Navy photo)īut with the new administration pushing for the divestiture of older systems to invest in new ones, the Navy is gearing up for a renewed debate on cruisers in 2022, the service’s top officer told a roundtable of reporters April 5. Sailors watch F/A-18 Super Hornets fly over the guided-missile cruiser Bunker Hill during a deployment earlier this year. The plan, as it was proposed to Congress, was to decommission the cruisers Bunker Hill, Mobile Bay, Antietam, Leyte Gulf, San Jacinto and Lake Champlain in 20, foregoing plans for service-life extensions that previously received support in Congress. In its 2021 budget submission, the Navy floated the idea of canceling six of the planned cruiser modernizations and starting to accelerate decommissioning the hulls. George, retired in 2038 after 40 years in active service. The idea behind the 2-4-6 plan was to keep the class as the air and missile defense command ships of the fleet until the last cruiser, the Cape St. Two of them are going through a difficult reactivation process to bring the ships back to the fleet in 2022, Kilby said. Today, the Navy has five ships in modernization, four of which have completed significant portions of the upgrades. The 2-4-6 plan calls for two ships at a time to be sidelined for no longer than four years, and that no more than six ships will be in this inactive status at one time. The Navy is currently executing what’s known as the 2-4-6 plan, a compromise hashed out between Congress and the Navy to keep at least 11 cruisers in the fleet to run shotgun on the air defense of the 11 carriers in the fleet through the 2030s. That led to a significant redesign of the Flight IIA DDG. The first Flight III, the Jack Lucas, is scheduled to begin entering the fleet in 2023, Kilby said.įlight III was built around the Raytheon-developed AN/SPY-6 radar system, which is about 30 times more sensitive than the SPY-1 arrays on the Navy’s current cruisers and destroyers, but it requires much more power. The Navy’s plan going forward is to start phasing in the Flight III DDG as the primary air and missile defense command ships, along with the next-generation destroyer currently in development, Kilby said. (Image courtesy of Huntington Ingalls Industries). Lucas was a Marine who was awarded a Medal of Honor for heroism at Iwo Jima. “These plans are under review by the current administration as part of broader discussions regarding the FY22 budget.”Ī Huntington Ingalls rendering of DDG-125, the first Flight III DDG, which will be christened the Jack Lucas. Jim Kilby, the deputy chief of naval operations for war-fighting requirements and capabilities. “Due to increased program cost, schedule delays, substantial growth work and challenges with shipyard execution, the Navy considered truncating the program as part of a pre-decisional version of the 30-year shipbuilding plan drafted under the previous administration,” said Vice Adm. In an emailed statement to Defense News, the Navy’s top requirements officer said there would be a new plan for the cruisers submitted with the fiscal 2022 budget, and that the escalating costs associated with keeping them is driving the conversation. The settlement with Congress created the current cruiser modernization program, but the Navy is again looking to change course. After years of battling Congress over the fate of its largest surface combatant, the Navy looks poised to fight for accelerating their decommissioning. A one-for-one swap of 11 destroyer for 11 cruisers is a net loss of more than 300 VLS cells.īut for the Navy, it is a matter of where its money is best spent. The Navy had planned to keep 11 cruisers in the fleet for as long as possible to pair with the 11 aircraft carriers, but now the service is looking at phasing in the Flight III DDG as an alternative.
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