millimeters or less. After the four hull modules are joined, Module 5, the island deckhouse is added. At over 500 tons, this last item is the largest structure ever lifted by a crane. At this point, the pile of rust-colored metal is beginning to look like a ship, but it is land-locked like a beached whale.
Now the ship can be connected to steam and power lines, and lighting and air-conditioning systems are turned on. This makes life more bearable for the workers on muggy Gulf Coast summer days. USS Bataan (LHD-5), already joined with all major modules in place, was being outfitted prior to the next step. This involves translating the completed hull sideways (at about 16 in./40.6 cm per minute) onto a floating drydock, moving the dock out into the channel of Mississippi Sound, and floating off the new ship. Once launched, the ship is towed to an outfitting berth on the south and east sides of the yard, where they prepare her for sea trials, commissioning, and delivery to the Navy.
Let's take a walk though the uncompleted Bataan to see how things are done. Wearing a hard hat, I joined Steve Davis, the General Ship Superintendent for Wasp (LHD-1), to tour the interior spaces. Each ship is assigned a Superintendent as the chief of construction until she is turned over to the Navy. Steve Davis has decades of shipbuilding experience on nuclear attack submarines, DDGs, and LHDs. After warnings about what not to touch, we entered the massive hull. While warm and smelling of burned metal, the interior of the LHD was surprisingly easy to move about in. It was smoky and dirty, but you could clearly see a warship emerging from the effort of hundreds of workers on board. Ingalls workers are clearly proud of their work, and Steve was anxious to show me how Bataan had been improved over his first LHD, Wasp. As we headed back outside, we stopped for a moment on the uncompleted hangar deck to talk with several of the outfitters, including Steve's son. Litton Ingalls is proud to be a family company, and it is not unusual to find two or three generations working at the Pascagoula shipyard.
Once a ship passes her builder's trials, she is ready for delivery to the Navy. Many sailors of the first crew, known in Navy tradition as 'plank owners,' actually join the ship during construction, to assist in the final fitting out and testing. This includes the final step in the manufacturing process, which they call 'the Litton Miracle.' Under the meticulous supervision of a lady named Annie Gese, the new warship is scrubbed spotless from stem to stern — even in corners and dark spots where inspectors would probably never look. Only then is the ship ready for commissioning in the fleet. As we headed back through the summer heat and humidity, Steve showed me partially assembled modules for USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6, named for John Paul Jones's Revolutionary War frigate) being stacked and made ready for mating as soon as Bataan was floated in 1996.
Litton Ingalls is a busy place, with over a dozen destroyers and LHDs in various stages of assembly and outfitting. Later, Steve and some of the senior Litton Ingalls executives expressed their hope that the next LHD, an as-yet-unnamed seventh ship, would be funded in the coming fiscal year. Less than a month later, they got their wish when the Congress approved LHD-7 as part of the FY-96 budget. This will guarantee the best possible price for the Navy, keep the work force stable, and keep suppliers healthy for future programs. In fact, when shipbuilding executives from the Far East and Europe want new ideas on how to build ships better, they come and look at how Litton Ingalls is doing things in the heart of Mississippi!
Even before a ship is delivered, the Navy has selected her first Captain. A good first skipper can make a ship 'happy' or 'lucky' and set the tone for every skipper and crew for years to come. As the first commanding officer of Wasp, the Navy chose Captain Len Picotte, who has become a Rear Admiral. Command of an LHD or one of the LHAs is particularly coveted in the Navy, since it is the largest surface vessel that can be commanded by a nonaviator. Because of the variety of missions that an LHD or LHA might draw, the Navy has decreed that if the captain is a surface line officer, the executive officer must be an aviator. This is reversed if the captain is an aviator, so the positions tend to switch off as officers move up and out. From the day she was laid down (May 30th, 1985), USS Wasp has been a lucky, happy ship. Unlike the LHAs, very few problems arose during design and construction. By the end of the Summer of 1987, she had been floated off (August 4th) and christened (September 19th). She passed her trials and was commissioned on July 29th, 1989. She entered into service with ARGs of the Atlantic fleet, and has been there ever since. In the fall of 1996, she goes into her first major overhaul and upgrade.
