*** Welcome to piglix ***

Thomaston class dock landing ship

USS Thomaston (LSD-28), the first ship of her class, launched in 1954
Class overview
Name: Thomaston class
Builders: Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi
Operators:
Preceded by: Casa Grande class
Succeeded by: Anchorage class
Built: 1953–1956
In commission: 1954–
Completed: 8
Active: 1
Retired: 7
General characteristics
Type: Dock landing ship
Displacement: 11,800 long tons (11,989 t) full load
Length: 510 ft (160 m)
Beam: 84 ft (26 m)
Propulsion: 2 × 600 psi boilers, 2 × geared turbines, 2 shafts, 24,000 shp (17,897 kW)
Speed: 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph)+
Boats & landing
craft carried:
3 × LCU or 9 × LCM-8 or 50 × AAV/LVTP-7 amphibious tractors
Troops: 325
Complement: 348 (18 officers, 330 enlisted)
Armament: 4 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 cal Mk.33 AA guns (2 twin mounts)
Aviation facilities: Helicopter landing area

The Thomaston class was a class of eight dock landing ships built for the United States Navy in the 1950s.

The class is named after a town of Thomaston, Maine, which was the home of General Henry Knox, the first Secretary of War to serve under the United States Constitution.

The Thomaston class was the third class of U.S. Navy dock landing ships. The class was designed and approved in the early 1950s. Compared to the Ashland and Casa Grande-class dock landing ships of World War II, the ships of this class were about a third larger and five knots faster. The class was designed to be able to transport:

The dock was covered by removable segments that were able to carry the weight of two medium helicopters. Both cranes could lift weights of up to 50 tons. The machinery spaces were located underneath the dock, in contrast to the earlier Ashland class, where the machinery spaces were located to port and starboard of the dock.

Originally, all ships were armed with eight 3″/50 caliber gun Mark 33 twin mounts. The number was later reduced.

Spiegel Grove was a trial ship for the Jeff(A) and Jeff(B) landing craft in the mid-1980s. Jeff(B) was then developed into the Landing Craft Air Cushion. All ships were decommissioned by the U.S. Navy between 1983 and 1990, Alamo and Hermitage were sold to Brazil in 1989-1990.



...
Wikipedia

...