DECATUR — The USS Decatur is designed to operate with expeditionary strike groups and carrier strike groups in high-threat environments. She can also provide essential escort capabilities to Navy and Marine Corps amphibious forces, combat logistics ships and convoys.

DDG 73's Aegis Combat System includes the AN/SPY-1D phased array radar which scans in all directions simultaneously to detect, track and engage hundreds of aircraft and missiles while continuously watching the sky for new targets from wave top to the stratosphere. The ship is equipped with the MK41 Vertical Launching System which fires a combination of up to 90 Standard surfaceto-air missiles, Tomahawk surface-to-land missiles, and Vertically Launched Antisubmarine rockets; the AN/SQQ-89 Antisubmarine Warfare System with bowmounted AN/SQS-53C sonar and AN/SQR-19 towed array; and the AN/SQQ-28 LAMPS MK III.

The Decatur also has deck-mounted Harpoon anti-shipmissile launchers and MK 32 torpedo tubes as well as two MK 15 Phalanx Close-in Weapons Systems and a 5-inch 54-cal Mk 45 rapid-firing deck gun.

Aegis destroyers match maximum survivability with a potent offensive capability. Extensive topside armor placed around vital combat systems and machinery spaces, and a large water-plane area hull significantly improve sea-keeping ability. Acoustic, infrared and radar signatures have been reduced and vital shipboard systems are hardened against electromagnetic pulse and overpressure. A comprehensive Collective Protection System guards against nuclear, chemical and biological agents.

State-of-the-art propulsion and damage control systems are managed by a complex data multiplexing system.

Truly multi-mission surface combatants, Aegis destroyers are the most balanced surface warships ever built, possessing the weapons, electronics, helicopter support facilities, propulsion, auxiliary and survivability systems to carry out the U. S. Navy's missions today and into the next century.

News, Pages 9 on 09/09/2009