Navy receives third MLP ship from GenDyn NASSCO

SAN DIEGO, June 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy's third Mobile Landing Platform, the USNS Lewis B. Puller, has been delivered to the service in California by General Dynamics NASSCO.

The USNS Lewis B. Puller (MLP 3 AFSB), named after a highly decorated Marine Corps general, is in an Afloat Forward Staging Base configuration. It features a 52,000 square-foot flight deck, fuel and equipment storage, repair spaces, magazines, mission planning spaces and accommodations for up to 250 personnel.

The assault ship is capable of supporting multiple missions. Among them: air-mine counter-measures; counter-piracy operations, maritime security operations, humanitarian aid and disaster relief missions and Marine Corps crisis response.

"The delivery of the USNS Lewis B. Puller to the U.S. Navy symbolizes an immense culmination of efforts made by the hard-working men and women of the General Dynamics NASSCO shipbuilding team," said Kevin Mooney, vice president of operations at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard. "At NASSCO we are building and delivering affordable ships that are providing new and revolutionary capabilities for America's Navy and Marine Corps."

Construction of the 785-foot ship began in 2013. A Navy contract for the detail design and construction of a fourth Mobile Landing Platform, also to be configured as another Afloat Forward Staging Base, has been awarded to General Dynamics NASSCO.

The new ship will undergo construction starting later this year.