The future USS Sioux City (LCS 11) will arrive in Annapolis, Maryland, Nov. 12 in advance of the ship’s commissioning ceremony.
The Freedom-variant littoral combat ship (LCS), the first ship named after the fourth-largest city in Iowa, Sioux City, will be commissioned at the U.S. Naval Academy Nov. 17.
The ship’s sponsor is Mary Winnefeld, the wife of the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. James “Sandy” Winnefeld.
LCS is a modular, reconfigurable ship designed to meet validated fleet requirements for surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare and mine countermeasures missions in the littoral region. A mission package is embarked on each LCS that provides the primary mission systems in one of these warfare areas. Using an open architecture design, modular weapons, sensor systems and a variety of manned and unmanned vehicles to gain, sustain and exploit littoral maritime supremacy, LCS provides U.S. joint force access to critical theaters.
The ship is scheduled to conduct regularly scheduled port visits prior to its arrival in Annapolis. Sioux City was conducting one of those port visits to Montreal, Canada, when inclement weather due to Hurricane Oscar delayed the ship’s departure.
Listen to our podcast with RADM Frank Thorp (Ret) who is leading the commissioning committee.
