USNS Mount Baker (T-AE-34) |
|
| Career (US) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | USNS Mount Baker (T-AE-34) |
| Namesake: | Mount Baker |
| Awarded: | 8 March 1968[1] |
| Builder: | Ingalls Shipbuilding[1] |
| Laid down: | 5 October 1970[1] |
| Launched: | 23 October 1971[1] |
| Commissioned: | 22 July 1972[1] |
| Decommissioned: | 18 December 1996[1] |
| In service: | 18 December 1996 |
| Out of service: | 2 August 2010[2] |
| Status: | In reserve[1] |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Kilauea-class ammunition ship |
| Displacement: | 20,000 tons (20,300 t) full load |
| Length: | 564.3 ft (172.0 m) overall |
| Beam: | 81 ft (25 m) |
| Draft: | 28 ft (8.5 m) |
| Propulsion: | Three Foster-Wheeler boilers; 600 psi (42 kg/cm², 4.2 MPa); 870 °F (470 °C); 1 turbine, 22,000 hp (16.4 MW); single six-bladed propeller; Automated Propulsion System (APS) |
| Speed: | 20 knots |
| Capacity: | 60,000 ft3/6,000 tons of ammunition |
| Complement: | 125 civilians, 55 naval personnel (including a helicopter detachment) |
| Aircraft carried: | Two CH-46 helicopters |
USNS Mount Baker (T-AE-34) is the seventh of eight Kilauea-class ammunition ships, currently in service with the Military Sealift Command. She is the second U.S. Navy ship to bear the name, and is named for Mount Baker, a volcano in the Cascade Range of Washington. Ammunition ships operated by Military Sealift Command provide logistic support to US Navy ships at sea.
Mount Baker was built by Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi. She was commissioned 22 July 1972 as USS Mount Baker (AE-34) and entered service with the Atlantic Fleet.
In 1976, the Chief of Naval Operations authorized the testing of the LAMPS MK III System aboard her flight deck. Later that year, Mount Baker gave support to rescue operations of the Navy's nuclear-powered submersible (NR-1). In 1977, she was awarded the Battle E as the best ammunition ship in the Atlantic Fleet.
On 18 December 1996, Mount Baker decommissioned and was placed in service with the Military Sealift Command. The ship's designation was changed to T-AE-34. She remains in service, providing ammunition onload and offload support to U.S. Navy ships operating in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean.
On July 20, 2009, the Navy announced that the ship would be inactivated on August 2, 2010.[2] She is presently laid up at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in Philadelphia, Pa., awaiting to be sunk as a target.
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