"Under heavy pressure to find real cuts, U.S. Navy officials are considering decommissioning a nuclear aircraft carrier halfway through its planned lifespan, two Pentagon sources said.
The USS George Washington's three-year-long refueling overhaul, scheduled to begin in 2016, would be canceled under the scheme, and the ship would be decommissioned as its reactor fuel ran out."
As things become worse, expect to see more. So if we don't have money to refurb a ship that is expected to have a 50 year service life, why in the hell are we wasting $15B on a new Ford class nuke carrier?
8 comments:
That is one helluva good question in the closing remark, ELP.
Another relevant question might be: how can the US afford 2,440 F-35 when we can't even upgrade to a modern standard the majority of the ones we have, let alone afford to maintain them, or even life-extend them?
Somewhere along the line, there is going to be a very poorly managed 'hard-landing' in the reality of what DoD officially still wishes to have and advertises as on the wish list, vs what will actually be affordable.
Yet, unfortunately the damage could already be done and too much money already spent, with likely too little actual product equipping the services to maintain the minimum requirements.
I mean, when the DoD is getting $510 bn as an appropriations budget and from that the USAF is only getting 10-15 tactical jets to recapitalize its rapidly depleting force structure (premature, non-operational SDD jets at that), then we have a problem in the equation somewhere.
How many jets will the USAF be able to afford when DoD is given just $475bn, pre-inflation adjusted??
It is called a "contract"
Or a lobbyist inspired blood-oath
To late now. It is signed.
It's contracted for, it puts lots of people to work, and it introduces new technology to the fleet. It will also require fewer sailors to operate, theoretically reducing future personnel costs.
I question your arguments Anonymous. Largely unproven higher tech gear will usually involve more costly support and inflation will offset any supposed savings in crewing 'efficiencies'. Maintaining adequate and credible military capacities through progressive optimisation of proven in-service hardware, where cost-effective, ought to be the priority worldwide to make best use of taxpayer funds. But that obvious necessity gets snowed by the major arms manufacturers and their acolytes involved in defence planning. The phenomenon is just as bad in Australia.
I question how dis-commissioning of GW can really save all that much money when the carrier still has so much remaining life service. Still think it would be better to put IKE out of service and Nimitz in some kind of storage than lose a still perfectly good carrier.
They should sell that the damn thing to the French/UK which would save them the money/time building their own carriers.
Imagine a US Nimitz class carrier flight deck with a line of Rafale's parked and waiting for flight ops!
:-)
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