USS Cowpens, one of Navy’s last Cold War-era cruisers, will be decommissioned in San Diego this summer

The Navy says it will decommission the USS Cowpens in San Diego in late August, retiring a ship that helped establish the Tomahawk cruise missile as one of the military’s most feared weapons.

The move is part of an effort to decommission all remaining Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers before the end of the decade. The Navy built 27 of the ships from 1980 through 1994 to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Thirteen are still in service.

The Ticos, as they’re widely known, are being replaced by Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the so-called workhorse of the Navy.

The Cowpens was launched in March 1989 in Charleston, South Carolina. It is the second warship to be named after the Battle of Cowpens, a Revolutionary War battle in which colonial soldiers defeated British troops near Chesnee, South Carolina. Historians say the fight occurred close to pastures known as cow pens.

The latter warship is affectionately known as the Mighty Moo and its crews as the Thundering Herd.

The Cowpens was commissioned in March 1991. Less that two years later, the ship fired 10 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Iraq, which had violated no-fly zone sanctions in the region. The volley was part of a major strike by coalition forces.

In March 2003, Cowpens joined other American warships in firing Tomahawks into Iraq in the start of a campaign that toppled Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein.

Cowpens later participated in other military operations, but none as storied.