Only Ship Left in America's Fleet That Actually Sunk an Enemy Ship Is 200 Years Old

U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Matthew R. Fairchild

USS Constitution beat the British in the War of 1812, but hasn't seen much action since

The only active ship in the United States Navy to sink another enemy ship in combat is more than 200 years old. The title falls to the wooden frigate Constitution, as the USS Simpson, a guided missile frigate just thirty years old, has been retired from the fleet.

One of the very first ships of the young U.S. Navy, Constitution was launched in 1797 and saw action in the First Barbary War, when the United States went to war against North African pirates. Constitution's squadron sank several pirate gunboats and took the guns of Tripoli harbor under fire.

Later in the War of 1812, Constitution defeated six Royal Navy ships: HMS Guerriere, Java, Pictou, Cyane, and Levant. Today she is the oldest ship on active duty with the U.S. Navy, a floating museum and parade ship.

Commissioned in 1985, the USS Simpson was a guided missile frigate, a jack-of-all-trades capable of anti-air, anti-ship, and anti-submarine warfare missions. In 1988 as part of a three-ship flotilla, Simpson helped destroy several Iranian facilities tied to Iran's effort to mine the Persian Gulf. An Iranian fast attack boat, the Joshan, counterattacked the American force and was sunk by a combination of missiles and gunfire.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class David R. Krigbaum

Built 190 years apart, Constitution and Simpson (pictured above) could not be more different. Constitution was a wooden-hulled ship, 304 feet long, displacing 2,000 tons, with a crew of 350. Simpson was a steel-hulled ship, 450 feet long, displacing 4,100 tons, with a crew of just 205.

The Constitution was only as fast as the wind in her sails, averaging only 13 knots. Simpson, on the other hand, was powered by two General Electric gas turbine engines that generated a combined 41,000-shipboard horsepower.

Constitution was a 44-gun frigate. Her armament included thirty two 24-pounder guns and twenty 32-pounder guns, both of which could fire once every two minutes. Simpson had only one gun, a 76-millimeter OTO-Melera multi-purpose gun. She also had a missile launcher that could launch forty SM-1 and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

Despite having only one gun, the Simpson would have torn apart the Constitution—just one Harpoon missile would reduce a wooden warship to toothpicks. And her single gun could fire 85 times a minute, doing more damage than all of Constitution's 52 guns combined.

The retirement of the Simpson leaves America without any frigates at all, a rarity for the U.S. Navy. The Navy is eyeing a future frigate class built around the controversial Littoral Combat ship, bulked up with over the horizon anti-ship missiles, 25-millimeter guns from the Bradley fighting vehicle, a towed sonar, and the SeaRAM missile defense system.

U.S. Navy PO2 Kathryn Macdonald