USS Ponce (LPD-15)

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The 2013 Ponce in the Persian Gulf
The 2013 Ponce in the Persian Gulf
Overview
Order May 17, 1965
Keel laying October 31, 1966
Launch May 20, 1970
1. Period of service flag
Commissioning July 10, 1971
Decommissioning October 14, 2017
Technical specifications
displacement

fully loaded 16,914  ts

length

173.7 meters

width

25.2 meters

Draft

7.0 meters

crew

24 officers, 396 men, up to 900 Marines

drive

Two boilers, two turbines; on 2 propellers, 24,000  shaft horsepower

speed

21 knots

Armament

2 machine cannons, 8 machine guns, 2 Phalanx CIWS Block 1B , 1 laser weapon system

The USS Ponce (LPD-15) was an amphibious transport dock for the United States Navy . It belonged to the Austin class and was named after the town of Ponce , Puerto Rico .

history

LPD-15 was commissioned in 1965 and laid down a year later at Lockheed Shipbuilding . In 1970 the ship was launched, godmother was the wife of Admiral John J. Hyland . In 1971 the Ponce was put into service. She was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet.

When the Ponce was on the voyage to Portsmouth , England, in 1982 , she collided with the USS Fort Snelling (LSD-30) , both ships being slightly damaged. The ship suffered further damage in 1984 when a landing craft tried to leave the Ponce's well deck . The gate to the corrugated deck was damaged and torn down a short time later. The damage was removed in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard .

In 1990 the Ponce was part of the combat group surrounding the USS Saipan (LHA-2) , which evacuated 2,690 civilians from Monrovia , Liberia , in Operation Sharp Edge .

In 1999 the ship took part in the Northern Approach exercise with the Turkish Navy and the Royal Navy . In 2003 the Ponce was used to transport US Marines to the Iraq war . She was then used as the flagship for mine clearance operations off the Iraqi coast. In 2005 she returned to the Persian Gulf alongside the USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) as part of the War on Terror . This was repeated in 2007. Two years later, the Ponce was sent to the Middle East with the USS Bataan (LHD-5) . During this trip the group took part in the Exercise Bright Star 2009 maneuver with Egyptian forces.

The Ponce was combined again with the Kearsarge in August 2010 to bring relief supplies to the regions affected by the flood disaster in Pakistan . The combat group then sailed the Arabian Sea. At the beginning of March 2011, both ships were moved through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea for possible US intervention in the unrest in Libya .

According to the original plan, the Ponce should be decommissioned on March 30, 2012 and assigned to the reserve fleet. In late January 2012, there were reports that the Ponce was to be converted into a Navy Seals forward platform. The conversion in this direction was later denied by Admiral John C. Harvey, current commander of the United States Fleet Forces Command .

After the renovation work, the USS Ponce was sent back to the Persian Gulf. It had been in use off the coast of Bahrain since the beginning of July 2012 and served the US Navy in the region as a mine clearer in the Strait of Hormuz in the conflict with Iran . In April 2013, the US Navy announced on its website that it would install a prototype of a laser cannon on it. The system can turn off patrol boats and drones and is also said to be able to destroy attacking missiles and fighter planes later. This could be seen as a warning to Iran, which, according to US reports, was aggressively expanding its military activities in the region.

In August 2014, the laser weapon called LaWS ( Laser Weapon System ) was installed on the USS Ponce. LaWS was developed by the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD). In November 2014, the Navy announced that the laser was ready to be used as a defensive weapon for the USS Ponce. On July 14, 2017, the LaWS was followed by the test launch of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the Persian Gulf near Bahrain.

On October 14, 2017, the USS Ponce was decommissioned, it is to be scrapped.

Web links

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

Remarks

  1. ^ Raf Sanchez: US building 'mothership' for launching Navy Seal raids . The Telegraph. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  2. ↑ USS "Ponce": US troop transport cruising off Iran's coast . Mirror online. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
  3. ↑ Transport vessel isn't being made SEAL mothership . In: Bloomberg Businessweek . February 1, 2012. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
  4. ^ US sending floating naval base through Suez Canal . In: security blogs at CNN.com . June 22, 2012. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
  5. ↑ US troop transport cruises off the coast of Iran. In: spiegel.de. July 12, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2012 .
  6. ^ Navy Leaders Announce Plans for Deploying Cost-Saving Laser Technology. United States Navy , August 4, 2013, accessed October 15, 2017 .
  7. ↑ US Navy wants to test laser cannon in the Persian Gulf. In: Der Spiegel . April 9, 2013, accessed October 15, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Thom Shanker: Navy Deploying Laser Weapon Prototype Near Iran. The New York Times , April 8, 2013, accessed October 15, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Brad Lendon: Navy: New laser weapon works, ready for action. CNN , December 11, 2014, accessed October 15, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Video by Chief Petty Officer Joshua Bruns: US Navy LaWS Demonstration. US Navy , July 14, 2017, accessed February 16, 2018 .
  11. ^ USS Ponce Decommissioned after 46 Years of Service. United States Navy , October 14, 2017, accessed October 15, 2017 .