Tough Warfare Destroyer

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USS Cole - Pretty as a picture today.

Warship tough enough for worst attacks: designer
Jeremy Roberts
May 12, 2007

THE American warship designer competing for the navy's $6 billion Air Warfare Destroyer project says its design can withstand "the worst" terrorist attack.

And the US design also offered the “best” involvement of Australian industry during the building of the three ships from 2008. Gibbs and Cox Australia managing director Peter Croser made the claims on the deck of the USS Lassen, after the US Navy destroyer docked at Outer Harbour in Adelaide yesterday.

The ship is an Arleigh Burke class destroyer and forms the basis of the Gibbs and Cox “evolved design” for Australia. The disign will be a smaller version, with US weapons and combat systems and fitted with Australian material and machinery. “A number of US ships which were designed by the Gibbs and Cox company have been involved in terrorist attacks and they survived,” said Mr Croser, a former Royal Australian Navy officer.

In October 2000 the USS Cole - an Arleigh Burke class destroyer docked in Yemen - suffered a suicide attack which killed 17 sailors and tore a 12m hole in the hull at the water line. The ship did not sink - an achievement credited to the efforts of the crew and the hull design. “That shows how a Gibbs and Cox design is structurally strong and designed for modern terror attack and also for, of course, missile attack,” said Mr Croser.

The USS Lasson's visit to Adelaide follows the visit in March of an example of its competitor, the Alvaro De Bazan of the Spanish navy, an F100 class frigate built by Spanish company Navantia. The Howard Government is expected to choose between the two design options around mid-year.

http://www.remember.gov/TollOfTerrorism/USSColeIncident/tabid/94/Default.aspx

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