Built by the Bethlehem Steel Corp., Quincy, Mass., as a Guided Missile Frigate nuclear powered for the US navy.
15 May 1959 laid down.
15 April 1961 launched under the name USS BAINBRIDGE. (DLGN 25). She was named in honor of Commodore William Bainbridge (1774-1833)
Displacement 7,804 tons standard, 8,592 tons full load, dim. 172.2 x 17.6 x 7.7m (maximum draught.)
Powered by two General Electric pressurized water-cooled reactors, who give their power to two General Electric geared turbines, 60,000 shp, speed 30+ knots, twin screws.
Armament: Two twin Mark 10 Terrier/Standard-ER Launchers (80 missiles), two quadruple launch canisters for Harpoon surface to surface missiles (8 missiles), one3 Asroc launcher, two twin 20 mm Mark 67 guns, two Mark 32 ASW torpedo tubes, two 40mm saluting guns.
Crew 34 officers and 436 ratings. Had also flagship accommodation for 6 officers and 12 enlisted men.
06 Oct. 1962 completed.
Building cost $ 163.6 million.
She is highly manoeuvrable and she was an very good seaworthy vessel. Special designed to screen fast carriers and defend them against air attacks.
Her shake down cruise was off the U.S. East coast and the Caribbean area until February 1963.
Then she was stationed in the Mediterranean, this included demonstrations of her long-range high-speed dash capabilities and operations with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS ENTERPRISE (CVAN-65).
Her second turn in the Mediterranean began in May 1964, this time joining ENTERPRISE and the guided missile cruiser USS LONG BEACH. To form the all-nuclear-powered Task Force 1.
At the end of July that year the three ships began “Operation Sea Orbit”, a two-month unrefueled cruise around the world.
In October 1965 BAINBRIDGE again rounded the Cape of Good Hope, en route to the western Pacific for the first of eleven Seventh Fleet cruises. Operating for much of the deployment off strife-torn Vietnam, she screened aircraft carriers, served as a radar-picket ship, and performed search and rescue missions. Then she crossed the Pacific to her new home port, Long Beach, California. Her next five Far Eastern tours, in 1966-1967, 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972-1973. also involved Vietnam War combat operations, as well as voyages to Australia and beginning in 1970, the Indian Ocean.
In 1967-68 the BAINBRIDGE underwent shipyard overhaul and her first nuclear refueling.
The ship’s seventh trip to the Far East, beginning in November 1973, included a lengthy visit to the Arabian Sea, a area that would become very familiar in the coming decades.
1974 She received overhaul refueling and modernization by the Puget Sound naval Shipyard, work commenced on 30 June 1974 and was completed on 24 Sept. 1976 at a cost of $ 103 million.
30 June 1975 reclassified CGN-25 (Guided Missile Cruiser.)
An improved missile guidance system was installed in that time.
Her next Seventh Fleet deployment ran from January to August 1978 and included visits throughout the region, from Japan and Korea to Thailand and Singapore, with her homeward bound voyage taking her to Australia and through the South Pacific. USS BAINBRIDGE made three more West Pac tours, in 1979-80, 1981 and 1982-83. Each of them involved extensive operations in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.
After receiving her final nuclear overhaul in 1983-85, USS BAINBRIDGE left the Pacific after two decades, transited the Panama Canal and rejoined the Atlantic Fleet. Her operations thereafter included counter-drug smuggling patrols in the Caribbean, several deployments to northern European waters and four Mediterranean cruises 1986-87, 1988-89 – including combat operations off Libya, 1991-92 – with Red Sea and Persian Gulf tour, and in 1994 as Flagship of the Standing Naval Forces, Atlantic. Inactivated in October 1995, USS BAINBRIDGE decommissioned in September 1996.
She was towed to Bremerton, Washington, in mid-1997 and in October of that year entered dry dock to begin “recycling”, the process by which nuclear-powered warships are scrapped.
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http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-u ... dlgn25.htm Warships of the US Navy.