Posted on May 12, 2016
Navy Faces Deployment Crisis as Aging Ships Get Sidelined
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The Navy created this problem by decommissioning/inactivating ships prematurely counting on their shiny new toys to be ready on time despite any shred of common sense.
The first 5 Ticonderoga Class cruisers were decommissioned, 1 was scrapped and one was sunk!, those 5 ships were already paid for and had 1/3 of their service life ahead of them.
Enterprise was inactivated before Gerald R. Ford entered service.
All 31 Spruance Class destroyers were decommissioned and almost all of them were sunk, could have kept the newest half dozen of them around.
All four Kidd Class destroyers were decommissioned, at least those went to Taiwan who will no doubt get several more decades of use out of them.
There's no short term solution to this problem, the medium term solution the Navy won't consider:
1. Reactivate & modernize the three remaining Flight 1 Ticonderogas.
2. Build at least 4 new conventionally powered carriers, start with the hull design for USS America (LHA-6) and create a new Midway sized angled deck CATOBAR carrier. This principle worked well for Midway (adapted from a Battleship design) and for the Ticonderoga Class cruisers (adapted from the Spruance Class).
No the new carrier won't have the capability of a CVN but would still allow us to close the "carrier gap" for much less and much faster than a CVN.
The first 5 Ticonderoga Class cruisers were decommissioned, 1 was scrapped and one was sunk!, those 5 ships were already paid for and had 1/3 of their service life ahead of them.
Enterprise was inactivated before Gerald R. Ford entered service.
All 31 Spruance Class destroyers were decommissioned and almost all of them were sunk, could have kept the newest half dozen of them around.
All four Kidd Class destroyers were decommissioned, at least those went to Taiwan who will no doubt get several more decades of use out of them.
There's no short term solution to this problem, the medium term solution the Navy won't consider:
1. Reactivate & modernize the three remaining Flight 1 Ticonderogas.
2. Build at least 4 new conventionally powered carriers, start with the hull design for USS America (LHA-6) and create a new Midway sized angled deck CATOBAR carrier. This principle worked well for Midway (adapted from a Battleship design) and for the Ticonderoga Class cruisers (adapted from the Spruance Class).
No the new carrier won't have the capability of a CVN but would still allow us to close the "carrier gap" for much less and much faster than a CVN.
Navy Faces Deployment Crisis as Aging Ships Get Sidelined
Posted from freebeacon.com
Readiness
Posted 8 y ago
Responses: 3
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1 - which DDGs are you going to deactivate to bring back our state of the 1970's flight 1 ticos?
2 -- where in the budget are you going to find the money to design, build, and crew four new CVAs, let alone the air wings to fly on them? And which amphibs are you going to deactivate to replace with them?
Fantasy.
2 -- where in the budget are you going to find the money to design, build, and crew four new CVAs, let alone the air wings to fly on them? And which amphibs are you going to deactivate to replace with them?
Fantasy.
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PO2 Robert Aitchison
Steal the money from CVN construction, a CV is cheaper to build, crew and operate. GSM's and GSEs are a heck of a lot easier to come by than MM(N)s and ET(N)s
Air wings don't need to grow, we just need ships to deploy them on. Our current CVN fleet is spending virtually all of it's time either on 9-12 month deployments or spending 9-18 months in the yard fixing the stuff that broke on the lengthened deployments.
Air wings don't need to grow, we just need ships to deploy them on. Our current CVN fleet is spending virtually all of it's time either on 9-12 month deployments or spending 9-18 months in the yard fixing the stuff that broke on the lengthened deployments.
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SCPO Joshua I
So break the CVN program permanently to design and build a minimum capability CVA that requires tons more support and doesn't have a fraction of the capability and doesn't have any airplanes to deploy on it. Ridiculous.
We don't have enough CVWs to support the CVNs we have now -- so where are you getting these magic airplanes? Our current CVN fleet is spending most of its time deployed because we don't have enough of them -- the solution is not to permanently break the CVN program.
We have plenty of enlisted nukes -- that's not a problem.
