USS ''Oakland'' (LCS-24) is an of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. She is the third ship to be named for the City of

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

Design

In 2002, the

initiated a program to develop the first of a fleet of

littoral combat ship The littoral combat ship (LCS) is either of two classes of relatively small surface vessels designed for operations near shore by the United States Navy. It was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeat ...

s. The Navy initially ordered two trimaran hulled ships from General Dynamics, which became known as the after the first ship of the class, . Even-numbered US Navy littoral combat ships are built using the ''Independence''-class trimaran design, while odd-numbered ships are based on a competing design, the conventional

monohull right A monohull is a type of boat having only one hull, unlike multihulled boats which can have two or more individual hulls connected to one another. Fundamental concept Among the earliest hulls were simple logs, but these were generally unst ...

. The initial order of littoral combat ships involved a total of four ships, including two of the ''Independence''-class design. On 29 December 2010, the Navy announced that it was awarding Austal USA a contract to build ten additional ''Independence''-class littoral combat ships.

Construction and career

''Oakland'' was built by

Austal USA Austal USA is an American shipbuilder based on Blakeley Island in Mobile, Alabama. It is a subsidiary of the Australian shipbuilder Austal, operating under a Special Security Arrangement which allows it to work independently and separately on ...

in Mobile, Alabama. A ceremonial laying of the keel was held at the Austal USA shipyards in Mobile on 20 July 2018. The ship was christened on 29 June 2019 and then launched on 21 July 2019. She was delivered to the Navy on 26 June 2020, and was commissioned on 17 April 2021. The ship was in

Honiara, Solomon Islands Honiara () is the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands, situated on the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal. , it had a population of 92,344 people. The city is served by Honiara International Airport and the seaport of Point Cruz, and l ...

on 7 August 2022 for ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the

Battle of Guadalcanal The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by American forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the ...

References

* Independence-class littoral combat ships 2019 ships {{US-mil-ship-stub