Tag Archives: Ingalls shipbuilding

Ingalls Update

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Had a chance to swing by my old childhood stomping grounds at “The Point” in Pascagoula and captured some snapshots of the Navy’s newest under construction at HII.

This included the 13th and final Flight I San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, the future USS Richard M. McCool Jr. (LPD-29), fitting out post-delivery at the yard’s historic deep-water East Bank, where the old LPHs and the last American-made cruise ships were completed.

The future USS Richard M. McCool Jr. (LPD-29). She carries the AN/SPY-6(V)2 EASR rotating radar. Photo by Chris Eger

Note her hangar arrangement with 21-cell Mk 49 RAM GMLS launcher to starboard and 30mm Mk 46 Mod 2 Gun Weapon System (GWS) to port. Photo by Chris Eger

As well as a good shot of her bow, with the ‘Richard McCool” nameplate over her bridge next to her SLQ-32 EW system. Photo by Chris Eger

While the drydock is empty, the future USS Ted Stevens (DDG-128), the 78th Burke, a Flight III vessel, is fitting out. Note her AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) and the Aegis Baseline 10 Combat System, which has a much different look from the old Flight I and II Burkes.

The future USS Ted Stevens (DDG-128). Note the bow of a building Burke to her portside and an LPD behind her. Photo by Chris Eger

Meanwhile, further down the Pascagoula River is the future Flight I America-class big deck gator, USS Bougainville (LHA-8), which was launched last October. The first in her class with a well deck, Bougainville should rightly be classified as LHD-9, but nobody cares what I think.

The future USS Bougainville (LHA-8) fitting out. Photo by Chris Eger

And the ever-troubled 15,000-ton Zumwalt-class “destroyer” PCU Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002), which was awarded 13 years ago and took to the water in 2018 but has not been commissioned as of yet. She has been in Pascagoula now for three years where her 155 mm/62 Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AGS) will be removed and replaced by planned LRHW hypersonic missile tubes. As you can tell, her guns are still installed, so there is that.

PCU Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002). Photo by Chris Eger

Meanwhile, across the mud lumps over at the old Naval Station Pascagoula on Singing River Island, two new (to them) MSC Ready Reserve Force sealift ships were tied up, M/V Cape Arundel and M/V Cape Cortes, formerly the M/V Honor and M/V Freedom. These 50,000-ton RORO vehicle carriers have been homeported there since last October.

NS Pascagoula was envisioned in the 1980s to base a battleship action group but only ever got to homeport some NRF short hull FFGs and a couple old non-VLS Ticos, so it is nice to see 100,000 tons of Something finally kept there. Photo by Chris Eger

East Bank buzzing again

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As a kid, I grew up in South Pascagoula, in a house, appropriately enough, on Pascagoula Street just south of Ingalls Avenue. This was in the 1970s and 80s, at a time when Ingalls Shipbuilding (then part of Litton) was cranking out the occasional submarine, squadrons of Spruance/Kidd-class destroyers, Ticonderoga-class frigates, early Burke-class DDGs, and Tarawa-class LHAs. Also passing through at about the same time was the old mothballed battlewagons Iowa and Wisconsin.

Six Spruance class destroyers fitting out, circa May 1975. Ships are, from left Paul F. Foster (DD-964); Spruance (DD-963), then running trials; Arthur W. Radford (DD-968); Elliot (DD-967); Hewitt (DD-966) and Kinkaid (DD-965). Ingalls East Bank, Pascagoula

A lot of this work was done on the yard’s historic East Bank, which was only a few blocks from my home, and at about 3:30 p.m. it was a mad dash akin to the start of the Indianapolis 500 as the workers rushed to get out of there. Sometimes, you could even see the pace car.

The last large ship I remember being at the East Bank was the 1960s-vintage USS Inchon (LPH-12/MCS-12) when she came back from the Gulf War in 1991 to get patched up after catching an Iraqi mine with her hull. After that, things slowed down as more work shifted to the West Bank which is several miles outside of town in the swamps of Mary Walker Bayou near Gautier.

There I would venture out to work when I was in my 20s, tasked with helping to bend raw steel to form warships as many Goula boys had done before. To be sure, today there are several Burkes and a couple LHDs on active duty with my initials– alongside many others– burned into out of the way inner bottom bulkheads.

Over the past couple of decades the East Bank became deserted although not completely abandoned by now-Huntington Ingalls Industries, and the old graving docks, deep enough to float a battleship, were great places to catch flounder and redfish.

Now, it seems the historic old yard is being dusted off and put back to work with the facility being repurposed to perform maintenance on DDGs. Of note, the damaged USS FitzGerald (DDG-62) has been at Ingalls for some time getting a rebuild after her collision off Japan.