USS Benfold (DDG-65)

USS Benfold (DDG-65)

USS Benfold firing a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile shortly before the Koa Kai exercise in 2012.
History
United States
Name:	Benfold
Namesake:	Edward Clyde Benfold
Ordered:	16 January 1991
Builder:	Ingalls Shipbuilding
Laid down:	27 September 1993
Launched:	9 November 1994
Commissioned:	30 March 1996
Homeport:	Naval Base Yokosuka, Japan
Motto:	"Onward with valor!"
Status:	in active service
Badge:
General characteristics
Class and type:	Arleigh Burke-class destroyer
Displacement:	Light: approx. 6,800 long tons (6,900 t) Full: approx. 8,900 long tons (9,000 t)
Length:	505 ft (154 m)
Beam:	66 ft (20 m)
Draft:	31 ft (9.4 m)
Installed power:	3 × Rolls Royce AG9130F (Allison 501-K34) (2.5 MW Each)
Propulsion:	4 General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines, two shafts, 100,000 total shaft horsepower (75 MW)
Speed:	>30 knots (56 km/h)
Range:	4,400 nautical miles at 20 knots (8,100 km at 37 km/h)
Complement:	33 commissioned officers 38 chief petty officers 210 enlisted personnel
Sensors and processing systems:	AN/SPY-1D 3D Radar AN/SPS-67(V)2 Surface Search Radar AN/SPS-73(V)12 Surface Search Radar AN/SPG-62 Fire Control Radar AN/SQS-53C Sonar Array AN/SQR-19 Tactical Towed Array Sonar AN/SQQ-28 LAMPS III Shipboard System
Electronic warfare & decoys:	AN/SLQ-32(V)2 Electronic Warfare System AN/SLQ-25 Nixie Torpedo Countermeasures MK 36 MOD 12 Decoy Launching System AN/SLQ-39 CHAFF Buoys
Armament:	1 × 29 cell, 1 × 61 cell Mk 41 vertical launching systems with 90 × RIM-156 SM-2, BGM-109 Tomahawk or RUM-139 VL-ASROC missiles 2 x Mk 141 Harpoon Missile Launcher SSM 1 × Mark 45 5/54 in (127/54 mm) 2 × 25 mm chain gun 4 × .50 caliber (12.7 mm) guns 2 × 20 mm Phalanx CIWS 2 × Mk 32 triple torpedo tubes
Aircraft carried:	None embarked
Aviation facilities:	Flight deck accommodates all U.S. military helicopters except CH-53 Sea Stallion

USS Benfold (DDG-65) is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in the United States Navy.

Benfold is a multi-mission platform capable of AAW (Anti-Aircraft Warfare) with the powerful AEGIS combat systems suite and anti-aircraft missiles, ASW (Anti-submarine warfare), with towed sonar array, anti-submarine rockets, ASUW (Anti-surface warfare) with a Harpoon missile launcher, and strategic land strike using Tomahawk missiles. Benfold was one of the first ships fitted with the new AEGIS Ballistic Missile System and during the 2010 Stellar Daggers exercise was the first ship to simultaneously engage a ballistic missile and a cruise missile.

Former Benfold commanding officers include ADM Mark Ferguson, VADM Thomas H. Copeman III, and author Michael Abrashoff.

The destroyer's namesake is Hospital Corpsman Third Class Edward Clyde Benfold, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic action on 5 September 1952 while assigned to the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War.

Built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation in Pascagoula, Mississippi, Benfold is the 15th of 76 planned Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers. She joined the U.S. Pacific Fleet for service on 30 March 1996.