THE SEA SERVICES

USS Lassen Commissioned; DDG 95 Will Honor MOH Hero Williams

By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor

The 32nd Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided-missile destroyer (DDG) has been brought to life and the Navy has selected the name of a riverine war hero for another Burke-class DDG.

The newly commissioned USS Lassen (DDG 82) has been assigned to the Pacific Fleet. The 513-foot, 9,238-ton ship, commanded by Cdr. Sean E. O'Connor, will be homeported in San Diego, Calif., as a unit of Destroyer Squadron 23.

Vice Adm. Edwin J. Moore, commander of the Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, was the principal speaker at the ship's commissioning ceremonies in Tampa, Fla., at which the Lassen's sponsors, Linda B. Lassen--widow of the ship's namesake--and Barbara O. Pilling, wife of former Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Donald Pilling, now retired, gave the order to "bring our ship to life."

Also speaking at the commissioning ceremonies were Rear Adm. William W. Cobb Jr., program executive officer for theater surface combatants; Lt. Gen. Michael P. DeLong, deputy commander in chief, U.S. Central Command; Dick A. Greco, mayor of Tampa; and Jerry St. Pe, CEO of Northrop Grumman Litton Ship Systems. The commissioning ceremonies and associated social events were supported by the Tampa Council of the Navy League under the leadership of council president Robert F. Sawallesh and Lassen committee chairman Robert J. Silah.

The Lassen--the second Flight IIA and 14th Arleigh Burke-class DDG built by Northrop Grumman's Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding at the company's yard in Pascagoula, Miss.--is named for Lt. Clyde E. Lassen, a native of Ft. Myers, Fla. Lassen, a Navy UH-2 helicopter pilot assigned to Helicopter Combat Support Squadron Seven (HC-7), was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courageous rescue on 19 June 1968 of two Navy flyers downed inside North Vietnam. After several attempts to rescue the crew were frustrated by dense tree cover, enemy fire, and intermittent illumination, Lassen turned on the UH-2's landing lights --despite the risk of attracting enemy fire--to guide the downed crewmen to his helicopter. Lassen and his crew flew the bullet-ridden helicopter, low on fuel, through more enemy fire to a safe landing--with only five minutes of fuel remaining--to a destroyer offshore. Lassen died in 1994.

In a related development, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James L. Herdt has announced that the 45th Arleigh Burke-class ship, DDG 95, will be named the James E. Williams. The decision to honor Boatswain's Mate First Class James E. Williams was made by then-Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig before he left office and was announced by Herdt in Williams's hometown of Darlington, S.C.

Williams was boat captain of river patrol boat (PBR) 105 on 31 October 1966 on the Mekong River in South Vietnam when his boat and another PBR, assisted by helicopter gunships, engaged scores of enemy boats. After three hours of heavy fighting, Williams's patrol had accounted for the destruction of 65 enemy boats and more than 1,000 enemy troops. Williams, who later served as U.S. Marshal for the district of South Carolina, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

DON Defers Decision On DD 21 Contractor

The Navy Department has postponed a decision on the next phase of its future land-attack (DD 21) destroyer program, pending the results of several ongoing defense strategy reviews being conducted by the Department of Defense (DOD).

The reviews include Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's overall strategy review, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and a future shipbuilding review being conducted by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.

"This [the DD 21 program] is a significant program approaching a significant milestone," said Under Secretary of the Navy Robert B. Pirie Jr. "As we continue to look at how the Navy will be shaped in the 21st century by participating in the ongoing strategic reviews, it is only prudent to ensure DD 21 reflects the results of those reviews."

The DD 21 Blue Team--led by Bath Iron Works with Lockheed Martin Government Systems--and the DD 21 Gold Team--led by Northrop Grumman Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding with Raytheon--are continuing design development of their respective proposals under the Phase II contracts previously awarded.

Navy Explains Delays In LPD 17 Program

Extensions in the delivery dates of all of the LPD 17 San Antonio-class landing platform dock ships currently under contract are likely, Navy officials said, because of unforeseen problems with integrating computer-aided design (CAD) processes into the construction program.

A Production Readiness Review in July 2000 indicated that the design and the design process were on track, but significant problems have subsequently been encountered, the officials said. The Navy attributes the delays to the ship's overall design complexity and to several other factors, including the following:

* Difficulties in design integration: Design is ongoing at three shipyards. For that reason, "a higher level of management attention" is required than if the entire design was being worked in the traditional fashion at one location.

* A CAD environment more complex than originally expected: The CAD process has presented unique challenges that have inhibited the concurrent development and continuous improvement required: (a) to model such structures as curvatures in thick steel plate; and (b) for the modeling of millions of components for a 25,000-ton ship.

* A shortage of designers: The industry-wide shortage has been a major factor in causing the delays. Intergraph Corporation had to increase program support by 25 percent, and Avondale by 70 percent. In addition, the expansion in demand for skilled designers required more time to train them in the new processes involved.

* Complications caused by "lofting" requirements: The CAD process provides a design that is more efficient to build, but the resultant lofting--the process that converts three-dimensional design information into fabrication instructions--is more complex than was expected.

Despite the delays and increased up-front design costs, Navy officials said they see several long-term benefits and efficiencies for future shipbuilding programs resulting from the steep learning curve experienced in the LPD 17 program. The CAD process has provided a method to significantly lower risk and design costs and to reduce both construction errors and "re-work" requirements. The integrated design process has given design workers opportunities to work together in ways never before experienced, and has provided new and innovative ways to work traditional engineering tasks. The process also permits the incorporation of changes into the design, and reduces total long-term "ownership costs." Program officials have projected an estimated $4.3 billion savings in operation and support costs because of the new design processes being used.

Delivery of the lead ship, the San Antonio, is now scheduled for November 2004. Construction of the LPD 17 began in August 2000 and the keel was laid in December 2000. The detail design effort is on track for completion sometime this fall, Navy officials said.

Sea Service Notes

* The Coast Guard's medium-endurance cutter USCGC Active seized more than 12 metric tons of cocaine--26,400 pounds, worth an estimated $600 million--from a fishing vessel in what is the largest cocaine seizure in maritime history. The Belize-registered Svesda Maru was spotted by a U.S. Customs Service P-3 aircraft, identified by a Coast Guard HC-130H aircraft, and searched by a Coast Guard law-enforcement detachment deployed on board a Navy Spruance-class destroyer that, after intercepting the fishing vessel, turned the search over to the Active.

* The Navy's 201-year-old Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is in Maine, not New Hampshire, according to a U.S. Supreme Court decision reported in the 30 May issue of The Washington Post. The sovereignty over the shipyard in the town of Kittery had long been a matter of dispute between the two states.

* The Oceanographer of the Navy and The Weather Channel have formalized a Memorandum of Understanding designed to encourage collaboration between the two forecasting organizations, which, Navy officials said, will now be able to "jointly examine new methods and technologies for producing and presenting forecasts." The Weather Channel will now have access to data from the 128-processor Silicon Graphics International Origin 3800 supercomputer at the Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center in Monterey, Calif. In turn, The Weather Channel will give the Navy "a source of validation and feedback" for its weather and ocean forecasts. The Navy also is considering possible use of the graphics used by The Weather Channel for the presentation of weather data.