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End of era: Navy retires the USS Simpson, last modern ship to sink an enemy vessel
By Andrew Pantazi Tue, Sep 29, 2015 @ 11:53 am | updated Tue, Sep 29, 2015 @ 3:37 pm
The United States Navy decommissioned its last Perry-class frigate, reducing the Navy's number of ships that have sunk an enemy vessel to just one. The end of the Navy's frigates marks a new era of naval warfare where ships are less likely to go to battle in the open sea.
The USS Simpson removed its weapons, covered its windows, and on Tuesday, it lowered its flags. Now, the ship will travel to Philadelphia until a foreign nation buys it.
After 30 years of service — including an April 1988 battle when it fired missiles at and sunk an Iranian oil platform and an Iranian Navy vessel — the ship's service came to an end Tuesday with a ceremony at Mayport Naval Station.
Now the only Navy ship that has sunk an enemy is the USS Constitution, which did so during the War of 1812.
About 90 percent of the Simpson's final crew will face new assignments in Jacksonville, according to the ship's final commanding officer, Commander Casey Roskelly.
"I love being out at sea," he said. "You get into the rhythm, the routine. There's just something peaceful, you know, going up on the bridge wing at 2 o'clock in the morning, and it's your own planetarium. You can just see forever. The stars are just everywhere, and then watching the sunrise and sunset. There's peace. … It's a time for self-reflection."
The Simpson was built and commissioned in the waning years of the Cold War. It searched for and escorted submarines, and it fought narcotics traffickers and pirates. Roskelly couldn't detail the ship's most recent security missions other than to say it occurred in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Navy has focused its energies on close-to-shore littoral combat ships.
"There is really no deep-water threat now," Roskelly said. "It's now in closer."
So far Pakistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey and Poland have purchased the Navy's decommissioned frigates.
The frigates aren't state-of-the-art technological wonders, but executive officer Lt. Eddie Davis said that was part of what made the ship special. He worked as chief engineer in the last deployment. Because of the ship's smaller size — it held about 230 sailors — sailors had to be able to do each others' jobs, and they got to know each other especially well.
"The guys here don't have a lot of the technology, so it's back to the basics," he said. "I relied on my guys."
He also served on a missile destroyer, and it was completely different, he said. He preferred the frigate.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015 ... emy-vessel
The USS. Simpson has removed its weapons, covered its windows and lowered its flag. Now, the ship will travel to Philadelphia until a foreign nation buys it.
