Pearl destroyer headed for ballistic missile defense role

U.S. NAVY

The guided-missile destroyer USS O’Kane departed Friday from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for an unscheduled deployment to the Western Pacific following ship collisions that sidelined other destroyers. While deployed, the O’Kane will conduct theater security cooperation efforts and maritime presence operations with partner nations.

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The Pearl Harbor destroyer USS O’Kane and nearly 330 sailors left Friday for the Western Pacific and a fill-in role as a ballistic missile defense ship following ship collisions that sidelined two destroyers.

“The crew has worked hard over the past several months, participating in advanced-level exercises and improving the material condition to be ready for our deployment,” Cmdr. Colby Sherwood, the O’Kane’s commanding officer, said in a Navy release.

The O’Kane was scheduled to deploy to the Middle East and Europe, but the cruiser USS Monterey out of Norfolk, Va., will take its place so the O’Kane can be used in the Western Pacific, Navy Times reported.

The cruiser deployed Oct. 16 for what’s known as the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of operation.

“Monterey will leave on a previously unscheduled deployment to the 5th and 6th Fleet areas to conduct maritime security operations,” Lt. Cmdr. Courtney Hillson previously told Navy Times. “This deployment will allow the Hawaii-based destroyer O’Kane to deploy to 7th Fleet to provide more (ballistic missile defense)-capable ships in the region.”

Two destroyers home-ported in Japan, the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain, were seriously damaged in collisions with merchant ships in waters off the coasts of Japan and Singapore in June and August, “and will likely be nonoperational for a period of at least several months, and perhaps a year or more, until repairs on the ships are completed,” the Congressional Research Service said in an Oct. 13 report.

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The Navy’s cruisers and destroyers are called Aegis ships because they are equipped with the Aegis Combat System — an integrated collection of sensors and weapons systems that can simultaneously attack land targets, submarines and surface ships while also protecting the fleet from incoming threats.

Some Aegis ships can conduct ballistic missile defense with changes to the system’s computers and software, and by integrating the SPY-1 radar, MK 41 Vertical Launching System and SM-3 missiles.

The Navy has 33 ballistic missile defense ships, including five cruisers and 28 destroyers, with 17 of those ships in the Pacific, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

In 2011 the O’Kane, located west of Hawaii, fired an SM-3 Block IA missile that successfully intercepted a mock enemy intermediate-range ballistic missile launched from Kwajalein Atoll 11 minutes earlier.