USS Harlan County (LST-1196)

History

United States
Name:	USS Harlan County
Namesake:	Harlan County
Awarded:	15 July 1966
Builder:	National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, California
Laid down:	7 November 1970
Launched:	24 July 1971
Commissioned:	8 April 1972
Decommissioned:	14 April 1995
Struck:	23 July 2002
Identification:	LST-1196
Motto:	Swift and Sure, United We Sail
Fate:	Sold to Spain, 27 April 2000; broken up for scrap June–November, 2016 in Cadiz, Spain
Spain
Name:	Pizarro
Namesake:	Francisco Pizarro
Acquired:	27 April 2000
Decommissioned:	14 December 2012
Identification:	L42
General characteristics
Class and type:	Newport-class tank landing ship
Displacement:	4,793 long tons (4,870 t) light 8,500 long tons (8,636 t) full load
Length:	522 ft (159 m)
Beam:	70 ft (21 m)
Draft:	17 ft 4 in (5.28 m)
Installed power:	3 ALCO/GE generators (750 kW, 1201 A each)
Propulsion:	6 × ALCO diesel engines (3 per shaft), 16,000 shp (11,931 kW) GE 800 hp (597 kW) variable pitch bow thruster 2 hydraulically controlled variable pitch reversible props
Speed:	20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)+ (27 knots (50 km/h) confirmed in 1991)
Complement:	Navy: 12 officers, 211 men Marines: approximately 400 including officers and enlisted, when embarked
Armament:	2 × twin 3"/50 caliber guns, later replaced by two single 25 mm Mark 38 guns 1 × 20 mm Phalanx CIWS 8 × M2 Browning .50 caliber machine guns
Aviation facilities:	Helicopter landing deck aft of stacks

USS Harlan County (LST-1196) was a United States Navy tank landing ship of the Newport class. Entering service in 1972, the ship was active until decommissioned in 1996 and transferred to Spain. Renamed Pizarro, her Spanish service ended in 2012 and in 2013 it was reported that she would be sold to Angola as part of a package with the Spanish aircraft carrier Príncipe de Asturias. This sale was not completed and, after further attempts to sell the ship were unsuccessful, she was sold for scrap in April, 2016; she was completely dismantled by November, 2016, in Cadiz, Spain.

USS Harlan County, one of the Newport class of LSTs, was designed as a modernized "battle-group" version of the Tank Landing Ships (LSTs) of World War II. The major difference (among many) being these new ships had a v-shaped bow to allow for greater speed (20+ knots), versus the blunt bow LSTs of World War II and later. Harlan County had a displacement of 4,792 long tons (4,868.9 t), but almost doubled in displacement to 8,450 long tons (8,585.6 t) at full load.

The ships of the class had the ability to transport 2,000 short tons (1,814.37 t) of cargo or 500 short tons (453.59 t) for beaching on 1,765 square yards (1,475.8 m²) of deckspace. The ships had the capacity to transport twenty-three AAV-7A1 armored personnel carriers (APCs), or twenty-nine M-48 tanks (used by the Marines), or forty-one 2½ ton cargo trucks (deuce and a halfs) on the tank deck, which had turntables both fore and aft. They could also carry twenty-nine 2½ ton trucks on the upper deck. Harlan County normally carried two LCVPs on the port Welin davit, and another LCVP and an LCPL (Captain's Gig) on the starboard davit.

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