I don't think you understand that training and maintenance cycle for CVNs and CVWs -- they're programmed to go into the yards, they're programmed for specific training and workup cycles.
BTW, you only answered one of the multiple questions I asked, and didn't answer it correctly. Doesn't really matter, they were rhetorical anyway -- there aren't answers for them.
We don't have enough CVWs to support the CVNs we have now -- so where are you getting these magic airplanes? Our current CVN fleet is spending most of its time deployed because we don't have enough of them -- the solution is not to permanently break the CVN program.
We have plenty of enlisted nukes -- that's not a problem.
I don't think you understand that training and maintenance cycle for CVNs and CVWs -- they're programmed to go into the yards, they're programmed for specific training and workup cycles.
BTW, you only answered one of the multiple questions I asked, and didn't answer it correctly. Doesn't really matter, they were rhetorical anyway -- there aren't answers for them.
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Enterprise barely limped through her last deployment, after her last two yard periods were extended 12-18 months each time, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. They spent a lot of the last couple of years running on 5-7 of the 8 reactors because of various issues related to wear and tear.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't there serious issues with cracking and corrosion in the superstructures of the early Tico's? Additionally, the first flight were unable to be cheaply and easily refitted with VLS systems, which severely limited the number of missiles they could carry. What the Navy SHOULD have done was kept the Virginia and California-class CGN's in service, and gone through with the CGN-42 design. However, that's 25 years of "what-if's," which doesn't do anybody any good now.
Finally, to borrow a popular meme, one does not simply design a new smaller fixed-wing aircraft carrier. USS America is powered by gas turbines, and having steam catapults, which would be an absolute necessity for Superbugs/ Growlers/ Lightning-C's means you'd have to have a steam plant- that means you're starting from a blank drawing board, which puts you about 500 steps behind the Ford-class.
From my section of the peanut gallery, it's not an issue of enough ships, it's an issue of too many back to back to back deployments- which is also why the Navy has been having serious retention issues for quite a while now.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't there serious issues with cracking and corrosion in the superstructures of the early Tico's? Additionally, the first flight were unable to be cheaply and easily refitted with VLS systems, which severely limited the number of missiles they could carry. What the Navy SHOULD have done was kept the Virginia and California-class CGN's in service, and gone through with the CGN-42 design. However, that's 25 years of "what-if's," which doesn't do anybody any good now.
Finally, to borrow a popular meme, one does not simply design a new smaller fixed-wing aircraft carrier. USS America is powered by gas turbines, and having steam catapults, which would be an absolute necessity for Superbugs/ Growlers/ Lightning-C's means you'd have to have a steam plant- that means you're starting from a blank drawing board, which puts you about 500 steps behind the Ford-class.
From my section of the peanut gallery, it's not an issue of enough ships, it's an issue of too many back to back to back deployments- which is also why the Navy has been having serious retention issues for quite a while now.
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PO2 Robert Aitchison
SCPO Joshua I - The biggest problem with Gerald R. Ford was the decision to use concurrent development which is working just as well as it is for the F-35.
Also, America is essentially the same size as Midway.
Also, America is essentially the same size as Midway.
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PO1 Edward Spencer
Um no, it's not. Midway was over 20,000 tons higher in displacement when she was decommissioned, and is ~100 feet longer.
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SCPO Joshua I
PO2 Robert Aitchison - Nope.
Midway was much larger - and far too small to operate as a CV today.
Also, Ford would have been commissioned two years ago if not for the budget restrictions congress put in place.
Midway was much larger - and far too small to operate as a CV today.
Also, Ford would have been commissioned two years ago if not for the budget restrictions congress put in place.
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LCDR Terry Hall
I commissioned PORT ROYAL as an RMC and went back as the EMO 2004-2007. When the cruisers got the "PRINCETON MOD" (Added support amidship because of the tearing of metal when she hit the mind). The problem was the stressed point moved forward and I actually replaced the 04 level by the NUKLA and Chaff Launchers 3 times. Finally we just put "roofing tar" down. Because at least when it crack, it wouldn't leak.
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But that would throttle the money flow to the contractors who would cut back on their political bribes.
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