USS Mount Whitney

USS Mount Whitney on 27 August 2005
History
United States
Name	USS Mount Whitney
Namesake	Mount Whitney
Ordered	10 August 1966
Builder	Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company
Laid down	8 January 1969
Launched	8 January 1970
Commissioned	16 January 1971
Homeport	Gaeta, Italy
Identification	MMSI number: 111853581 Callsign: NOGB
Motto	The Voice of The Sea[1]
Status	In active service
Badge
General characteristics
Class and type	Blue Ridge-class command ship
Displacement	18,400 tons full load
Length	189 m (620.1 ft)
Beam	33 m (108.3 ft)
Draft	906.78 cm (29.8 ft) full load
Propulsion	Two boilers, one geared turbine
Speed	23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph)
Capacity	930
Complement	170 officers and enlisted 155 Military Sealift Command civilian sailors
Armament	2 × Phalanx CIWS 2 × 25 mm Bushmaster cannons 4 × 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns, Mark 36 SRBOC chaff rockets
Aircraft carried	1 × helicopter, currently a MH-60S Knight Hawk

USS Mount Whitney (LCC/JCC 20) is one of two Blue Ridge-class amphibious command ships of the United States Navy and is the flagship and command ship of the United States Sixth Fleet. USS Mount Whitney also serves as the Afloat Command Platform (ACP) of Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO). The ship had previously served for years as the COMSTRIKFLTLANT(NATO Designation) / US Second Fleet's command ship. She is one of only a few commissioned ships to be assigned to Military Sealift Command.^[2]

Mount Whitney was classified as LCC-20 on 1 January 1969, and her keel was laid down on 8 January by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company, Newport News, Virginia.

At the time of her commissioning, Mount Whitney joined her sister ship Blue Ridge as having the distinction of carrying the world's most sophisticated electronics suites.^[3] It was said to be some thirty percent larger than that of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy, which had been the most complex. Mount Whitney was armed with a "main battery" of computers, communications gear, and other electronic facilities to fulfill her mission as a command ship. An extremely refined communications system was also an integral part of the ship's radical new design. Through an automated patch panel and computer-controlled switching matrix, her crew could use any combination of communication equipment desired. The clean topside area is the result of careful design intended to minimize the ship's interference with her own communications system. US Navy long-range communications were heavily reliant on high-frequency radio systems in the 1970s and have evolved to predominantly satellite communications in the 2000s. This is illustrated by the long wire antennas and the directional HF yagi or log-periodic antenna initially installed on Mount Whitney and later removed and replaced with a number of satellite communications antennas.