 1993 in Pearl Harbor , Hawaii , was completed, where the Lake Erie was then stationed.

Rides with the Constellation

In 1997, Lake Erie led a fleet in the Pacific

The first mission of the new guided missile cruiser began on November 10, 1994, when the Lake Erie left her home port as escort of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation (CV-64) . The combat group spent the rest of the year in the western Pacific, then the mission command led them through the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf , which was reached on January 11, 1995. The group increased the presence of the US armed forces there as part of Operation Southern Watch . In February, took Lake Erie along with the frigate USS Vandegrift (FFG-48) also on anti-submarine Exercises part. To evaluate the danger posed by diesel-electric submarines, the American nuclear submarine USS Topeka (SSN-754) simulated one and tried to sneak past the pursuers unseen in the Persian Gulf and then in the Gulf of Oman . The Lake Erie then met with the combat group around the USS Essex (LHD-2) and the USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) in order to evacuate US, Pakistani and Egyptian soldiers from Somalia as part of Operation United Shield to secure. The mission of the combat group ended in March of that year, in May the Lake Erie returned to Pearl Harbor.

The first relocation was followed by an evaluation of the performance, and the next deployment did not take place until 1997. This led the Lake Erie in turn with the Constellation in the Persian Gulf, where the ship took part in the Arabian Skies exercise , which aimed to combat tactical ballistic missiles . In 1998 another relocation to the Gulf followed, once more the cruiser was assigned to escort the Constellation . Part of this relocation was also a maneuver with the Pakistani Navy , the aim of which was to improve military cooperation.

Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System

An SM-3 took off from Lake Erie in 2007. You can also see the ship's motto and the ship's bell

In 1998 the Lake Erie was selected as a test ship for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System . This program is intended to be able to use Aegis specifically as part of the National Missile Defense for the destruction of approaching ICBMs . For this purpose, Aegis has been specially equipped to record and track such targets. The first tests of the modified systems took place in autumn 1998. In 1999 the tests were interrupted because another escort trip with the carrier Constellation was due, which in turn led to the Persian Gulf. During this voyage, which was mainly used as part of Southern Watch to enforce the UN embargo on Iraq, Lake Erie brought up eight ships that violated the established regulations and confiscated oil worth more than three million dollars.

In early 2000, the installation of the necessary hardware began to fire the RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3). In July, the Navy announced that Lake Erie would be the main platform for testing the ABMDS as the test missiles were fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai , Hawaii, allowing Lake Erie to quickly reach the test areas from its home port. In January 2001 the Lake Erie shot down the first SM-3 at a target missile, the test was a success after the kinetic warhead of the SM-3 caught and tracked the target. On February 9, 2001, the Lake Erie had another different task: the submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) hit the Japanese fishing school ship Ehime Maru at the stern during an emergency surfacing maneuver and damaged it so badly that it sank within minutes. In the course of the rescue operation that followed, the cruiser was also looking for survivors.

The Lake Erie in 2004 in Portland

Preparations for another test began in early 2002. On January 26th, another test target was launched from Kauai and attacked by an SM-3 off Lake Erie . The test was successful and resulted in the missile being destroyed. Two more successful tests followed in 2002. While a test failed in June 2003 after a malfunction in the rocket's propulsion system, further tests were successfully completed in December 2003 and February 2005. In 2004, however, there were other tasks: At the beginning of the year Lake Erie took part in the Fleet Parade 97th Annual Rose Festival in Portland , Oregon . In the summer, the multinational exercise RIMPAC was on the agenda. The last four months of the year the ship was finally dispatched to the western Pacific as part of the war on terrorism .

In the seven kills carried out up to 2006, the SM-3 attacked their targets in mid-flight outside the earth's atmosphere. On May 25, 2006, an SM-2 Block IV was used for the first time from Lake Erie to attack a ballistic missile during the final approach phase. This test was also a success. In April 2007 there was another launch of an SM-3 against a target missile, which was combined with the launch of a conventional SM-2 to defend the ship against air targets. Both missiles were able to lock on and destroy their respective targets.

As of May 2007, Lake Erie was involved in the Valiant Shield and Talisman Saber exercises during a four-month deployment as escort for the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) . In November, the cruiser intercepted two ballistic missile dummies.

The runaway spy satellite USA 193 (NRO-L 21) was successfully destroyed on February 21, 2008 by an SM-3 missile launched by Lake Erie in a launch area north of Hawaii to avoid possible damage from its crash and on board to prevent the presence of toxic hydrazine . Radar and orbit data for the launch were provided by the destroyers USS Russell (DDG-59) and USS Decatur (DDG-73) , which were part of the Lake Erie .

On June 6th, the next test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System was held. The Lake Erie shot one of the flight deck of the USS Tripoli (LPH-10) launched Scud -like rocket from about 20 kilometers above sea level in the final phase of the flight profile. The cost of this test was approximately $ 40 million. Following the test, the cruiser again took part in the RIMPAC exercise. During the exercise, the Lake Erie sank the decommissioned destroyer USS David R. Ray (DD-971) together with Japanese warships , including with a harpoon . At the end of 2009, Lake Erie moved to the Pacific for four months and took part in exercises with the Marines of South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines. In the summer of 2010, RIMPAC was on the schedule again. A year later, Lake Erie participated in the Trident Fury and Northern Edge exercises.

Web links

Commons : USS Lake Erie (CG-70)  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Information page about the insignia of Lake Erie (English)
  2. official ship website ( Memento of April 30, 2003 in the Internet Archive ), (English)
  3. official ship website ( Memento of July 13, 2003 in the Internet Archive ), (English)
  4. Summary of the tests on cdi.org ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2007 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)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cdi.org
  5. navy.mil: First at-Sea Demonstration of Sea-Based Terminal Capability Successfully Completed (English)
  6. Navy Missile Hits Decaying Satellite Over Pacific Ocean
  7. Navy Times: Cruiser shoots down missile in Aegis test  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.navytimes.com  
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on April 28, 2007 .