USS Ponce (LPD-15)

USS Ponce (AFSB-15)

In 2013, after AFSB conversion
History
United States
Name	Ponce
Namesake	Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ordered	17 May 1965
Builder	Lockheed Shipbuilding
Laid down	31 October 1966
Launched	20 May 1970
Commissioned	10 July 1971
Decommissioned	14 October 2017
Stricken	13 November 2017
Homeport	Norfolk, Virginia
Identification	MMSI number: 368939000 Callsign: NSBJ
Nickname(s)	Proud Lion
Fate	Scrapped in Brownsville 2022
Badge
General characteristics
Class and type	Austin-class amphibious transport dock
Displacement	8883 tons light, 16591 tons full, 7708 tons dead
Length	173.7 m (570 ft) overall 167 m (548 ft) waterline
Beam	30.4 m (100 ft) extreme 25.6 m (84 ft) waterline
Draft	6.7 m (22 ft) maximum 7 m (23 ft) limit
Speed	20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement	29 officers, 487 men
Armament	8 × 0.5 in (12.7 mm) caliber gun mounts 2 × 20 mm Phalanx CIWS 2 × 25 mm Mk 38 Mod 2[1] Laser Weapon System[2]

USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15) (formerly LPD-15) (/ˈpɒnseɪ/ PON-say), was an Austin-class amphibious transport dock, formerly in service with the United States Navy. She has been the only ship of the Navy named for Ponce in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which in turn was named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, the first governor of Puerto Rico and the European discoverer of Florida. Her keel was laid down on 31 October 1966 by the Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company of Seattle, Washington. She was launched on 20 May 1970 sponsored by Florence W. Hyland, the wife of Admiral John J. Hyland, and commissioned on 10 July 1971.^[3] She spent most of her career based on the East Coast and operating in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, serving in Operation Desert Shield and supporting US operations in the 2011 Libyan Civil War.

It was intended that the ship would be decommissioned in 2012, but she gained a reprieve to be converted at short notice into a testbed for the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) concept, in which she would act as a base for mine-sweeping MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters in the Persian Gulf. Following the conversion, Ponce had been used to test other initiatives and technologies, such as the Laser Weapon System and operating US Army attack helicopters at sea. After the arrival of USS Lewis B. Puller as a permanent AFSB (now designated as Expeditionary Mobile Base (ESB)),^[4] Ponce was decommissioned in October 2017 after 46 years of service and 27 deployments.^[5]