As you
know, the Navy has tried for several years to eliminate the Ticonderoga class Aegis cruisers before their
service life is even up. The reason for
this is a baffling mystery other than the Navy’s constant fixation on new
hulls, no matter how useless (looking at you, LCS).
Congress
has, thus far, thwarted the Navy’s efforts which has led the Navy to concoct a
scheme of de facto retirements whereby Aegis cruisers are placed into
“modernization” for multiple years and will only be brought back into the fleet
on a one-for-one replacement for decommissioned cruisers.
Here is the
retirement schedule for the Aegis cruisers and their service length at that
point. (1)
Year
Ship Service Yrs
2020 Mobile Bay 33
2020 Bunker
Hill 34
2021 Antietam
34
2021 Leyte Gulf 34
2022 San Jacinto
34
2022 Lake Champlain 34
2024 Philippine Sea 35
2024 Princeton
35
2025 Normandy
2025 Monterey
2026 Chancellorsville 37
You’ll note
that the service life retirement ages do not agree with the recent ship service
life extensions that have the Ticonderogas serving 42-52 years! I guess we’ll ignore that little
inconsistency since the service life extensions were nothing but wishful
thinking anyway.
This
accounts for 11 of the 22 Aegis cruisers.
The remainder will have undergone the “modernization” and displace the
ships listed above. Presumably, after
2026 the “modernized” cruisers will be retired in short order. This is not at all what Congress
intended. Once again, the Navy has found
a way around Congressional intent and direction.
The Navy is
continuing to push to put around half the class into a reduced operating status
but Congress’ earlier resistance and distrust continues. Recall Congress’ earlier feelings,
Lawmakers made clear in hearings
last year that they didn’t
trust Navy leadership to bring the ships back into the fleet
once they were taken out of service, particularly in bulk quantities. (2)
For the
time being, the 2/4/6 plan remains in effect
___________________________________
(1)Defense
News website, “The US Navy will start losing its largest surface combatants in
2020”, David B. Larter, 8-Oct-2017 ,
(2)USNI
News website, “FY 2017 Budget: Navy Wants to Modernize Last 7 Cruisers Instead
of Following 2/4/6 Directive from Congress”, Megan
Eckstein, 9-Feb-2016 ,
re- "they didn't trust Navy leadership to bring the ships back into the fleet once they were taken out of service, particularly in bulk quantities"
ReplyDeleteYep. I support hem... Once they (Big Navy) reprograms the money within OPNAV too many will have to work extra to unscrew what they did making it too hard. Plus, it makes them look bad (no mistakes-legacy-vanity type thing).
Perfect example S-3B Viking, among others you can easily cite CNOPs.
All Navy leadership seems to care about nowadays is their and their friends jobs/promotions/ambitions without having to risk much, like when you have to make a decision. This is the natural result of the zero defect policies put into place in the 1990's resulting in the present navy officer generation...
b2
To be fair, the average ages of the ships being retired is about 34 years, which is generally when I feel ships ought to be retired in the USN, what with being ridden hard and used up. I think it's a bit of a misrepresentation to talk about this as an early retirement when 30+ years is the average age of a serving ship. Now, if ships barely past 20 years were being retired, I'd agree with you.
ReplyDeleteMy take is that it's a costcutting attempt, perhaps. Take 11 ships out of service, out them into modernisation (because let's be real, the Ticos were designed in the DOS era with little thought to future upgrades, so modernising the systems will be a bitch and half), keep 11 ships in the fleet and use them up. The other ships in modernisation are just sitting pretty pierside, with none of the wear and tear active deployed ships are facing, so that's a way to try and stretch out service life - and said modernisation would count towards that talk of the Tico SLEP, perhaps.
The Tico's had some early issues with hull cracking from all the extra weight. They were fixed but how much stress is there on the hull?
DeleteWhat if they took the Tico's left and permanently docked to be ABM stations? Like one at Pearl, Guam, Nofolk, Boston, etc.
"bit of a misrepresentation to talk about this as an early retirement"
DeleteNot at all! We have/had 22 cruisers. Now, we have only 14-16 active, depending on how you consider a couple of them. Thus, right now, 2018, we've retired 6-8 cruisers - well before their normal service life.
That may be so, but the way you present your ideas implies that you think the retirement schedule of those above aforementioned ships is early retirement.
DeleteThe more I think about this, the more I get the feeling this is robbing Peter to pay Paul in terms of deployed CGs, because the USN does not have a follow on CG replacement design. Consider. The Flight III Burke DDGs haven't totally been finalised yet, and nobody in the Navy seems to know what the future CG is going to be, or if there will even be a future CG.
So the Navy pulls 11 CGs and sticks them pierside for a lengthy modernisation period, as an attempt to preserve the ship lives, because a ship pierside isn't being used up and ridden hard. Then in the future, as each of the other 11 CGs is retired, you replace them with one of the pierside CGs that hasn't had a decade plus of wear and tear on it.
You see it as the Navy trying to cut ships, I see it as the Navy trying to stretch the hulls it has because it hasn't sufficiently planned for the future.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I like the Japanese approach to things. The JMSDF is not perfect, but htey plan their shipbuilding in advance so that when one ship decommissions, its replacement ship is commissioned and ready to go.
"So the Navy pulls 11 CGs"
DeleteIf you had 22 ships and you now have 11, and will only ever again have 11, it's a retirement regardless of how you want to wrap it up in excuses.
Do you honestly believe that in several years from now the Navy is going to bring those idled cruisers back into the fleet? The Navy claims they're outmoded right now and several years or a decade or so from now they'll just be that much more outdated. A decade from now, the Navy will go to Congress with the latest new ship design and plead that they can't bring back the cruisers because it will cost too much to update them.
