The guided-missile cruiser Monterey will deploy on Oct. 16 as the Navy shuffles ships around to ensure there are enough ballistic-missile defense ships in the Pacific in the wake of two major accidents that rendered the destroyer\u2019s McCain and Fitzgerald unable to deploy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMonterey will leave on a previously unscheduled deployment to the 5th and 6th Fleet areas to conduct maritime security operations,\u201d Lt. Cmdr. Courtney Hillson told Navy Times Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis deployment will allow the Hawaii-based destroyer O\u2018Kane to deploy to 7th Fleet to provide more BMD-capable ships in the region,\u201d she said, referring to ships with ballistic-missile defense systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The demand for ballistic-missile defense capabilities in the west Pacific has intensified as North Korea continues testing missiles, putting allies on edge in Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, two Navy BMD-capable destroyers previously in the Pacific, the McCain and Fitzgerald, suffered catastrophic damage in unrelated collisions this summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hillson said that the deployment is currently slated to be \u201cabout six months.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The O\u2019Kane was originally scheduled to deploy to the 5th and 6th Fleet areas, which includes Europe and the Middle East. The Norfolk, Virginia-based Monterey will take its place there, so O\u2019Kane can deploy instead to 7th Fleet in the west Pacific. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will be Monterey\u2019s second deployment to both regions in the past year. Monterey left Norfolk June 1, 2016, as part of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group and spent most of that deployment in 5th Fleet supporting operations there. The ship returned home Jan. 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMonterey has just completed the sustainment phase of the Optimized Fleet Response plan and is ready to respond,\u201d Hillson said. \u201cThe ship is fully trained and certified to deploy.\u201d
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amid growing tension with North Korea, the U.S. Navy is surging a ballistic missile defense ship to the west Pacific after two catastrophic collisions this summer diminished the missile defense options there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":40333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,12,25,69],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3095],"class_list":["post-17505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters","category-your-marine-corps"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BZBBZQD7OBB7FJNMB27GYMQGOM","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2017\/10\/12\/navy-to-send-destroyer-to-far-east-to-boost-ballistic-missile-defense\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n