WAVY Navy Ship Salute: USS San Antonio

Yahoo

15 hours ago

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — After spending about a year and a half in the yards, USS San Antonio is getting ready for the next big thing as its crew prepares and maintains the ship. With extreme energy, her crew greeted us on board the original San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock.
The San Antonio city flag was proudly on display by the flight deck with memorabilia on board representing Texas and the Alamo. Capable of storing well over a hundred vehicles, it relies on the collaboration of Navy and Marines.
'We've got vehicles, assault vehicles, you name it,' Commanding Officer Captain Tom Uhl said. 'We also bring on helicopters, Ospreys, a wide variety of equipment from the land and sea, and we can deploy those all around the globe to project U.S. power, influence, to help our friends and our allies.'
While on board, they showed off the Mark 46 Gun Weapon System.
'We use it for, ship's self-defense against small boats in low flying aircraft,' GM3 Jessica Mejia-Vasquez said. 'There's no ventilation, so it gets pretty hot up here.'
Alongside the gun weapon system sits the rolling airframe launcher.
'We are capable of defending the ship against any airborne threats, whether they be missiles, which is the primary threat against us, or any helicopters or aircraft that might get too close,' said FC1 J.L. Lawrence.
In the flight deck, they walked us through firefighting exercises and how they train for patching pipes.
'Everybody is a firefighter on board a ship, you never know when it's going to be your turn to get up there and combat a casualty,' said MR1 Michael Jahnke. 'So, everybody getting involved is very helpful.'
They have more advanced clamps for patching pipes as well, but they need to to learn how to do it the old fashioned way too in case they run out of clamps.
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