Let's go aboard the Wasp and get to know her a bit better. We'll enter through the landing craft well deck. As you move into position aft of the Wasp, a couple of things strike you almost immediately. How can anything so big move across the ocean? Then, as a helicopter comes in to land a few yards/meters above your head, you wonder how can anyone land on something so small. As the landing craft comes in to dock, you notice the slight downward tilt to the stern of the ship. This is because the stern gate has been lowered and the aft ballast tanks have been flooded down to provide the smoothly sloping artificial 'beach' for the landing craft. If you're standing on the navigation bridge of an LCU, be sure to watch your head if you are over 6 ft/2 m tall. Lined with Douglas fir, the well deck is vast (322 ft/98.1 m long, 50 ft/15.25 m wide, and 28 ft/8.5 m high), but it seems crowded when a pair af LCUs or three LCACs are docked inside. Once the landing craft is beached and the bow ramp is lowered, you walk up a steep non-skid ramp, and you are on the vehicle deck. Following Navy etiquette, we 'request permission to come aboard' from the senior officer present.
Walking forward, you enter a stowage area for vehicles of the embarked MEU (SOC). On this deck and the one below are HMMWVs, 5-ton trucks, M 198 155mm field howitzers, and trailers. Though the decks are stressed for armored vehicles as heavy as M1A1 Abrams tanks, AAV-7 amphibious tractors, and wheeled LAVs, you usually find these beasts over on the LSDs or LPDs of an ARG. On the 'big deck' assault ship, planners prefer to keep only vehicles that can be lifted by the CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopter. Like a parking garage, the vehicle decks are linked by drive-up ramps. You can drive from the lower vehicle deck all the way up to the hangar and flight decks. Despite the vast stowage space, vehicles, cargo and equipment are packed together with only inches/centimeters of clearance. Even a ship as big as Wasp never has enough room for everything a MEU (SOC) commander wants. So the rule is to leave just enough room for a Marine to climb through a vehicle's window, door, or hatch, so that it can be driven out of its parking spot when a space develops. Shuffling vehicles and cargo around the stowage space of an amphibious ship is like that children's puzzle with movable tiles and one empty space. You have to move the tiles around incessantly to reach what's needed. The MEU (SOC) logistics (S-4) staff spends hours on their computers arranging load plans to maximize stowage. But with only 20,900 ft/1,941.7m of vehicle stowage space and 125,000 ft/ 3,539.3 m of cargo space, you need the mind of an accountant with the imagination of an artist to figure it all out. A conveyer system on an overhead monorail with five hoists helps shift cargo pallets around the various bays. In addition, Wasp is equipped with fourteen electric two-ton forklifts, twenty-five three-ton diesel forklifts, two five-ton rough terrain forklifts, two pallet conveyers, five aircraft tow tractors, and four spotting dollies. There are also six six-ton cargo elevators to move things from the well deck and vehicle/cargo areas to the hangar and flight decks.
Walking up the vehicle ramp to the hangar deck, you emerge into a vast space which takes up almost a third of the Wasp's length. Two full deck levels high, the hangar deck is the aircraft maintenance and stowage area. A typical air group includes a dozen or so CH-46 Sea Knights, four big CH-53E Sea Stallions, four AH-1W Cobras, and four UH-1N Iroquois. A half-dozen AV-8B Harrier II fighter/bombers are usually stowed up on the flight deck or 'roof' as the crew members call it. This is because Harriers are designed to be weatherproof. While it is theoretically possible for Wasp to operate up to forty-five CH- 46E-sized aircraft, you usually find some of them up on deck, leaving some room to work down in the hangar. The deck and hangar are linked by two deck edge elevators, each capable of lifting up to 75,000 lb/34,090 kg. This is a change from the LHA, which had one elevator on the fantail. In addition to maintenance and stowage, the hangar deck is used by the embarked Marines for fitness and proficiency training (rappelling and other skills). It serves as a staging area for mission teams as they prepare for action. In the rafters are small office and control spaces for the air and maintenance departments, with windows for monitoring the activities below. Walking forward along the starboard side, you come to the flight deck ramp tunnel. This allows vehicles to drive up to the flight deck through the island structure without having to use the aircraft elevators. This usually is the way that the Marines march up to the flight deck to board helicopters. When the LHD was designed back in the early 1980s, the standard utility vehicle for the Marines was the old M151 Jeep. During the construction of the early LHDs in the 1980s, the Marines replaced their jeeps with HMMWVs, which turned out to be wider than the designers expected. Unfortunately, the dimensions of this access tunnel were already frozen, so HMMWVs must ride the elevators. It is a minor inconvenience; starting with LHD-2 they widened the tunnel. But the story underlines how long it takes to design and build new warships. Even though Wasp was based on the existing LHA design, it still
