At a ceremony held on Saturday at Naval Base Ventura County, Port Hueneme, the U.S. Navy officially put a brand-new battleship into service. According to the Navy, the USS Santa Barbara, a so-called "littoral combat ship," or LCS, is a quick ship designed for surface warfare and near-shore and open-ocean naval security.
The Navy's 32nd littoral combat ship is the Santa Barbara. It was declared in 2018, baptized, launched, and shipped in July 2022. One of the characteristics of the Independence variation of the LCS class is that it has an aluminium trimaran design. The Freedom, the other version, is a steel monohull. The USS Santa Barbara and its even-numbered aluminium versions are assigned to a squadron headquartered in San Diego.
"The city of Santa Barbara is rich in history, spanning hundreds of years of change and progress that make Santa Barbara an iconic location and a fitting name for LCS 32," said Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro.
Last week, as it journeyed to Ventura County, the ship passed by the city bearing its name. According to a Navy website, it is the third ship of the Navy's Santa Barbara ship class; the first two were commissioned in 1918 and 1970.
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