USS Mason Statistics 2026 | DDG-87 Facts

USS Mason (DDG-87) in 2026

The USS Mason (DDG-87) is an Arleigh Burke-class Flight IIA Aegis guided-missile destroyer in active service with the United States Navy — and one of the most historically significant surface combatants in the entire American fleet. Named in honor of the Black crewmembers who served aboard USS Mason (DE-529) during World War II, at a time when racial segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces was government policy, the DDG-87 carries a name that is a deliberate tribute to one of the most remarkable chapters in American naval history: the second Mason (DE-529) was the only ship in the U.S. Navy during WWII to have a predominantly Black crew, and its sailors served with distinction on some of the most dangerous North Atlantic convoy runs of the war despite facing institutional discrimination from the Navy itself. In 2026, the USS Mason (DDG-87) homeports at Naval Station Mayport in Mayport, Florida — having transferred there from its previous home at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia in August 2022 — and is currently assigned to the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group (CSG-10), with which it conducted COMPTUEX (Composite Training Unit Exercise) in the Atlantic Ocean in February 2026, preparing the strike group for sustained high-end joint combat operations. As of late March 2026, public shipping data tracked the Mason en route in the Atlantic Ocean after departing the Norfolk area, assigned to its role in the strike group’s deployment cycle.

The DDG-87 is not merely a significant ship by lineage — it is one of the most combat-tested warships in the modern U.S. Navy, having established two extraordinary firsts in the history of naval warfare that no other vessel can claim. During its 2016 Yemen deployment, USS Mason became the first warship in history to fire ship-based anti-air missiles from vertical launching cells in combat in response to an actual inbound missile threat (October 9, 2016), and days later achieved the first-ever destruction of an inbound anti-ship missile by a surface-to-air missile in actual self-defense in naval history (October 12, 2016). Seven years later, during its landmark 2023–2024 Red Sea deployment with the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, USS Mason’s crew added another page to their extraordinary combat record: they became the first naval warship crew in history to shoot down anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) in combat — a feat repeated multiple times across a grueling seven-month deployment in which the ship engaged Houthi drones and missiles with a regularity that USNI News described as “sustained naval combat for the first time since World War II.” Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti personally visited Mason in Mayport in August 2024 following the deployment, telling USNI News it was a testament to the training and weapons systems investments that the Navy’s combat systems work as designed.

Interesting Facts About USS Mason DDG-87 2026 | Key Stats at a Glance

Source: Wikipedia — USS Mason (DDG-87) (updated January 23, 2026); DVIDSHUB — USS Mason (DDG-87) Official Unit Page (updated May 2026); USNI News — “Crew of USS Mason Adapted to Demands of Intense Red Sea Deployment” (August 5, 2024); NavSource Online — DDG-87 Data; U.S. Central Command — Official Statements (December 2023–January 2024); Navy Division — USS Mason Official History (usnsccmasonddg87.org); Cruising Earth AIS Tracker (updated April 2026)

The key facts above establish the USS Mason (DDG-87) as a vessel that sits in uniquely distinguished company in the 240-year history of the United States Navy. Three separate first-in-naval-history combat milestones — the first VLS missile engagement against an inbound threat (2016), the first anti-ship missile destruction by a SAM in self-defense (2016), and the first anti-ship ballistic missile shootdown in naval combat history (2023–2024) — form a combat record that no other currently serving U.S. Navy surface warship can match by the specific nature of the engagements. The Battenberg Cup award for 2016 — recognizing the best all-around ship or submarine in the entire Atlantic Fleet based on crew achievements — was won the same year the Mason was dodging Houthi missiles in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, a coincidence that speaks both to the extraordinary professionalism of the ship’s crew and to the extreme operational demands placed on this particular destroyer across multiple consecutive deployments.

USS Mason DDG-87 2026 | Core Technical Specifications

Source: Wikipedia — USS Mason (DDG-87) (January 23, 2026); NavSource Online — DDG-87 Destroyer Photo Index; Navy Recognition (December 28, 2023 article citing specifications); Cruising Earth AIS Tracker (2026)

The USS Mason’s core specifications place it firmly in the class of warship that has defined U.S. Navy surface warfare dominance for three decades. The Arleigh Burke Flight IIA designation is significant: the Flight IIA sub-variant was the first to incorporate full helicopter hangars capable of housing and maintaining two MH-60R Seahawk helicopters — a major enhancement over earlier Flight I and II Burkes that lacked the enclosed hangar space to fully support rotary-wing assets at sea. This upgrade dramatically expanded the DDG-87’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW), search-and-rescue, and surface surveillance capabilities compared to earlier ships in the class, because the two MH-60Rs can be maintained, armed, fueled, and launched from the ship’s own resources rather than depending on periodic returns to a carrier or shore facility.

