USS Ticonderoga (CG-47)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Career (US)	Image:Naval Jack of the United States.svg <tr valign=top><td>Ordered:</td><td>22 September 1978 (as DDG-47)</td></tr>
USS Ticonderoga (CG-47)
Laid down:	21 January 1980
Launched:	25 April 1981 <tr valign=top><td>Commissioned:</td><td>22 January 1983</td></tr><tr valign=top><td>Decommissioned:</td><td>30 September 2004</td></tr>
Status:	Inactive Ship's Maintenance Facility, Philadelphia
General Characteristics
Displacement:	approx. 9,600 tons full load
Length:	567 feet (173 meters)
Beam:	55 feet (17 meters) <tr valign=top><td>Draught:</td><td>33 feet (10 meters)</td></tr><tr valign=top><td>Propulsion:</td><td>4 × General Electric LM2500 gas turbines, 2 shafts, 80,000 shp</td></tr>
Speed:	32.5 knots (60 km/h)
Complement:	387 officers and enlisted <tr valign=top><td>Sensors and processing systems:</td><td>AN/SPY-1 multi-function radar</br>AN/SPS-49 air search radar AN/SPG-62 fire control radar AN/SPS-55 surface search radar AN/SPQ-9 gun fire control radar AN/SQS-53 sonar AN/SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare Suite</td></tr><tr valign=top><td>Armament:</td><td>2 × Mk 26 missile launchers 88 × RIM-67 SM-2 8 × RGM-84 Harpoon missiles 2 × Mark 45 5 in / 54 cal lightweight gun</br>2–4 × .50 cal (12.7 mm) gun 2 × Phalanx CIWS 2 × Mk 32 12.75 in (324 mm) triple torpedo tubes</td></tr><tr valign=top><td>Aircraft carried:</td><td>2 x Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk LAMPS III helicopters.</td></tr>

USS Ticonderoga (DDG/CG-47), fifth to bear the name, was a guided-missile cruiser, homeported in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The "Tico" was the lead ship of her class.

The Navy built the first Aegis cruisers using the hull and machinery designs of Spruance-class destroyers. Ticonderoga was ordered as a guided missile destroyer, but redesignated as a cruiser before she was laid down.

The contract to build DDG-47 Ticonderoga was awarded to Ingalls Shipbuilding 22 September 1978. On January 1 1980 she was redesignated as a guided missile cruiser, CG-47. Her keel was laid down 21 January 1980, she was launched 25 April 1981, delivered 13 December 1982, and commissioned 22 January 1983. She completed her final deployment on 3 August 2004 and decommissioned on 30 September of that year. After decommissioning, she was towed to the Inactive Ship's Maintenance Facility in Philadelphia, with no decided fate. Recently, however, she was put up for museum donation by the Navy. As of now, no applications have been received. It often takes years before ships are donated for museum use and Ticonderoga stands a good chance of surviving, as she was put up without prompting by any group.

[edit] Ticonderoga in fiction

Ticonderoga was featured in the Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Rising (1986). In the novel Ticonderoga is part of a surface fleet built around the carrier USS Nimitz. During a surprise Soviet air raid Ticonderoga unleashes her missiles at the incoming Soviet anti-ship missiles, and succeeded in eliminating just over 60% of the total number of "vampires" all by herself. Despite her best efforts and the efforts of the other ships Ticonderoga, Nimitz, Saratoga, and several other ships receive heavy damage from the attack, while the French carrier Foch, Saipan and a handful of other vessels are destroyed.

The ship was also the centerpiece of a PC game by the same name, in which the player assumed the role of the captain through various fictional missions.

The song "Shore Leave" on the Album Swordfishtrombones by Tom Waits contains the line, "I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga and was in a bad need of a shave."

[edit] Special Characteristics

This Ticonderoga was the first ship to feature the Aegis combat system. This allows the ship to track and engage multiple targets (aircraft) much more effectively than any ship previously.

See USS Ticonderoga for other Navy ships of the same name.