USS Portland (LPD 27)

USS PORTLAND is the eleventh SAN ANTONIO - class amphibious transport dock and the third ship in the Navy to bear the name but the first named exclusively for the city in Oregon. The PORTLAND was commissioned without ceremony on December 14, 2017. A commissioning ceremony was held during a visit of USS PORTLAND at Portland, Or., on April 21, 2018. Since late 2018, PORTLAND is serving as one of the Navy's test platforms for the Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) MK 2 Mod 0.

General Characteristics:	Awarded: July 27, 2012
	Keel laid: May 20, 2013
	Launched: February 13, 2016
	Commissioned: December 14, 2017
	Builder: Northrop Grumman Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Miss.
	Propulsion system: four sequentially turbocharged marine Colt-Pielstick Diesels
	Propellers: two
	Length: 684 feet (208.5 meters)
	Beam: 105 feet (31.9 meters)
	Draft: 23 feet (7 meters)
	Displacement: approx. 24,900 tons
	Speed: 22 knots
	Well deck capacity: two LCAC or one LCU and 14 Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles
	Aircraft: landing platform for all helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey; maintenance facilities for one CH-53E or two CH-46s or one MV-22 or three UH/AH-1s
	Crew: Ship: 28 officers, 332 enlisted
	Crew: Marine Detachment: 66 officers, 633 enlisted (can be expanded to 800)
	Homeport: San Diego, Calif.
	Armament: two Bushmaster II 30 mm Close in Guns; two Rolling Airframe Missile launchers, one Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) MK 2 Mod 0

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS PORTLAND. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

Click here to view the list.

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USS PORTLAND History:

USS PORTLAND took shape at Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi, with keel authentication on August 2, 2013, launch on February 13, 2016, and successful builder's trials in early July 2017. The Navy accepted delivery on September 18, 2017. She entered service on December 14, 2017, and was formally commissioned during a public ceremony in her namesake city on April 21, 2018, before shifting to her homeport at Naval Base San Diego. These milestones closed a decade of SAN ANTONIO-class construction and introduced the eleventh Flight I hull to the Pacific Fleet.

The ship's first operational season unfolded rapidly across summer 2018. Newly commissioned, PORTLAND embarked staff elements and communications suites to act as U.S. THIRD FLEET's command ship for Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2018, the world's largest maritime exercise, coordinating a complex multinational scenario around Hawaii and Southern California. Serving as afloat headquarters immediately after commissioning provided the crew with an accelerated shakedown in command-and-control, flight operations, and well-deck integration alongside allied participants.

In 2019, the ship moved through the standard post-delivery and basic phase workups while Navy and industry readied a first-of-its-kind directed-energy capability for installation. By late 2019, the Office of Naval Research's Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) Mk 2 Mod 0 was aboard PORTLAND as a system-level, high-energy laser testbed - an assignment that would define several of her most visible events in the coming years. The year also included routine command-level milestones, such as a December 19 change of command in San Diego, marking the transition from the post-delivery period into sustained fleet operations.

In the Pacific operating areas during the spring of 2020, PORTLAND conducted the Navy's first at-sea, system-level shoot-down of a drone with a high-energy laser. In a demonstration publicized on May 22, the ship employed LWSD to disable a small unmanned aerial system over the Pacific - evidence of advancing directed-energy integration aboard an amphibious platform while the crew executed routine amphibious flight-deck and force-protection drills.

Workups in 2021 culminated in deployment with the ESSEX (LHD 2) Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Departing the U.S. West Coast in August, the ARG - ESSEX, USS PORTLAND, and USS PEARL HARBOR (LSD 52) - entered the U.S. FIFTH FLEET area on September 12-13, 2021, with imagery documenting the formation transiting the Arabian Sea. PORTLAND soon moored at Manama, Bahrain, on September 28 for logistics and theater engagement before resuming operations.

While in the region, PORTLAND executed a second high-profile directed-energy event. On December 14, 2021, she conducted a high-energy laser demonstration in the Gulf of Aden, successfully engaging a static surface training target with LWSD Mk 2 Mod 0. The trial, captured in CENTCOM and Navy imagery, expanded beyond counter-UAS into surface-target engagement, adding operational data for future directed-energy concepts of employment in narrow seas and congested maritime approaches.

The ESSEX ARG departed FIFTH FLEET in early January 2022, amid a wider U.S. capital-ship drawdown in the Middle East, crossed the Indo-Pacific, and returned to San Diego on March 4, 2022, closing a seven-month deployment that had spanned the 3rd, 5th, and 7th Fleet regions with maritime security patrols, partner training, and amphibious readiness operations.

PORTLAND then shifted to engagement and exercise duty at home. On May 23, 2022, she arrived for Los Angeles Fleet Week, opening to public tours and joint demonstrations on the LA waterfront. Through June-August, she supported RIMPAC 2022 serials, hosting multinational visitors and executing medical evacuation and amphibious evolutions during the Southern California phase while the main exercise ran around the Hawaiian Islands. These events maintained crew proficiency across flight, well-deck, and C2 tasks between deployments.

Following the high-tempo cycle, the Navy scheduled an extended Selected Restricted Availability to reset the hull. A Southwest Regional Maintenance Center solicitation set the performance window from December 14, 2022 through November 8, 2023, with the ship moving "dead-stick" to a San Diego yard in January 2023. Throughout the availability, crews executed systems preservation and modernization across auxiliary machinery, hotel services, and combat systems, preparing PORTLAND for her next employment period.

By late 2023 and into 2024, material work gave way to incremental at-sea periods and integrated training alongside other San Diego-based amphibs, including ESSEX, as maintenance backlogs across the force required careful scheduling of dry-dock and pier-side work. Imagery from September 28, 2023, shows PORTLAND sailors participating in damage-control assessments aboard ESSEX, a routine cross-deck training practice during the transition from yard to sea.

The ship re-entered the 2024-2025 operating cycle with local underway periods, deck landing qualifications, and logistics events in the Southern California ranges. Open-source photo timelines place PORTLAND underway and entering San Diego on multiple occasions through mid-2025 as the crew rebuilt proficiency after the long SRA, a typical rhythm prior to major composite workups.

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Homeports of USS PORTLAND:

Period	Homeport
commissioned at Portland, Or.
2017 - present	San Diego, Calif.

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USS PORTLAND Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PORTLAND at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on September 28, 2018.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PORTLAND at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on March 2, 2019.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning during one of the open ship events aboard USS PORTLAND as part of Fleet Week Los Angeles at San Pedro, Calif., on May 28, 2022. Note the Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) MK 2 Mod 0 on the forecastle.