US Navy’s littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) surpassed the one-year mark on her scheduled 16-month rotational deployment to Singapore in support of the Indo-Asia-Pacific rebalance November 17.
Fort Worth deployed from San Diego on November 17, 2014 and operates out of Singapore as a maintenance and logistics hub from which the ship conducts patrols and trains with regional navies.
The first LCS to deploy under the “3-2-1″ manning concept, Fort Worth rotates fully trained crews roughly every four months. This concept allows Fort Worth to deploy six months longer than the 2013 USS Freedom (LCS 1) deployment and twice as long as typical U.S. Navy ship deployments.
The concept is named 3-2-1 because three rotational crews support two LCS ships and maintain one deployed ship.
Since arriving in Singapore December 29, Fort Worth has participated in search efforts for AirAsia flight QZ8501; exercise foal Eagle with the Republic of Korea Navy; CARAT exercises with Republic of the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh; exercise Malabar with the Indian Navy and Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF); and conducted a routine patrol in the South China Sea near the Spratly Islands.
Fort Worth has operated the entirety of her deployment with a surface warfare mission package, consisting of an MH-60R helicopter, MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aircraft system, and two 11-meter rigid-hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) with two six-man boarding teams.
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Image: US Navy