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USN's ninth San Antonio-class ship completes acceptance trials

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USN's ninth San Antonio-class ship completes acceptance
trials

Ship_-_main.jpg

The US Navy's amphibious transport dock ship Somerset
(LPD 25) launches from Huntington Ingalls Industries' Avondale shipyard in Louisiana on 14 April 2012. The ship
completed acceptance trials in September 2013 and is scheduled to deliver in October
2013. Source: US Navy

The US Navy's (USN's) ninth San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship has completed acceptance trials and
is expected to deliver some time in October, officials said on 10
October.
Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) announced that Somerset (LPD 25) finished the series of dockside and underway trials for the navy's Board of
Inspection and Survey (INSURV) on 20 September 2013 following three days of at-sea testing in the Gulf of Mexico. Built by Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), Somerset will be commissioned on 1 March 2014.

The penultimate San Antonio-class ship, John P Murtha (LPD 26) is under construction at HII's Ingalls Shipbuilding and is expected be to completed in 2016. Portland (LPD 27), the final ship in the 11-ship class, is expected to be completed in
2017.
COMMENT
Somerset is the final ship to be built at HII's Avondale Shipyard in
Louisiana, which was blamed early on in the San Antonio-class
programme for churning out poorly constructed amphibious transport dock ships. Build
quality issues have plagued a number of the new platforms
throughout the years.
On board Somerset , for example, improperly installed bolts that fasten the main engine frames to ship hull foundations were
discovered in August 2012.
The defect was subsequently found
on seventh-in-class Anchorage (LPD 23).
In both cases, repairs
were made to the ships prior to
handover.
Originally scheduled to shutter upon completion of Somerset, Avondale is being converted to
support HII in the energy sector.

The two remaining San Antonio-class ships under construction,
John P Murtha and Portland , are being built at Ingalls Shipbuilding's Pascagoula,Mississippi, yard.

Somerset is the third and final ship in the class to be named in
honor of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. USS New York
(LPD 21) and USS Arlington (LPD24) are the other two.

Incidentally, the lead ship of the class, USS San Antonio (LPD 17),
garnered media attention recently for being the DoD's
warship of choice to detain the suspected Al-Qaeda member Abu
Anas al-Libi who was nabbed in Tripoli by US Special Forces on 5
October 2013. San Antonio is on its second operational
deployment to the Middle East.

http://janes.com/article/28211/usn-s-ninth-san-antonio-class-ship-completes-acceptance-trials
 
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