USS Cape St. George (CG-71)

USS "Cape St. George" (CG-71) is a sclass|Ticonderoga|cruiser laid down by the Litton-Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation at Pascagoula, Mississippi on 19 November 1990, launched on 10 January 1992 and commissioned on 12 June 1993. "Cape St. George" operates out of San Diego in California.

"Cape St. George" is named for the World War II Battle of Cape St. George near New Ireland in Papua New Guinea where a U.S. Navy destroyer force led by Captain Arleigh Burke defeated a Japanese destroyer force on 25 November 1943.

In May 2005, "Cape St. George" became the first surface warship certified to use only digital nautical charts (DNC), instead of paper charts using the Voyage Management System. About 12,000 paper charts have been replaced by 29 computer discs. VMS is part of the Smart Ship Integrated Bridge System, which has been under development since 1990.

On 18 March 2006, she was involved in a firefight with suspected pirates, along with the USS|Gonzalez|DDG-66|6. The two U.S. warships exchanged fire with the suspected pirates about 25 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia. Initial reports indicated that one suspected pirate was killed and five others wounded while Cape St. George took superficial damage from small arms fire during the action.

External links

* [http://www.cape-st-george.navy.mil/ Official web site]
* [http://www.navysite.de/cg/cg71.html "USS Cape St. George" webpage]
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060318/ap_on_re_mi_ea/somalia_us_pirates
* [http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=22784/ U.S. Navy official news bulletin on March 18, 2006 incident]
* [http://www.hullnumber.com/CG-71 CG-71 Personnel Roster at HullNumber.com]