THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 14, 1994 TAG: 9412140661
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
In an era when the Navy is bringing few new ships into the fleet, the birth of just one draws a crowd.
That's why everyone from the secretary of the Navy to the men and women at Ingalls Shipbuilding attended Saturday's commissioning of the guided-missile destroyer Mitscher.
Named for a World War II naval aviator, Adm. Marc Andrew Mitscher (1887-1947), the destroyer was commissioned at Pensacola, Fla., and is being prepared for the trip to its new home in Norfolk. It is scheduled to arrive Sunday.
The Mitscher brings 336 new crew members, 100 new families and an annual payroll of $8.7 million to Hampton Roads. Between 20 and 30 families will arrive later from Mississippi, where they have watched the ship take shape.
The Mitscher, the seventh Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyer in a line that is expected to number 57, cost nearly $1 billion and boasts the latest technology. Beginning in 1996, the pace of construction will slow from three destroyers per year to about 2.5, according to budget decisions announced last week.
The Navy still is building many types of ships - Arleigh Burke destroyers, mine hunters, coastal patrol craft, dock landing ships, amphibious assault ships, oilers, research ships, aircraft carriers, attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines. Twelve classes in all are under construction.
But within each class, the total numbers have dwindled. The Navy now builds about six ships a year compared with more than 20 in the mid-1980s.
The Mitscher is the third Burke destroyer built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding division of Litton Industries. Ingalls has contracted to build at least 14.
Some call the new destroyer class ``pocket battleships'' because of the punch they carry.
The ship can hunt submarines with its six torpedo launchers. It can locate enemy aircraft and bring them down 90 miles away with missiles traveling twice the speed of sound. Its radar-guided Tomahawk anti-ship missiles can destroy enemy ships up to 250 miles away. And its Tomahawk land-attack missiles can hit inland targets 800 miles from the ship - the distance from Virginia Beach to Chicago.
Those characteristics, said Balaconis, make it similar to the Ticonderoga-class of Aegis guided-missile cruisers.
Except that the cruisers are 26 feet longer, carry about 50 more crew members, have a helicopter hangar aboard and are commanded by a captain rather than a commander.
``And later models of this will have a helicopter hangar as well,'' said Balaconis.
The Florida commissioning location was chosen because Mitscher, who also commanded a carrier task force, is featured in the National Naval Aviation Museum's Hall of Fame at Pensacola.
Mitscher was revered as a pioneer naval aviator who received the Navy Cross for completing the first Navy transoceanic flight after piloting a seaplane from Newfoundland to the Azores.
Because Mitscher was a strong advocate for fast carrier strike aviation, the crew has adopted the motto `Seize the Day'' as it builds a legacy for the powerful new warship, said its commanding officer, Cmdr. Roy Balaconis.
``Adm. Mitscher was very tough against the enemy, dogging them relentlessly,'' Balaconis said in a recent interview. ``That is the way we'd like people to think of us.''
The Mitscher, Balaconis said, is a warship the late admiral would have wanted in his time. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Seaman Anthony Chambers stands at attention as the guided-missile
destroyer Mitscher docks in Pensacola, Fla. The ship, the seventh in
the Arleigh Burke class, was commissioned Saturday in Pensacola and
is expected to arrive in Norfolk, its home base, on Sunday.
Graphic
ABOUT THE SHIP
Size: 504 feet long, 67 feet wide, draws 31 feet.
Crew: 23 officers, 323 enlisted
Weapons: Two missile launchers, 61-cell and 29 cell; can launch
Tomahawk cruise missiles or standard missiles. One 5-inch gun, two
Phalanx close-in weapons systems, each with 20mm gatling-type guns.
Six 13-inch torpedo tubes.
Firing control: Aegis system with Navy's most powerful radar can
spot and track hundreds of enemy targets at once and destroy them.
Builder: Litton/Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Miss.
by CNB