The four General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines producing 100,000 shaft horsepower give the Mason the power plant of a medium-sized power station — energy that drives a 9,200-ton warship to speeds exceeding 30 knots while simultaneously powering the Aegis Combat System’s enormous radar, weapons control, and communications infrastructure. The 4,400 nautical mile range at 20 knots represents the operational radius that allows USS Mason to operate as a genuine blue-water escort, capable of accompanying carrier strike groups across ocean transits without the continuous tanker support that earlier destroyer classes required. After 23 years of active service — more than two decades of continuous deployments, combat operations, and blue-water steaming — the Mason remains fully mission-capable and has recently been assigned to one of the Navy’s most active carrier strike groups.

USS Mason DDG-87 2026 | Weapons & Combat Systems

Source: Wikipedia — USS Mason (DDG-87) (January 23, 2026) full armament section; NavSource Online DDG-87 Data (full armament listing); Navy Recognition — USS Mason Intercept Article (December 2023, citing Aegis specifications); DVIDSHUB DDG-87 Unit Page (February 2026 photo caption confirming HSC-5 helicopter assignment)

The 96-cell Mk 41 VLS battery is the USS Mason’s most strategically significant asset — a magazine of vertical launch cells that can be loaded with any combination of the missiles listed above depending on mission requirements. The flexibility this provides is extraordinary: a Mason departing for a Red Sea anti-Houthi deployment loads heavy on SM-2, SM-6, and ESSM for air and missile defense; the same ship preparing for a land-attack mission loads Tomahawk cruise missiles; in an anti-submarine warfare environment, ASROC cells take priority. The Aegis Combat System coordinates all of these weapons through a single, integrated, automated command and control architecture that can simultaneously track hundreds of targets, assign engagements, and execute firing solutions faster than any human crew could manage manually — which is precisely why the DDG-87 was able to respond to the simultaneous multi-axis Houthi attacks of 2016 and the fast-developing Red Sea threat environment of 2023–2024 as effectively as it did.

The Phalanx CIWS — a last-ditch, fully autonomous 20 mm Gatling gun radar system — and the Nulka active missile decoy represent the final layers of the Mason’s defensive architecture. The Nulka — a rocket-propelled decoy that mimics a large ship’s radar signature and draws incoming anti-ship missiles away from the vessel — was specifically deployed during the October 9, 2016 Houthi attack, and the combination of SM-2 Standard missiles, ESSM, Nulka decoys, and infrared countermeasures all working simultaneously during the October 15, 2016 five-missile attack (where all five Houthi cruise missiles were ultimately neutralized) is a real-world demonstration of the layered defensive architecture that Arleigh Burke designers built into the class from the outset.

USS Mason DDG-87 2026 | Combat History & Operational Record

Source: Wikipedia — USS Mason (DDG-87) (updated January 23, 2026); USNI News — “Crew of USS Mason Adapted to Demands of Intense Red Sea Deployment” (August 5, 2024); DVIDSHUB Unit Page DDG-87 (updated May 2026 with February 2026 COMPTUEX entry); U.S. Central Command — Official Statements (Dec. 2023–Feb. 2024, centcom.mil); USS Mason Division Official History (usnsccmasonddg87.org); Navy Recognition (December 2023); NavyTimes (May 16, 2024); Navy4JAX (May 16, 2024)

The USS Mason’s combat record from 2016 through 2026 is unmatched among currently serving U.S. Navy surface combatants for the specificity and historical significance of its engagements. The 2016 Yemen campaign established two firsts that rewrote the Naval Warfare Development Command’s doctrinal textbooks: for the first time ever, a warship fired its Mk 41 VLS-launched missiles in combat against an actual inbound missile threat — and then, three days later, achieved the first-ever destruction of an inbound anti-ship missile by a surface-to-air missile in actual naval combat (as opposed to test conditions). These events settled, in the most definitive possible way, a debate that had existed since the Falklands War (1982) and the USS Stark incident (1987) about whether modern naval air defense systems could actually defeat anti-ship missiles in real-world combat conditions, where an adversary does not broadcast their intentions and attacks come without warning.

