The vessels have a full load displacement of. Each ship is long, with a beam of, and a draft of. Propulsion is provided by two Combustion Engineering boilers, connected to two Westinghouse turbines. These supply to the ship's two propeller shafts. A Tarawa-class vessel can reach a maximum speed of, and has a maximum range of at. In addition to the main propulsion system, the ships are fitted with a bow thruster. As of 1998, the ships' armament consisted of a Mark 49 RAM surface-to-air missile system, two Vulcan Phalanx close-in weapons systems, six Mark 242 25 mm automatic cannons, and eight 12.7 mm machine guns. Previously, the amphibious warships were fitted with 2 Mark 25 Sea Sparrow missile systems, and three 5-inch Mk 45 lightweight guns in bow and starboard aft sponsons. Countermeasures and decoys include four Mark 36 SRBOC launchers, a SLQ-25 Nixie towed torpedo decoy, a Sea Gnat unit, SLQ-49 chaff decoys. The number of helicopters carried by each vessel was up to 19 Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallions, 26 Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight, or a mix of the two. The flight deck is fitted with two aircraft lifts, and up to nine Sea Stallions or 12 Sea Knights can be operated simultaneously. With a small amount of modification, the ships could carry and operate up to six McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II jump-jets. The Tarawa-class ships are designed to embark a reinforced battalion of the United States Marine Corps and their equipment. Onboard accommodation is provided for up to 1,703 marines, while is provided for the battalion's vehicles, and is allocated for stores and other equipment. As well as deploying by helicopters, personnel and equipment can be embarked or offloaded via a well deck in each ship's stern. Up to four LCU 1610 landing craft can be transported in and operated from the well deck, along with other designs and combinations of landing craft. The Tarawa design was later repeated for the s, with some changes. The main changes to the latter eight-ship class include the lower placement of the ship's bridge aboard the Wasps, the relocation of the command and control facilities to inside the hull, modifications to allow the operation of Harrier jump-jets and Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercraft, and removal of the 5-inch guns and their sponsons to increase the overall size of the flight deck.
Construction
All five warships were built by Ingalls Shipbuilding, at this company's shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Tarawa was approved for construction during Fiscal Year 1969, with two more ships of this class ordered by Congress in the 1970 and 1971 fiscal years. Design problems emerged early in the LHA program and contrary to the intent of the Total Package Procurement concept, the Navy became heavily involved in the design process. Nine ships were originally contracted for the Tarawa class, but that number was reduced to five in January 1971. The other four ships were never built for the Navy. Work on the first warship of this class,, began on 15 November 1971, and she was commissioned into the Navy on 29 May 1976. The last of the five ships,, was completed on 3 May 1980.
Operational history
Decommissioning and replacement
The Tarawas began leaving service in 2005. By April 2011, four of the five amphibious assault ships had been decommissioned, leaving only Peleliu in active service. Peleliu was decommissioned on 31 March 2015 in San Diego. The Tarawa class is to be replaced by the. The first America-class vessel was delivered and commissioned in 2014.
