USS Merrill (DD-976) - Definition and Overview

Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	16 June 1975
Launched:	1 September 1976
Commissioned:	11 March 1978
Decommissioned:	26 March 1998
Fate:
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	8,040 tons full load.
Length:	529 feet waterline; 563 feet overall.
Beam:	55 feet.
Draught:	29 feet.
Propulsion:	4 × General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines; 80,000 shp; 2 x shafts.
Speed:	32.5 knots
Range:	6,000 nautical miles at 20 knots; 3,300 nautical miles at 30 knots.
Complement:	19 officers, 315 enlisted
Armament:	2 x 5-inch 54 calibre Mark 45 dual purpose guns; 2 x 20 mm Phalanx CIWS Mark 15 guns; 1 x 8 cell NATO Sea Sparrow Mark 29 missile launcher; 2 x quadruple Harpoon missile canisters.
Aircraft:	2 x SH-60B Seahawk LAMPS III helicopters.
Motto: Spirit of 76.

USS Merrill, named for Rear Admiral Anson Stanton Merrill USN (1890-1961), was a Spruance class destroyer laid down by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula in Mississippi.

Merrill has been stricken from the Naval Vessel Register.

External Links

• USS Merrill webpage (http://www.navysite.de/dd/dd976.htm)