laststandonzombieisland

Some 45 long years ago today.

First Lady Nancy Reagan christening the future USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) at Litton Ingalls’ West Bank Yard, Pascagoula, on Saturday, 16 May 1981. The lead ship of her class and the first warship designed to use the Aegis system from the keel up, was sponsored by Mrs. Reagan at a weekend event attended by approximately 9,000 people, including several former crewmen of the aircraft carrier to carry the same name. .

She would commission 20 months later and give 21 years of hard service.

At 9,800 tons displacement and 567 feet overall length, she compared well to the Omaha-class light cruisers (9,500 tons, 555 feet oal) of 60 years prior, although with a much smaller crew and much more advanced armament and sensors unthought of in 1921.

Tico was the first of the country’s final class of cruisers and, although she was decommissioned in 2004 and kept mothballed as a source of spare parts for 16 years before scrapping, seven of her Flight II sisters endure, with USS Lake Erie (CG-70) being the first U.S. Navy warship to successfully shoot down an in-orbit satellite on February 20, 2008.

Meanwhile, the Aegis system, as further installed on the Burke class DDGs that followed, is afloat in 78 hulls today, with another 21 on the schedule. Arguably, the most capable surface combatants afloat.

Not a bad legacy.