The US Navy in the coming months will obtain its first Flight III variant of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer capable of both anti-air warfare and ballistic missile missions and equipped with the newest surface radar, Rear Adm. Thomas Anderson said in a congressional hearing on Thursday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th May, 2023) The US Navy in the coming months will obtain its first Flight III variant of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer capable of both anti-air warfare and ballistic missile missions and equipped with the newest surface radar, Rear Adm. Thomas Anderson said in a congressional hearing on Thursday.
"Within the next few months, we will deliver among other things the Navy's first Flight III destroyer. DDG 125, the 75th ship of the Arleigh Burke-class with its upgraded combat system will provide the ability for one ship to perform both anti-air warfare and ballistic missile defense missions with improved performance via the world's newest and most capable surface radar," Anderson told a US House Oversight Committee hearing.
The integrated air and missile defense capability meets the growing ballistic missile threat by improving radar sensitivity and enabling longer-range detection of increasingly complex threats, Anderson said.
As of February, the US Navy has received 72 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers while Congress has provided funding for three more ships in the financial year of 2023, Anderson added.
According to media reports, the new destroyer was named USS Jack H. Lukas on September 17, 2016, by then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and laid down on November 8, 2019, in Ingalls, Mississippi.
The ship will be reportedly stationed at Port Tampa Bay in Florida and is expected to arrive for the commissioning ceremony in Fall 2023.
