Navy to replace Pearl Harbor destroyer with newer warship

The Navy this summer is swapping a ballistic missile defense destroyer at Pearl Harbor for one designed a bit more for littoral, or coastal, operations.

The USS Paul Hamilton, commissioned in 1995 and based in Hawaii, will be heading to San Diego for modernization and as its new home port, said the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s Naval Surface Force.

The newer USS William P. Lawrence, commissioned in 2011, will take its place in the Pearl Harbor lineup. The destroyer left San Diego on a deployment in January and will arrive in Hawaii in mid-2016, the Navy said.

The William P. Lawrence’s Flight IIA design includes the addition of Kingfisher mine-avoidance capability, a pair of helicopter hangars which provide the ability to deploy with two Lamps MK III MH-60 helicopters, blast-hardened bulkheads and advanced networked systems.

Its sonar system is designed for littoral and open-ocean anti-submarine warfare operations.

The Paul Hamilton has ballistic missile shoot-down capability, but the William P. Lawrence does not, the Navy said. In the swap, Pearl Harbor will be reduced to four ballistic missile defense ships: destroyers John Paul Jones, O’Kane and Hopper, and cruiser Port Royal.

Of 33 ballistic missile defense ships in the Navy, 16 are based in the Pacific, said the nonprofit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. The Aegis-equipped warships can fire missiles to intercept short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the midcourse and terminal phases of flight, the organization said.

“Though William P. Lawrence does not have (ballistic missile defense) capability, it is also a highly capable destroyer equipped with the Aegis Weapon System and the infrastructure to support a helicopter detachment,” said Naval Surface Force spokeswoman Cmdr. Tamsen Reese.

The Aegis Weapon System is a centralized, automated weapons control system that was designed as a total weapon system, from detection to kill, the Navy said. The heart of the system is the AN/SPY-1, an advanced phased-array radar. The high-powered radar is able to perform search, track and missile guidance functions simultaneously, with a track capacity of more than 100 targets.

Paul Hamilton has to go in for its midlife modernization, requiring that “one of the many (ballistic missile defense) assets that exist in the Pacific theater be brought down for a maintenance availability period,” Reese said in an email statement. “So in terms of maintaining Pacific capability in the (ballistic missile defense) realm, Paul Hamilton’s entering into a maintenance availability period does not equate to a gap in capability as the ship was merely one of many sourcing solutions to meet a potential (missile) threat.”

Reese said when assessing the Pacific theater ballistic missile defense capability, “it is important to look broadly at all locations in the Pacific where the capability exists, not just Hawaii.”

“Though Hawaii is a critical basing location in the theater, a full assessment of theater capability requires consideration of assets stationed at all locations, including Hawaii, Japan, and San Diego,” she said.