The Ship

About the Ship

The USS Kirk was an Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) platform. It was normally deployed as part of a task force, protecting an aircraft carrier from dangers lurking below the surface.

The ship began its life on December 4, 1970 when the keel was laid at Avondale Marine in Avondale, Louisiana. It was eventually launched on September 25, 1971 and brought around through the Panama Canal by a skeletal crew to Long Beach, California. After a year of outfitting and training, she was commissioned on September 9, 1972 as the USS Kirk DE-1087. On June 30, 1975 the Kirk was reclassified from a Destroyer Escort to a Fleet Frigate and her new designation became FF-1087.

The USS Kirk was decommissioned on August 6, 1993 and sold to Taiwan. There, the ship was renamed Fen Yang and was given the hull number 934. Seventeen years later, as I write this, she is still in service.

Specifications

• Displacement: 4,250 tons full load  Dimensions: 438 x 46.5 x 24.5 feet
• Propulsion: Steam turbines, 2 boilers, 35000hp, 1 shaft
• Speed: 27knots
• Crew: Approx. 250
• Sonar: AN/SQS-26CX hull mounted and AN/SQS-35A towed array used with Mk114 underwater fire control system
• Rockets: Mk16 8-cell ASROC launcher (later modified to accept RGM-84 Harpoon missiles)
• Torpeoes: Two Mk32 Twin torpedo tubes for 24 Mk46 torpedoes
• Aircraft: Kaman SH-2F Seasprite
• Radar: SPS-40B 2D air search, SPS-10 surface search (later upgraded to SPS-67), and LN-66 land navigation
• ECM: SLQ-32 active/passive, SLQ-25 Nixie
• Main Gun: Mk42 5inch/54 rapid fire cannon used with SPG-53A radar and Mk68 Gun Fire Control System (GFCS) (Mk15 Phalanx 20mm Close-In Weapons System (CIWS) electric Gatling was added later)