Tag Archives: USS Comte De Grasse (DD-974)

Comte deGrasse runs again!

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The future SNA De Grasse (S638), the fourth of six planned 5,200-ton Suffren-class (Barracuda type) SSN built for the French Navy, launched last May 2025 and began her first (Alpha) sea trials last week, with delivery to the Marine nationale expected later this year.

NAval Group Cherbourg

NAval Group Cherbourg

Le Mardi 24 Février 2026 à Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. Prises de vues au drone de la sortie du SNA De Grasse. Le Mardi 24 Février 2026 à Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. Le sous-marin nucléaire d’attaque nouvelle génération (SNA NG) de type Suffren De Grasse sort de sa période de construction chez le constructeur industriel Naval Groupe pour commencer avant sa mise en service une période d’essais techniques en mer.

Le Mardi 24 Février 2026 à Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. Prises de vues au drone de la sortie du SNA De Grasse. Le Mardi 24 Février 2026 à Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. Le sous-marin nucléaire d’attaque nouvelle génération (SNA NG) de type Suffren De Grasse sort de sa période de construction chez le constructeur industriel Naval Groupe pour commencer avant sa mise en service une période d’essais techniques en mer.

Le Mardi 24 Février 2026 à Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. Prises de vues au drone de la sortie du SNA De Grasse. Le Mardi 24 Février 2026 à Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. Le sous-marin nucléaire d’attaque nouvelle génération (SNA NG) de type Suffren De Grasse sort de sa période de construction chez le constructeur industriel Naval Groupe pour commencer avant sa mise en service une période d’essais techniques en mer.

Le Mardi 24 Février 2026 à Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. Le sous-marin nucléaire d’attaque nouvelle génération (SNA NG) de type Barracuda De Grasse sort de sa période de construction chez le constructeur industriel Naval Groupe pour commencer avant sa mise en service une période d’essais techniques en mer.

This is all very appropriate for the 250th anniversary of the events of 1776 here in the states as she carries the name of Lt. Gen (of Navy) François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse, Marquis of Grasse-Tilly, KM — best known for his crucial victory over the Royal Navy at the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781 which sealed Cornwallis’s fate at Yorktown which in turn helped secure U.S. independence.

The French formerly celebrated De Grasse with an improved La Galissonnière class AAA cruiser in service from 1956 to 1973 and a Tourville-class frigate that served from 1975 through 2013.

Over here, we have also saluted the good Admiral de Grasse with a Great War-era patrol boat (ID-1217), a WWII Crater-class cargo ship (AP-164/AK-223), and the beautiful Pascagoula-built Sprucan USS Comte de Grasse (DD-974), which was active from 1978 to 1998.

The French and U.S. tin cans of the same name cruised together off Yorktown in 1981, on the Bicentennial of the Battle of the Chesapeake.

A starboard beam view of the destroyer USS COMTE DE GRASSE (DD-974) and the French destroyer De GRASSE (D-612) underway near Cape Henry on their way to Norfolk. The ships participated in the joint U.S./French bicentennial celebration at Yorktown, Va.

A starboard beam view of the destroyer USS COMTE DE GRASSE (DD-974) and the French destroyer De GRASSE (D-612) underway near Cape Henry on their way to Norfolk. The ships participated in the joint U.S./French bicentennial celebration at Yorktown, Va. Photo 330-CFD-DN-SC-82-02122 in the National Archives

Nice to see the name return to the sea.

Perhaps the French will send the new De Grasse over here this year, or perhaps in 2031, the 250th of Chesapeake/Yorktown.

Sisters from another mister, ADM De Grasse edition

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Here we see a starboard beam view of the Spruance-class destroyer USS Comte De Grasse (DD-974) and the French Tourville-class fregate De Grasse (D-612) underway near Cape Henry on their way to Norfolk, October 1981. The ships at the time were participating in the U.S./French bicentennial celebration to mark the joint American Colonial-French operation that concluded the 1781 siege at Yorktown.

A starboard beam view of the destroyer USS COMTE DE GRASSE (DD-974) and the French destroyer De GRASSE (D-612) underway near Cape Henry on their way to Norfolk. The ships participated in the joint U.S./French bicentennial celebration at Yorktown, Va.

Photo 330-CFD-DN-SC-82-02122 in the National Archives

Note De Grasse‘s Lynx Mk.2(FN) helicopter on her stern, her Crotale EDIR short-range SAM looking aft, a battery of MM38 Exocet anti-ship missiles amidships, and her twin GIAT 100mm/55 cal M68 guns forward. The whopping missile-like object loaded just aft of the Exocets is a Malafon ASW rocket-assisted glider-delivered torpedo. The first two ships of the class commissioned with three 100mm mounts, including one over the stern, while De Grasse completed with two to make way for the newly introduced Crotale. The 4,500-ton frigate commissioned in 1975 and served the Marine Nationale until for almost 40 years. Decommissioned in 2013, she’s awaiting her fate at the French ship graveyard at Landévennec but RUMINT is that she may go to the Philipines as part of a package deal on Scorpène-class submarines.

The larger USS Comte De Grasse in the background was commissioned at Pascagoula in 1978 and returned their several times during her career– I once toured her as a kid. She is shown above in her “pre-Tomahawk ” layout that included a stand-alone ASROC launcher forward. After 1984, she was fitted with two 4-cell Mk 143 armored box launchers for said cruise missiles. Just short of her 20th year with the fleet and still young, DD-974 was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 5 June 1998 then sunk as a target in 2006.

The two De Grasses, named of course for French ADM Franҫois-Joseph-Paul de Grasse, who commanded the French fleet at Yorktown, would meet on at least one other occasion in honor of their shared namesake.

In March 1997, a year before she was decommissioned, USS Comte de Grasse got underway for France to participate in Spontex 97, a multinational ASW exercise sponsored by the French Navy. After the exercise wrapped up, she joined her old friend, the French fregate De Grasse, at Brest during a period that coincidentally corresponded with the 216th anniversary of the date Adm. de Grasse sailed for America with the fleet that became victorious at the Battle of the Virginia Capes in 1781.