USS O'Brien (DD-975)
 The O'Brien at sea |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Order | January 26, 1972 |
| Keel laying | May 9, 1975 |
| Launch | July 8, 1976 |
| 1. Period of service |
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|
| Commissioning | September 19, 1981 |
| Decommissioning | September 24, 2004 |
| Whereabouts | sunk as a target ship |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
9100 standard tons |
| length |
171.6 meters |
| width |
16.8 meters |
| Draft |
9.8 meters |
| crew |
30 officers, 350 sailors |
| drive |
2 propellers, driven by 4 gas turbines; 80,000 wave horsepower |
| speed |
33 knots |
| Armament |
2 × Mark 45 lightweight guns , 2 x 20 mm Phalanx CIWS , 2 x Harpoon starters , 1 anti-aircraft missile starter, 2 torpedo tubes 324mm, 1 ASROC starter, later replaced by 61-cell VLS |
The USS O'Brien (DD-975) was a Spruance-class destroyer .
history
The keel laying of the ship named after Captain Jeremiah O'Brien took place on May 9, 1975 at Ingalls Shipbuilding . The O'Brien entered service in 1977.
The third mission of the O'Brien took the ship to the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, where she rescued Vietnamese refugees from distress, for which she received the Humanitarian Service Medal . The rescues took place on April 29, 1984 in the Gulf of Thailand and, on May 23, in the South China Sea . In 1986 the O'Brien went to the Pacific to carry out exercises with the Korean Navy.
Since the ship was equipped with an advanced towing sonar in 1987 , it served as a test platform in the North Pacific and the Bering Sea that year .
The fifth mission took the O'Brien to the Persian Gulf, where she protected tankers during Operation Earnest Will during the Iran-Iraq war and took part in the sinking of the Iranian frigate Sahand on April 18, 1988 during the combat operation Praying Mantis .
After this voyage, the O'Brien underwent an overhaul, during which it was equipped with a vertical launching system , among other things . Thereafter, the destroyer participated in the implementation of the embargo on Iraq during Operation Desert Shield by controlling over four hundred cargo ships.
From December 1991, the O'Brien drove off the coast of South and Central America to stop drug smuggling.
From June 1993, the O'Brien drove again in the Gulf region, including taking part in Operation Southern Watch . In 1996 further operations followed in the Gulf and in Formosastraße .
In 2000, the O'Brien was used with Korean units, and it drove off East Timor . In 2001 the ship operated in the Persian Gulf and participated in the Tomahawk kills on Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom .
On September 24, 2004, the O'Brien was decommissioned and sunk in early 2006 by the Canadian HMCS Vancouver and two Lockheed P-3C Orions in the guided missile test area Pacific Missile Range Facility near Kauai , Hawaii .
Web links
- Pictures of the O'Brien at navsource.org (engl.)
- Video of the sinking at youtube.com (engl.)