Wake up.
@Wild Goose
DeleteIs 34 years about right? I mean all the Hamilton class cutters are still in service (but not with the CG). ~50 years old then. Courtesy of Turkey ~40 year old Perry's are still sailing.
I tend to share the skepticism about the USN here. Ships that go in reserve or long term not deployed seem to go away. I mean so OK retire the Perrys but would really have that expensive to retain the youngest 6 or so? The last were only ~25 years old.
@ComNavOps: given the Navy itself was willing to put into place wording that those 11 ships could not be retired without permission by Congress...
DeleteLook, would it have been good to have 22 CGs in service, absolutely, but without a new CG design this is the only way you're going to be able to stretch the CGs to cover the DESRON leader role.
@Kath: The Hamiltons are USCG cutters though, not really seeing the same kind ofmuse the USN does, and the Turks are keeping the Perrys they have in service because they have no other choice. If you look at other ships in USN service, outside of CVNs and amphibs 30-odd years seems the average.
"Navy itself was willing to put into place wording that those 11 ships could not be retired without permission by Congress..."
DeleteYou need to research this issue. The Navy tried several times to out and out retire the Ticos and Congress stopped them. The only way they could get even the partial retirement was by acquiescing to Congress.
The Tico retirement saga has been going on for several years and makes for a fascinating story with Congress very clearly stating its desire and the Navy trying repeated schemes to get around it.
The "modernization" is not even remotely about stretching out the life of the Ticos.
You need to read up on it.
If you think the Navy is ever going to bring back modernized Ticos, I've got a bridge to sell you!
Your bias is showing, lol. :p this doesnt contradict the stated SLEP plans y'know; put 11 ships into extended SLEP and dont use them for 10'years, hey presto a 40 year service life. Which, don't get me wrong, is playing silly buggers a bit. :p
DeleteBut sure, let's gomwith your scenario. But something to consider: if those 11 CGs are ultimately retired because the USN puts a new 22-ship class of CG to sea, would that really be so bad?
Although it seems a no-brainer to me that if the USN is so concerned about the aging out of its cruisers, then the Flight III Burkes could have been fitted out as destroyer leaders - make like the Japanese Atago and Maya-class DDGs and add flag facilities to the ships. The Flight IIIs need a size increase anyway to accomodate the larger AMDR panels, it shouldn't be as much of an issue to add one or 2 decks for flagship fitout. Then the follow on Flight IVs can be the Flight I and Flight II replacements and be built without flag decks.
Why the USN did not pursue that option remains a mystery to me, although it probably seemed like a good idea at the time to them. :V
"retired because the USN puts a new 22-ship class of CG to sea, would that really be so bad?"
DeleteIf we had extra funds lying around and opted to build a new CG and early retire the existing ones - fine. The issue is that we don't have extra funds lying around. Early retiring perfectly functional CGs so that we can build new hulls is robbing us of minesweepers, ASW corvettes, logistic ships, submarines, etc. that we need much more than a replacement for an existing CG that has service life left.
Further, we're supposedly trying to build a 300-350 ship fleet and yet we're early retiring ships?
"The Hamiltons are USCG cutters though, not really seeing the same kind ofmuse the USN does"
DeleteIs there a metric for that? Some or at lest one were old enough to do Vietnam deployments. I can't imagine patrolling in Alaska in winter is easy on a ship. Is there a source for how many days at sea they rack up verse a navy ship.
Seeing as the hulls were reliable enough to be transferred to other navies who presumably intend to keep them afloat for a while - that seems like a decent metric for what can be had out of a good ship with an upgrade/refit.
"Turks are keeping the Perrys they have in service because they have no other choice."
Yes that may be true but for less cost they are still a more capable ship the the LCS we are building.
"If you look at other ships in USN service, outside of CVNs and amphibs 30-odd years seems the average."
Should it be however. Some of the Perry's did not reach 30 years.
"Lawmakers made clear in hearings last year that they didn’t trust Navy leadership to bring the ships back into the fleet once they were taken out of service, particularly in bulk quantities."
ReplyDeleteSimilar sentiments could equally apply to the Admirals con of "Phase I and Phase II" delivery of Zumwalts and Fords.
August 21 the signing off of the FY2019 NDAA by Trump resulted in the Zumwalt and the Monsoor being struck off the Navy battle force tally, NDAA now specifies USS warships must be capable of contributing to combat operations, patently obvious neither ship combat battle worthy. Navy has reclassified them as "special status" to reflect preliminary acceptance by the Navy, LOL.
Zumwalt in "Phase II" at BAE shipyard being fitted out with its combat systems including its non-operational AGS and Monsoor still at BIW having GT changed after completing "Phase I" H,M & E installation before transferring to California for BAE to fit combat systems.
The Ford though delivered in May 2017 and Navy changed status to "special, in service" commissioned July 2017 now back at NNS for 12 months for "Phase II" installation mission equipment including remaining 11 of its 12 Advanced Weapons Elevators, the very trouble prone "elevator of tomorrow", the first without cables, using linear magnets.
https://news.usni.org/2018/08/21/navy-battle-force-tally-dips-2-new-ship-counting-rules-postpone-zumwalt-destroyers
While this is quite reminiscent of the Spurance debacle, at least Big Navy was committed to replacing those hulls with DDG's. Even with GD/Bath and HII going wide open there is no way the replace the CG hulls at the rate the Navy wants to 'retire' the class. How the CNO hasn't been called to the carpet to explain how the plan is consistent with maintaining a 300+ ship Navy is baffling.
ReplyDelete