hi fellas, photobucket is playing up on my iphone again. it wont access all the pics I've taken for some reason?
so I'll put some info up for your reading pleasure.
a little bit about the LCS concept first.
The littoral combat ship (LCS) is a class of relatively small surface vessels intended for operations in the littoral zone (close to shore) by the United States Navy. It was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals.
The Freedom class and the Independence class are the first two LCS variants. Both are slightly smaller than the U.S. Navy's guided missile frigates and have been likened to corvettes. They have the capabilities of a small assault transport, including a flight deck and hangar for housing two SH-60 or MH-60 Seahawk helicopters, a stern ramp for operating small boats, and the cargo volume and payload to deliver a small assault force with fighting vehicles to a roll-on/roll-off port facility. Standard armaments include Mk 110 57 mm guns and RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles. They are also equipped with autonomous air, surface, and underwater vehicles. Possessing lower air defence and surface warfare capabilities than destroyers, the LCS concept emphasizes speed, flexible mission modules and a shallow draft.
The first littoral combat ship, USS Freedom, was commissioned on 8 November 2008 in Veteran's Park, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The second ship, and first of the trimaran design, USS Independence, was commissioned on 16 January 2010, in Mobile, Alabama. In 2012, CNO Jonathan W. Greenert stated that LCSs would be deployed to Africa in place of destroyers and cruisers. In 2013 and 2014, the Navy's LCS requirement was progressively cut from 55 to 32 vessels in favour of a proposed frigate, more capable of high intensity combat. In late 2014, the Navy proceeded with a procurement plan for enhanced versions of the LCS and upgraded older ships to meet the program's 52-ship requirement; the modified LCS will be redesignated as FF or frigate] In December 2015, Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter ordered the Navy to reduce the planned LCS/FF procurement from 52 to 40, and downselect to one variant by FY 2019
Independence class LCS
Freedom class LCS
USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) is a Freedom-class littoral combat ship of the United States Navy. She is the first ship to be named after Fort Worth, Texas, the 16th-largest city in the United States.
The ship's name was announced 6 March 2009. This was after a long public relations campaign by United States Representative Kay Granger, former Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, and others. The ship was built by Lockheed-Martin. Her keel was laid on 11 July 2009 during a ceremony at Marinette Marine Shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin.
Fort Worth includes additional stability improvements to deal with issues found on the first ship in the class, Freedom.
The 80% completed ship was launched by its contractor on 4 December 2010. The vessel underwent sea trials in Lake Michigan during late 2011, with the completion of these trials announced on 24 October 2011. The ship successfully completed its acceptance trials, which also took place on Lake Michigan, on 4 May 2012. The inspectors found only ten severe deficiencies during the trials, an "exponential" improvement over Freedom.
The improvements to the ship include a lengthened hull, which makes her faster than Freedom and ten percent more fuel efficient. Fort Worth was commissioned at Galveston, Texas on 22 September 2012. She set sail on a 16-month deployment in the Fall of 2014.
Fort Worth will rely on automated sensors to perform "conditions-based maintenance" and hopefully avoid the greatly overworked crew problems that Freedom had on her first deployment.
Fort Worth lacks the bow thruster mounted on Freedom.
Looking through the pics on the net, I've seen a couple of different paint jobs on the Fort Worth, not sure which I'll be doing yet.
that's it for now fellas, hopefully get photobucket up and running soon. thanks for checking in
so to make 'instant progress' I applied the decals. These were sealed with a gloss coat afterwards.
