Littoral combat ship Charleston returns to San Diego after deployment that lasted more than two years

The littoral combat ship Charleston returned to Naval Base San Diego Wednesday following a deployment that lasted for an unusually long time because the ship used rotating crews.

Charleston had been gone for 26 months when it arrived in San Diego Bay, which is home to 15 littoral combat ships.

The Navy defined the trip as a single deployment. But it was composed of separate, long tours carried out by different teams who alternately sailed the vessel, mostly in the Indo-Pacific.

The service is now beginning to shift to using single crews to operate some of these warships, which are lightly-armed vessels that can help perform marine security and humanitarian relief.

The Navy said that Charleston did conduct some mine countermeasure training while on deployment, and that it was the first commissioned U.S. Navy ship to visit the port of Manila, Philippines, in four years.

Less than three weeks after Charleston left San Diego in 2021, an unmanned aerial vehicle crashed into the ship while it was underway in the Pacific, according to the Navy. The UAV, a MQ-8B Fire Scout, ended up in the ocean and wasn’t recovered, authorities said.

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