- Author
- Editorial Staff
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories
- Tags
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- RAN Ships
- HMAS Canberra III
- Publication
- September 2023 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
An historically significant ceremony occurred at Sydney’s Fleet Base East on Saturday 22 July 2023 when the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship USS Canberra commissioned into the United States Navy. This is the first time such a ceremony has taken place outside the United States when we were reminded of previous ships of both the RAN and the USN carrying this proud name. This Canberra was built by Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama where she was christened by the then Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs the Honourable Marise Payne, who was also present at this ceremony.
The commissioning was held at the recently refurbished Fleet Base wharves on a glorious winter’s day with blue skies, a cool breeze and a magnificent backdrop of the harbour bridge and Opera House. The new ship was appropriately berthed ahead of the RAN flagship and her namesake, HMAS Canberra III. There was a host of dignitaries, led by Their Excellencies Governor General David Hurley and the United States Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, and as the down to earth commanding officer of USS Canberra Commander Will Ashley noted in his address, too many others to mention.
Representatives of the Naval Historical Society were privileged to be invited to the commissioning and a few days later to an informal tour of the ship. Some first impressions of this futuristically designed class of vessels with trimaran hulls of lightweight aluminium construction are as follows.
Not a paint brush in sight
The narrow main deck above the flared bow soon broadens out into a larger space supported by her outrigger hulls. This gives a surprisingly large beam providing covered space for containers, which can be changed for multi-mission configurations such as anti-submarine, mine hunting or surveillance. She benefits from a double helicopter hangar leading to a large flight deck.
Built for minimum maintenance with associated reduced manning, the exterior aluminium hull is unpainted and just needs a wash down, with not a paint brush in sight. The interior is insulated and covered with aluminium sheeting. Right forward in the eyes is a single anchor with just one shackle of cable linked to a wire hawser coiled around a brake drum. The ship can be towed but is unsuited to towing other vessels.
Her main armament comprises 1 x 57 mm gun and 4 x 50 calibre machine guns plus a surface to air missile launcher. Unlike convention, a command centre is contiguous with the navigating bridge, although a secondary command centre is situated within the main hull.
She has 2 x MTU-20V8000 diesel engines supplemented by 2 x GE-LM2500 gas turbines which operate 4 x Wartisla waterjets; there are no propellers other than a bow thruster. These provide a range of 3500 nm or 6500 km with an extremely high maximum speed of over 40 knots; at high speed she planes. Economic steaming is at much lower speed and because of her light weight she is lively in a seaway.
With minimum manning two crews are allocated, each of seventy personnel; if aircraft are carried this can increase to ninety. She operates out of the large Californian naval base at San Diego with crews on six monthly rotations. An RAN Lieutenant has recently joined her, serving as a watch keeping officer on her return to the United States. The crew appear hard-worked but content, with multi-skilling a normal part of shipboard life.
USS Canberra is 418 ft (127.4 m) long with a 104 ft (31.6 m) beam and 14 ft (4.3 m) draught. The LCSs replaced the FFGs, which included HMAS Canberra II. These earlier ships were 408 ft (124 m) x 45 ft (14 m) x 22 ft (6.7 m) and were again minimum manned with 176 crew. The huge difference in beam, draught and manning levels is noteworthy. What lessons are to be learned?
It was indeed a pleasure to be invited aboard USS Canberra, where our hosts provided an informal but knowledgeable commentary on this unique type of vessel and they were obviously a fine team, proud of their ship and her achievements.