USS Sirocco

Sirocco is assigned to Commander Fifth Fleet through Destroyer Squadron 50 and is homeported in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain. Seven Patrol Coastal class (PC) warships are forward deployed to the Fifth Fleet. PC ships were formerly crewed by one of 13 rotational PC crews and homeported in Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, Virginia.

There, under the auspices of Commander, Patrol Coastal Squadron One/Commander, Patrol Coastal (PC) Class Squadron the crews trained on five U.S. based PC hulls prior to completing a six-month deployment to the Fifth fleet. PC ships such as Sirocco complete a variety of missions that has expanded since the transfer of the ships and associated support structures in naval surface warfare. As of 2009, PC ships deployed in Bahrain primarily conducted maritime security operations in the Persian Gulf with a concentration towards anti-piracy.

Sirocco in the Persian Gulf, April 2005

In 2009, Sirocco completed phase one of a modernization program to extend the useful lives of the ships. Upgrades included new computer systems and satellite communications, as well as upgraded air conditioning systems and a Rafael Typhoon MK38 MOD II gun weapons system replacing the previously fitted MK96 mount.

On 28 March 2016, Sirocco seized a stateless dhow in the Arabian sea. A boarding party had been dispatched to inspect the suspicious vessel and discovered it had been transporting 1,500 AK-47 assault rifles, 200 RPG launchers, and 21 .50 caliber machine guns. After receiving reports from Sirocco, the destroyer USS Gravely also arrived on the scene to assist. After the weapons were seized and offloaded, the dhow and its crew were released.[3]

On 19 June 2022, Sirocco was involved in a confrontation with patrol craft of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. Navy claimed that the Iranian vessels approached Sirocco and the expeditionary fast transport USNS Choctaw County (T-EPF-2) at "unsafe and unprofessional" speeds and "aggressively" sailed to within 50 yards of the American vessels. Sirocco issued warnings over her loudspeaker system and fired a warning flare, and the Iranian vessels departed within an hour without further interactions.[4]

Sirocco was decommissioned on 20 March 2023.

• Cage, Paul (6 June 2005). "Sirocco Continues Maritime Security Operations with New Crew NNS050606-04". Navy News.
• "Sirocco Responds To Medical Emergency NNS100907-07". Navy News. 7 September 2010.

• This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.
• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to USS Sirocco (PC-6).

• Sirocco home page
• FAS