Sumter class attack transport
USS Warren (APA-53), a ship of the Sumter class, at Hampton Roads, 23 August 1943
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Sumter- |
| Builders: | Gulf Shipbuilding |
| Operators: | US Navy |
| Preceded by: | Bayfield class |
| Succeeded by: | Gilliam class |
| In commission: | 27 Aug 1943 - 15 May 1944 - 16 Mar 1946 - 17 Apr 1946 |
| Completed: | 4 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Attack transport |
| Displacement: | 8,591 tons (lt) 13,910 tons (fl) |
| Length: | 468 ft 8 in |
| Beam: | 63 ft |
| Draft: | 23 ft 3 in (limiting) |
| Propulsion: | 1 × General Electric geared-drive turbine, 2 × Babcock & Wilcox header-type boilers, 1 propeller, designed shaft horsepower 6,000 |
| Speed: | 16.5 knots |
| Capacity: |
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| Complement: | 38-57 Officers, 410-619 Enlisted |
| Armament: |
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The Sumter-class attack transport was a class of attack transport built for service with the US Navy in World War II.
Like all attack transports, the purpose of the Sumter's was to transport troops and their equipment to foreign shores in order to execute amphibious invasions using an array of smaller assault boats integral to the attack transport itself. Like all the attack transports, the Sumter-class was heavily armed with antiaircraft weaponry to protect itself and its cargo of troops from air attack in the battle zone.
The Sumter class ships were based upon the US Maritime Commission's Type C2 merchant ship hull - specifically, the C2-S-E1 type. The class consisted of only four ships - three of them laid down in April 1942, not long after the US entry into the war, and the remaining ship laid down almost a year later, in March 1943. All four ships were built by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, at Chickasaw, Alabama.
The first three ships in the class were originally intended to be plain transports, but on 1 February 1943 they, along with numerous other transports then in service or still on the slipways, were redesignated as attack transports. This entailed fitting extra antiaircraft weaponry, providing the ships with an array of amphibious assault craft and the means to deploy them, and other modifications. The extra work required to upgrade the ships in the class from transports to attack transports was done at either Bethlehem Steel, Maryland Drydock or the Atlantic Basin Iron Works, and delayed their commission by five or six months so that they did not become available for service until August/September 1943. The fourth ship in the class, the USS Baxter (APA-94), was designated an attack transport from the outset but still had to go through the same refitting process after being built, which also delayed its commission by about the same length of time.
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