[1] Ammunition from Belknap's three-inch ready storage locker, located amidships, cooked off, hurling fiery fragments into the air and splashing around the rescue boats.

The fire and the resultant damage and deaths, which would have been less had Belknap's superstructure been made of steel, helped persuade the U.S. Navy to pursue all-steel construction in future classes of surface combatants.

[2] However, in 1987, the New York Times cited cracking in aluminum superstructures such as what occurred in the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, rather than fire, as the reason the Navy returned to steel on some ships.

Until the Aegis class cruisers came along, Belknap was one of the most powerful warships in the world and saw service in Beirut as part of the multinational peacekeeping force, becoming the first American ship to fire on an enemy since the Vietnam War.

It was the ship's Naval Tactical Data Systems' (NTDS) reliability during this time in Beirut that was named as the defining reason that the Belknap was chosen as the Sixth Fleet flagship.

This conversion work entailed building out the superstructure forward to just aft of the missile launcher and three decks up to add flag spaces (accommodation and office), and additional communications gear.

President Bush, along with his advisers, James Baker, John Sununu and Brent Scowcroft, had their sleeping quarters aboard Belknap, whereas the Soviet delegation used the missile cruiser Slava.