Tag Archives: knox class frigate

Peak Knox, underway

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A beautiful photo essay on the Knox-class destroyer escort/fast frigate USS Donald B. Beary (DE/FF 1085), seen circa April 1989 off Hampton Roads. This is a great example of the class in its final weapon fit, which was undoubtedly its best including an SLQ-32, an MK-16 8-cell ASROC matchbox (with 8 reloads) that could also carry Harpoons in two cells, the Mk 42 5-inch gun, Sea Sprite hangar, towed array, and stern CIWS. 

These are U.S. Navy photos DN-SN-90-08276 through -08284 by photographer PH2 Vise, available in a much larger format in the National Archives.

Awarded 25 August 1966 to Avondale Shipyards, Inc., in Westwego, Louisiana, the only ship named for WWII Navy Cross recipient RADM Donald B. Beary was commissioned on 22 July 1972 at Boston NSY.

Following 19 years of service, at the conclusion of the Cold War, she was reclassified as a training frigate (FFT 1085) in 1991 as part of the failed NRF Frigate program which she was a part of for a few years before she was struck in 1995 and transferred to Turkey, renamed TCG Karadeniz (F-255).

While manpower-intensive due to their 1960s steam plants, a modern version with a diesel-electric plant and much-reduced manning would be a great ASW/ASuW asset today, especially if fitted with a VL-ASROC, MK 45 5″/62, and 16 NSMs. You know, kinda what the LCS should have been. 

Passing the Torch

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The Knox-class fast frigate USS Richard E. Peary (FF 1073), right, and the Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Wadsworth (FFG 9) pass one another at the entrance to the channel as the latter arrives for a visit to Naval Station, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii., 6/1/1991

U.S. Navy Photo 330-CFD-DN-SC-92-02726 by OS2 John Bouvia

The ASW-centric steam-powered Knoxes, a 46-strong class, were in service with the Navy from 1969, and gave 25 years of hard service, with the final member of the breed, USS Moinester (FF-1097), decommissioned 28 July 1994 and transferred to Egypt soon after. The 51 more general-purpose OHPs began arriving in 1977 with the final unit, USS Kauffman (FFG-59), decommissioned 8 September 2015, leaving an unfilled “frigate gap” in the U.S. Navy for the first time since WWII.

That’s a lot of Knox

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USN photo # DN-ST-95-01861, by Calvin Larsen, from the Department of Defense Still Media Collection, courtesy of dodmedia.osd.mil. Click to embiggen

USN photo # DN-ST-95-01861, by Calvin Larsen, from the Department of Defense Still Media Collection, courtesy of dodmedia.osd.mil. Click to embiggen

An aerial stern view of the decommissioned battleship Iowa-class USS New Jersey (BB-62) and seven decommissioned Knox class frigates (and a carrier just peeking in off camera to the left) tied up at the Ship Intermediate Maintenance Facility at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, WA., on 17 May 1993.

New Jersey was decommissioned for her fourth (and final?) time on 8 February 1991 and has since 15 Oct 2000 been a museum at 62 Battleship Place, Camden, New Jersey

The seven much smaller (438-foot/4,260-ton) Knox class destroyer escorts fast frigates were from a large class of 46 steam powered tin cans rapidly decommissioned by the Navy in the early 1990s with the last of their kind, USS Truett (FF-1095), paying off on 30 July 1994.

As far as trivia goes, Truett lives on in the Royal Thai Navy as the HTMS Phutthayotfa Chulalok (FFG 461)— now say that five times fast.