thedrifter
12-03-07, 11:12 AM
December 3, 2007
Ready for anything
By Ed Offley
ABOARD THE MESA VERDE
When the Navy set out to build its latest-generation amphibious warship, planners did something truly revolutionary: They asked their customers, including ordinary sailors and Marines, for advice on the design.
The results, incorporated in the Mesa Verde and its sister ships, are breathtaking, even if not immediately obvious to civilian visitors when the ship arrives at Port Panama City late next week for its formal commissioning ceremony Dec. 15.
Beginning in 1995 when the Navy drafted an “operational requirements document” for what would become the San Antonio-class landing platform dock, or LPD, Naval Sea Systems Command officials initiated a radical new “design for ownership” concept that sought ideas, suggestions and input from a wide variety of experts. Security and self-defense were at the top of the list.
The designers canvassed a gamut of Navy and Marine Corps officials for input on the design, including amphibious warfare strategists, Navy and Marine combatant commands, training units and various technical specialists. They tried to anticipate the operating environment and combat conditions the ship likely will face in its 40-year service life.
“The threats faced by today’s amphibious ships include faster and less detectible aircraft, anti-ship cruise missiles, silent submarines, sophisticated mines and small, high-speed boats on possible suicide missions,” said Navy spokeswoman Kathleen Dunnigan. “In light of these advanced threats, this ship has been designed with self-defense systems not present on World War II-era amphibious ships.”
Knowing the new LPDs will serve in shallow-water combat operations with potentially significant threats from enemy military forces and terrorists, planners began with a ship that could withstand a full range of attacks. Architects hardened its hull to improve survivability if struck by mines or torpedoes. They designed the ship’s interior to insulate the crew and embarked Marine force from chemical and biological agents, including dual entry hatchways at each access point that form an airlock to keep lethal agents from entering the ship.
Showing off the Mesa Verde’s spacious medical facilities, which include two operating rooms, Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Gregory Garcia pointed to one side of a work area where a man-sized horizontal hatchway was attached near the deck.
“That is a ‘casualty airlock,’” Garcia said. Should the Mesa Verde come under chemical or biological attack, the crew can transfer an injured Marine from the flight deck to the operating room without having to open up a regular hatch and allow the dangerous substances to contaminate the interior.
“You can keep the central core of the ship ‘chemical free’ during combat,” said Ensign Pete Downes, the ship’s electronic systems officer.
Even the ship’s spacious navigation bridge, with a nearly 180-degree view through armor-plated glass windows, “was designed by ship drivers for comfort and effective functioning,” Downes said.
In response to a number of terrorist attacks that have targeted Navy ships, particularly the deadly suicide boat bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, the Mesa Verde, unlike earlier amphibious ships, bristles with defensive weapons. These include a pair of Mark 46 30 mm rapid-firing guns, a pair of Rolling Airframe Missile launchers and six .50-caliber machine guns designed to defend against close-in threats.
The Mesa Verde, like its sister ships, also sports a streamlined exterior design aimed at minimizing the size of its radar signature. Exterior bulkheads are all angled, giving the ship a rakish silhouette that is further enhanced by two “Advanced Enclosed Masts/Sensors” built of composite material that shroud bristling arrays of antennas and radars, Dunnigan said.
Comfort features
Not only does the Mesa Verde include state-of-the-art electronics systems, high-tech defenses and composite materials to make it a more effective combatant, it also incorporates a large number of ideas aimed at making shipboard life, never a pleasure cruise, at least more habitable.
Consider that most ancient of naval scourges, the cargo-loading working party.
For the past century, sailors have received food and other supplies on wooden cargo pallets hoisted onto the deck by dock cranes or, since World War II, transferred from replenishment ships under way either by helicopter or a cable highline winch. In each case, sailors had to break down the cargo pallets into individual bags or crates, each of which could weigh more than 150 pounds, then hand-deliver them in a human chain down steep accommodation ladders from the main deck to cargo holds far below.
It was arduous, backbreaking work.
“Look at this,” Downes said as he opened a vertical hatchway door leading from the Mesa Verde’s helicopter flight deck into the interior. “We can drive a forklift from the flight deck all the way to the foc’sle,” he said, referring to the main deck at the bow of the ship nearly 600 feet away. As it runs the length of the ship, the 15-foot-wide passageway connects to cargo elevators that can carry the pallets directly to storage compartments deep inside the hull, making a once-tedious task efficient and quickly carried out.
Several decks down, the officer opened a door to show one of the crew berthing compartments. Here again, the Navy’s response to sailors’ ideas resulted in a simple but significant improvement: the L-shaped “sit-up” berthing rack.
From the age of sail until the late 1990s, crewmen slept in hammocks, then steel “coffin racks” stacked vertically from the deck to the overhead, providing a comfortable but extremely limited space. For the first time, Downes noted, sailors can sit in their racks to read or write letters.
Other quality-of-life enhancements range from the mundane to the benefits of today’s computer era, Downes said. Designers took pains to ensure each berthing compartment had a bathroom, often dubbed a “head,” located close by. Marines who once had to store their combat equipment and rifles in isolated cargo spaces now have armory and storage rooms close by. Even the mess decks enjoy stateof-the-art food service equipment, making a more diverse and enjoyable meal selection possible. And where physical exercise once involved pushups and belabored jogging on the flight deck, the Mesa Verde sports a 1,100-square-foot fitness center.
All of these improvements, said Cmdr. Shawn Lobree, Mesa Verde’s commanding officer, are designed to ensure the crew and embarked Marines are fully ready to carry out their combat mission when ordered.
“Our philosophy since 9-11 is that you have to be ready to deploy at any time,” Lobree said.
