The littoral combat ship Fort Worth marked a first Wednesday when it pulled into Sasebo, Japan, becoming the first of the new class of surface combatants to visit the close ally, which hosts the largest number of U.S. Navy ships of any ally.
The Fort Worth is five months into its 16-month 7th Fleet deployment, only the second time an LCS has deployed to the region.
"We're excited to be in Japan," said Cmdr. Matt Kawas, the ship's commanding officer, in the ship's Wednesday press release.
Sixteen months may sound long, but no one crew will have to do all of it. Kawas leads the second Fort Worth crew, who flew out from the states and took over the ship in February, a rotational crewing scheme similar to that for ballistic- and guided-missile submarines. The ships are based out of Singapore, which serves as an overseas logistics hub where crews can pull in for maintenance and crew turnovers.
Officials plan for two more crew swaps during the rest of the deployment, with each crew sailing for roughly 4 months.
This summer, Fort Worth is slated to participate in the multinational Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training exercise with nine partner nations, according to the release.
The Fort Worth is outfitted with its surface warfare mission package, which features two 30mm guns, two 11-meter rigid hull inflatable boats with boarding teams, in addition to the ship's 57mm gun and rolling airframe missile launcher. The ship also carries an embarked MH-60R Sea Hawk.
The previous Fort Worth crew returned to San Diego and is set to be the plankowning crew of the Milwaukee.
