SEATTLE -- The manager of the shipyard that built the frigate USS Stark says the Navy's investigation into the Iraqi missile attack on the U.S. ship will likely reopen the debate over using aluminum in warships.
Shipbuilding and naval operations experts say the fires that broke out on the Stark after the attack Sunday were caused by molten aluminum from the ship.
Like most smaller warships, the Stark has a high-strength steel hull, but its superstructure and many internal components are made of an aluminum alloy.
'I was surprised that it (the missile) didn't sink the ship,' said Dan McDonnel, general manager of Todd Pacific Shipyards, where the USS Stark was built in 1982.
A Pentagon spokesman in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday it is 'a pretty safe assumption' the recurring fires on the Stark were caused by molten aluminum from the frigate's own components.
Retired Rear Adm. Eugene J. Carroll Jr., contacted in a telephone interview, said the Stark and other Perry-class frigates were not originally designed to fight against missiles and aircraft.
'Their basic mission was going to be ASW (anti-submarine warfare), and they were going to be protected in the air by carrier-based aircraft,' he said.
But later the design was changed to add anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, he said.
To offset the additional weight of such weapons, more aluminum was used above-decks, resulting in a multi-mission vessel that melts when fire breaks out, Carroll said.
Carrol was aboard the carrier USS John F. Kennedy in 1975 when an escorting cruiser, the USS Belknap, made a wrong turn and collided with the carrier's overhanging flight deck. The Belknap's aluminum superstructure was torn off, resulting in a fire that gutted the smaller vessel.
Following the Belknap disaster, the Navy conducted extensive reviews of the use of aluminum in ship design and made changes to increase safety.
The issue surfaced again during the 1982 war between Great Britain and Argentina. In that conflict, two of four British ships lost were struck by French-built Exocet missiles. But a U.S. Navy assessment concluded that blast damage, rather than the vulnerability of the aluminum to fire and melting, caused the losses.
McDonnel predicted the Stark incident would once again renew discussions about the use of aluminum vs. steel.
