T for Transparency: To be candid, honest, and impartial.

E for Empower: Enable and entrust responsibility at proper level.

A for Accountability: Showing up and putting forth best daily.

M for Mentor: An influential supporter and guide for others.

FORREST SHERMAN (DDG-98) is the 48th ship in the ARLEIGH BURKE (DDG-51) Class of Aegis guided missile destroyers – the U.S. Navy’s most powerful destroyer fleet. These highly-capable, multi-mission ships can conduct a variety of operations, from peacetime presence and crisis management to sea control and power projection, in support of National Military Strategy.

The mission of FORREST SHERMAN is to conduct sustained combat operations at sea, providing primary protection for the Navy’s aircraft carriers and battle groups, as well as essential escort to Navy and Marine Corps amphibious forces and auxiliary ships, and independent operations as necessary. DDG-98 will be capable of fighting of air, surface, and subsurface battles simultaneously. The ship contains myriad offensive and defensive weapons designed to support maritime defense needs well into the 21st century.
 

The 509.5-foot, 9,300-ton FORREST SHERMAN has an overall beam of 66.5 feet, and a navigational draft of 31.9 feet. Four gas turbine propulsion plants will power the ship to speeds above 30 knots. A crew of approximately 300 officers and crewmembers operate the ship.

DDG-98’s Aegis Combat System, the world’s foremost naval weapons systems, includes the AN/SPY-1D phased array radar, the most powerful air search radar in the Navy’s inventory, which scans in all directions simultaneously to detect, track and engage hundreds of aircraft and missiles while continuously watching the sky for new targets from the sea to the stratosphere. State-of-the-art C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence) systems provide Aegis destroyers and their crews with total situational awareness.

The ship is equipped with the MK-41 Vertical Launching System (VLS), which fires a combination of up to 96 Standard surface-to-air, Tomahawk surface-to-surface missiles and VLA antisubmarine missiles; and AN/SQQ-89 Undersea Warfare System, with a bow-mounted AN/SQS-53C sonar system.

DDG-98 is a Flight IIA Aegis destroyer. This major upgrade program includes the addition of two helicopter hangars that each accommodate a Seahawk (SH-60B/R) helicopter. DDG-98 also has the LAMPS MK III Undersea Warfare Control System, with helicopter landing and replenishment facilities for the SH-60B. The new design also features a zonal electrical system, an advanced water purification system, and other shipboard improvements.

The potent offensive and defensive capabilities of Aegis destroyers are achieved with maximum survivability. Extensive topside armor is placed around vital combat systems and machinery spaces, and a large-waterplane-area hull form significantly improves seaseeking ability. Acoustic, infrared and radar signatures have been reduced, and vital shipboard systems are hardened against electromagnetic pulse and over-pressure damage. A comprehensive Collective Protection System guards against nuclear, chemical and biological agents. State-of-the-art propulsion and damage control systems are managed by an all new fiber-optic data multiplexing system.

Truly multi-mission combatants, Aegis destroyers are the most balanced surface warships ever built, with the weapons, electronics, helicopter support facilities, and propulsion, auxiliary and survivability systems to carry out the Navy’s missions today, and into the next century.