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''Knox''-class frigates were United States Navy warships, originally laid down as ocean escorts (formerly called destroyer escorts), but were all redesignated as frigates on 30 June 1975 in the USN 1975 ship reclassification and their hull designation changed from DE to FF. A sub-class of the ''Knox'' class was built, commonly referred to as the ''Hewes'' class. The primary differences were slightly different arrangement of the "Officer's Country" staterooms with additional staterooms in the 01 level instead of the open deck between the boat decks. The stateroom on the port side under the bridge was designated as a "flag" stateroom, with the additional staterooms for flag staff when serving as a flagship. == History == The 46 ships of the ''Knox'' class were the largest, last and most numerous of the US Navy’s second-generation ASW escorts. The lead ship of the class was , laid down 5 October 1965 and commissioned on 12 April 1969, at Todd Shipyards in Seattle.〔Gardiner and Chumbley 1995, pp. 598–599.〕 Planned as the follow-on to the twin 5-inch gun armed s and the Tartar missile-equipped s, their initial design incorporated the prior classes' pressure-fired boilers in a similar-sized hull designed around the massive bow-mounted AN/SQS-26 sonar, with increased endurance and reduced crew size. Anti-submarine armament was to consist of ASROC anti submarine missiles together with the DASH drone helicopter, while defensive armament was to be the RIM-46 Sea Mauler short range anti-aircraft missile backed up by a single 5-inch gun.〔Friedman 1982, pp. 358–360.〕 The design soon ran into problems, with the US Navy deciding to switch to conventional boilers, requiring a redesign, with the ships becoming longer and heavier in order to accommodate the less compact power plants. In 1965, Sea Mauler was cancelled, leaving the ships to complete without any surface-to-air missile system.〔Friedman 1982, p. 360.〕〔 Ten ships were authorized in FY 1964, sixteen in 1965 and ten each for FYs 1966, 67 and 68; six were canceled in 1968 and four more in 1969. While the FY64 and FY65 ships were ordered from four different shipyards, later ships (DE-1078 onwards) were all ordered from Avondale Shipyards in order to cut costs.〔 These ships were built on a production line, with prefabricated modules being assembled upside down, welded together and then rotated into an upright position.〔Blackman 1971, p. 481.〕 They were originally commissioned as destroyer escorts (DEs) 1052–1097 in 1969–1974,〔 but were redesignated as frigates (FF) on 30 June 1975.〔Polmar 1981, p. 113.〕 The ''Knox'' class had been criticized for deck wetness and there were a number of instances of damage to the forward weapons mounts in heavy seas. In 1979, the class began to receive "hurricane bows" beginning with . The modification heightened the bow section, adding bulwarks and spray strakes to prevent burrowing into on-coming seas and better protect the forecastle armament. The ''Knox'' class was the Navy’s last destroyer-type design with a steam turbine powerplant. Due to their unequal comparison to destroyers then in service (large size with low speed and a single screw and 5 inch gun), they became known to a generation of destroyermen as “McNamara’s Folly.” These ships were retired from the US Navy at the end of the Cold War due to their relatively high running costs, a declining defense budget, and need for ships with a more advanced ASW capability. None of the ships served more than 23 years in the US Navy, and by 1994 all of the class had been retired, although some remain in service with foreign nations such as Egypt, Taiwan, Thailand, and Mexico. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Knox-class frigate」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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