The 2023–2024 Eisenhower CSG deployment elevated the USS Mason’s combat record to an entirely new level of historical significance. Deployed with the Eisenhower Strike Group just one week after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the Mason became one of the most continuously active combat ships in the Navy as Houthi forces mounted more than 150 attacks on commercial shipping between October 2023 and May 2024. The crew’s achievement in shooting down anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) — weapons that travel at hypersonic velocities during their terminal phase and follow a ballistic trajectory that differs fundamentally from cruise missiles — was a genuine operational breakthrough: prior to the 2023–2024 Red Sea campaign, no naval vessel had ever intercepted an ASBM in actual combat. The crew’s adaptation to what one senior petty officer described as “an everyday rhythm” — the normalization of live missile engagement operations — was recognized by CNO Franchetti in her August 2024 visit and by the Navy Unit Commendation covering the entire October 2023–May 2024 deployment period.

USS Mason DDG-87 2026 | Naming History & Legacy

Source: Wikipedia — USS Mason (DDG-87) (January 23, 2026); Wikipedia — USS Mason (DE-529); USS Mason Division Official History (usnsccmasonddg87.org); NavSource Online — DDG-87 Data including commissioning and homeport history

The naming history of USS Mason (DDG-87) connects the modern Aegis destroyer to one of the most remarkable stories of racial courage and institutional resistance in American military history. When USS Mason (DE-529) was commissioned in March 1944, the United States Navy was institutionally segregated: Black sailors were confined to the most menial roles — stewards, servants, ammunition handlers — and were explicitly excluded from virtually all combat assignments. The DE-529’s crew of approximately 160 Black enlisted men, assigned to a destroyer escort and given combat duties as gunners, engineers, and watchstanders, was a genuine institutional anomaly — one that occurred not through enlightened Navy policy but through the persistence of Black officers and the political pressure of civil rights advocates who used the opportunity to prove that Black sailors could perform combat duties at the highest level. They did exactly that, escorting convoys through the most dangerous stretches of the North Atlantic at the height of the German U-boat campaign, under conditions that killed more experienced crews with none of the institutional obstacles the DE-529’s men faced.

The USS Mason (DDG-87)’s motto — “Proudly We Serve” — is not merely a phrase but a direct tribute to the spirit of the DE-529’s crew, who served proudly despite being asked to do so under conditions of institutional discrimination that would have broken less committed men. Every time the DDG-87 fires its Mk 41 VLS cells in combat — as it has done more times than any other currently serving destroyer — it does so under a name that carries the weight of that history. The ship that achieved the first combat VLS engagement in naval history, the first SAM kill of an anti-ship missile in self-defense, and the first ASBM intercept in combat is named for men who were told they could not be combat sailors — and proved every doubter wrong.

USS Mason DDG-87 2026 | Deployments, Awards & Current Status

Source: USS Mason Division Official History (usnsccmasonddg87.org — full deployment and awards list); Wikipedia — USS Mason (DDG-87) (January 23, 2026); DVIDSHUB DDG-87 Unit Page (updated May 2026); USNI News (August 5, 2024); Cruising Earth AIS Tracker (updated April 2026 — departure from Norfolk area); NavSource Online — DDG-87 commissioning officer list

The deployment record of USS Mason (DDG-87) since commissioning in 2003 maps directly onto the most contested maritime theaters of 21st-century American military engagement: the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean of the Global War on Terror era, the Mediterranean and Red Sea during the Arab Spring and Libya crisis, and now the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in the age of Houthi maritime aggression. The six major deployments documented above have collectively taken the ship to five continents and through four carrier strike groups — Harry S. Truman (×2), Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and now George H.W. Bush — demonstrating the operational versatility and sustained readiness that the Arleigh Burke class was designed to provide.

The award record — three Navy Unit Commendations, a Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, the Battenberg Cup, and Combat Action Ribbons for the Red Sea campaign — is among the most distinguished of any currently serving destroyer in the fleet, and it tells the story of a ship whose crews have consistently been asked to perform at the absolute edge of operational demand. The 2026 COMPTUEX with the George H.W. Bush Strike Group signals that USS Mason will likely deploy again in the near term as part of CSG-10’s operational cycle — carrying its 96 VLS cells, its Aegis combat system, its two MH-60R Seahawks from HSC-5, and the combat experience of a crew trained against lessons learned in the most sustained naval missile combat since World War II into whatever theater the United States requires next.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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