USS Ticonderoga (CG-47)
Encyclopedia
USS Ticonderoga (DDG/CG-47), fifth to bear the name, was a guided-missile cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

 in the service of the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

. Homeported in Pascagoula, Mississippi
Pascagoula, Mississippi
Pascagoula is a city in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States. It is the principal city of the Pascagoula, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, as a part of the Gulfport–Biloxi–Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area. The population was 26,200 at the 2000 census...

, the "Tico" was the lead ship of her class
Ticonderoga class cruiser
The Ticonderoga class of missile cruisers is a class of warships in the United States Navy, first ordered and authorized in FY 1978. The class uses phased-array radar and was originally planned as a class of destroyers...

.

History of the ship

The United States Navy built the first Aegis
Aegis combat system
The Aegis Combat System is an integrated naval weapons system developed by the Missile and Surface Radar Division of RCA, and now produced by Lockheed Martin...

 cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

s using the hull and machinery designs of Spruance-class
Spruance class destroyer
The Spruance-class destroyer was developed by the United States to replace a large number of World War II-built Allen M. Sumner- and Gearing-class destroyers, and was the primary destroyer built for the U.S. Navy during the 1970s....

 destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

s. Ticonderoga was ordered as a guided missile destroyer, but redesignated as a cruiser before she was laid down.

The contract to build DDG-47 Ticonderoga was awarded to Ingalls Shipbuilding
Ingalls Shipbuilding
Ingalls Shipbuilding is a shipyard located in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA, originally established in 1938, and is now part of Huntington Ingalls Industries...

 on 22 September 1978. On 1 January 1980, she was redesignated as a guided missile cruiser, CG-47. Her keel was laid down on 21 January 1980, the 35th anniversary of the devistating kamikaze attack on the Essex-class
Essex class aircraft carrier
The Essex class was a class of aircraft carriers of the United States Navy, which constituted the 20th century's most numerous class of capital ships with 24 vessels built in both "short-hull" and "long-hull" versions. Thirty-two were originally ordered; however as World War II wound down, six were...

 carrier Ticonderoga (CV-14)
USS Ticonderoga (CV-14)
USS Ticonderoga was one of 24 s built during World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for historic Fort Ticonderoga, which played a role in the American Revolutionary War...

. CG-47 was launched on 25 April 1981 and was delivered on 13 December 1982. She was commissioned on 22 January 1983 with First Lady Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....

, the ship's main sponsor, having the honor of christening the ship on 16 May 1981.

She served in the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

 as part of Operation Earnest Will
Operation Earnest Will
Operation Earnest Will was the U.S. military protection of Kuwaiti owned tankers from Iranian attacks in 1987 and 1988, three years into the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War. It was the largest naval convoy operation since World War II.The U.S. Navy warships that escorted the tankers, part of...

 while under the command of Captain James M. Arrison III, USN.
She completed her final deployment on 3 August 2004, and was decommissioned
Ship decommissioning
To decommission a ship is to terminate her career in service in the armed forces of her nation. A somber occasion, it has little of the elaborate ceremony of ship commissioning, but carries significant tradition....

 on 30 September of that year. After her decommissioning, she was towed to the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility
Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility
A Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility is a facility owned by the U.S. Navy as a holding facility for decommissioned naval vessels, pending determination of their final fate...

 in Philadelphia. Recently, however, she was put up for museum donation by the Navy and there is a strong effort to bring Ticonderoga to Pascagoula, Mississippi, where she was built, to serve as a museum ship.

Special characteristics

Ticonderoga was the first combatant ship to feature the Aegis combat system
Aegis combat system
The Aegis Combat System is an integrated naval weapons system developed by the Missile and Surface Radar Division of RCA, and now produced by Lockheed Martin...

 (a limited version of the system had been tested in ). This allows the ship to track and engage multiple targets (aircraft) much more effectively than any ship previously.

Origin of the name

CG-47 is the fifth United States Navy vessel to carry on the name Ticonderoga. The ship was named for the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga
Capture of Fort Ticonderoga
The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga occurred during the American Revolutionary War on May 10, 1775, when a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold overcame a small British garrison at the fort and looted the personal belongings of the garrison...

 in 1775. Most of the ships in the Ticonderoga class are similarly named for significant battles in US history. The name "Ticonderoga" comes from an Iroquois
Iroquoian languages
The Iroquoian languages are a First Nation and Native American language family.-Family division:*Ruttenber, Edward Manning. 1992 [1872]. History of the Indian tribes of Hudson's River. Hope Farm Press....

 word tekontaró:ken, meaning "it is at the junction of two waterways".

Ticonderoga in fiction

Ticonderoga was featured in the Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy
Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...

 novel Red Storm Rising
Red Storm Rising
Red Storm Rising is a 1986 techno-thriller novel by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond about a Third World War in Europe between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces, set around the mid-1980s...

(1986). In the novel, Ticonderoga is part of a surface fleet built around the carrier . During a surprise Soviet air raid, Ticonderoga unleashes her missiles at the incoming Soviet anti-ship missiles, and succeeded in eliminating just over 60% of the total number of "vampires" all by herself. Despite her best efforts and the efforts of the other ships Ticonderoga, Nimitz, , and several other ships receive heavy damage from the attack, while the French carrier Foch, and a handful of other vessels are destroyed.

External links

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