Ellie
Ready for anything
By Ed Offley
ABOARD THE MESA VERDE
When the Navy set out to build its latest-generation amphibious warship, planners did something truly revolutionary: They asked their customers, including ordinary sailors and Marines, for advice on the design.
The results, incorporated in the Mesa Verde and its sister ships, are breathtaking, even if not immediately obvious to civilian visitors when the ship arrives at Port Panama City late next week for its formal commissioning ceremony Dec. 15.
Beginning in 1995 when the Navy drafted an “operational requirements document” for what would become the San Antonio-class landing platform dock, or LPD, Naval Sea Systems Command officials initiated a radical new “design for ownership” concept that sought ideas, suggestions and input from a wide variety of experts. Security and self-defense were at the top of the list.
The designers canvassed a gamut of Navy and Marine Corps officials for input on the design, including amphibious warfare strategists, Navy and Marine combatant commands, training units and various technical specialists. They tried to anticipate the operating environment and combat conditions the ship likely will face in its 40-year service life.
“The threats faced by today’s amphibious ships include faster and less detectible aircraft, anti-ship cruise missiles, silent submarines, sophisticated mines and small, high-speed boats on possible suicide missions,” said Navy spokeswoman Kathleen Dunnigan. “In light of these advanced threats, this ship has been designed with self-defense systems not present on World War II-era amphibious ships.”
Knowing the new LPDs will serve in shallow-water combat operations with potentially significant threats from enemy military forces and terrorists, planners began with a ship that could withstand a full range of attacks. Architects hardened its hull to improve survivability if struck by mines or torpedoes. They designed the ship’s interior to insulate the crew and embarked Marine force from chemical and biological agents, including dual entry hatchways at each access point that form an airlock to keep lethal agents from entering the ship.
Showing off the Mesa Verde’s spacious medical facilities, which include two operating rooms, Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Gregory Garcia pointed to one side of a work area where a man-sized horizontal hatchway was attached near the deck.
“That is a ‘casualty airlock,’” Garcia said. Should the Mesa Verde come under chemical or biological attack, the crew can transfer an injured Marine from the flight deck to the operating room without having to open up a regular hatch and allow the dangerous substances to contaminate the interior.
“You can keep the central core of the ship ‘chemical free’ during combat,” said Ensign Pete Downes, the ship’s electronic systems officer.
Even the ship’s spacious navigation bridge, with a nearly 180-degree view through armor-plated glass windows, “was designed by ship drivers for comfort and effective functioning,” Downes said.
In response to a number of terrorist attacks that have targeted Navy ships, particularly the deadly suicide boat bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, the Mesa Verde, unlike earlier amphibious ships, bristles with defensive weapons. These include a pair of Mark 46 30 mm rapid-firing guns, a pair of Rolling Airframe Missile launchers and six .50-caliber machine guns designed to defend against close-in threats.
The Mesa Verde, like its sister ships, also sports a streamlined exterior design aimed at minimizing the size of its radar signature. Exterior bulkheads are all angled, giving the ship a rakish silhouette that is further enhanced by two “Advanced Enclosed Masts/Sensors” built of composite material that shroud bristling arrays of antennas and radars, Dunnigan said.
Comfort features
Not only does the Mesa Verde include state-of-the-art electronics systems, high-tech defenses and composite materials to make it a more effective combatant, it also incorporates a large number of ideas aimed at making shipboard life, never a pleasure cruise, at least more habitable.
Consider that most ancient of naval scourges, the cargo-loading working party.
For the past century, sailors have received food and other supplies on wooden cargo pallets hoisted onto the deck by dock cranes or, since World War II, transferred from replenishment ships under way either by helicopter or a cable highline winch. In each case, sailors had to break down the cargo pallets into individual bags or crates, each of which could weigh more than 150 pounds, then hand-deliver them in a human chain down steep accommodation ladders from the main deck to cargo holds far below.
It was arduous, backbreaking work.
“Look at this,” Downes said as he opened a vertical hatchway door leading from the Mesa Verde’s helicopter flight deck into the interior. “We can drive a forklift from the flight deck all the way to the foc’sle,” he said, referring to the main deck at the bow of the ship nearly 600 feet away. As it runs the length of the ship, the 15-foot-wide passageway connects to cargo elevators that can carry the pallets directly to storage compartments deep inside the hull, making a once-tedious task efficient and quickly carried out.
Several decks down, the officer opened a door to show one of the crew berthing compartments. Here again, the Navy’s response to sailors’ ideas resulted in a simple but significant improvement: the L-shaped “sit-up” berthing rack.
From the age of sail until the late 1990s, crewmen slept in hammocks, then steel “coffin racks” stacked vertically from the deck to the overhead, providing a comfortable but extremely limited space. For the first time, Downes noted, sailors can sit in their racks to read or write letters.
Other quality-of-life enhancements range from the mundane to the benefits of today’s computer era, Downes said. Designers took pains to ensure each berthing compartment had a bathroom, often dubbed a “head,” located close by. Marines who once had to store their combat equipment and rifles in isolated cargo spaces now have armory and storage rooms close by. Even the mess decks enjoy stateof-the-art food service equipment, making a more diverse and enjoyable meal selection possible. And where physical exercise once involved pushups and belabored jogging on the flight deck, the Mesa Verde sports a 1,100-square-foot fitness center.
All of these improvements, said Cmdr. Shawn Lobree, Mesa Verde’s commanding officer, are designed to ensure the crew and embarked Marines are fully ready to carry out their combat mission when ordered.
“Our philosophy since 9-11 is that you have to be ready to deploy at any time,” Lobree said.
Ellie