U.S. Navy’s former Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard was seen being taken
under tow yesterday, headed from Naval Base San Diego, California, to its eventual destination
— the International Shipbreaking Limited facility in Brownsville, on the Texas coast.
Viewers may note that on July 12 fire erupted in USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6).
The U.S Navy decided to scrap the amphibious assault ship
& bid an official farewell to the warship in a ceremony in San Diego on April 14.
The official release highlighted some of the major missions that Bonhomme Richard took part
which included Operation Stabilize in 2000, Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003
In this video Defense Updates how
U.S. Navy has lost an important platform without any enemy action?
Let’s get started.
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USS Bonhomme Richard has a displacement of 40,532 long tons & has a length of 844 ft (257 m).
The propulsion system develops 70,000 shaft horsepower (52 MW), powering the ship to
speeds in excess of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph). The amphibious assault ship, has a crew of over
1,000 officers and sailors and can embark around 2,200 Marines, smaller amphibious assault crafts,
and around 31 aircraft, including F-35Bs, AV-8B Harrier IIs,
MH-60S Knighthawk helicopters, AH-1Z Viper helicopters, and MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.
As per reports, the flames began in the lower vehicle storage area but ravaged the island,
the mast and the flight deck as it burned its way through the inside of the big deck.
Though the ship remained watertight throughout,
about 60% of the ship was ruined in the 3 days it took for the firefighter to doze the flames.
The island, mast, and flight deck suffered particularly heavy damage.
A total of 63 sailors and civilian firefighters were injured in the incident
Rear Adm. Eric Ver Hage, the commander of Navy Regional Maintenance Center
and the director of surface ship maintenance and modernization, told reporters in a phone call,
“After thorough consideration, the secretary of the Navy and the chief of naval operations have
decided to decommission the Bonhomme Richard due to the extensive damage sustained during that July
fire. In the weeks and months since that fire, the Navy conducted a comprehensive material assessment
to determine the best path forward for that ship and our Navy,”
As reported, 3 main options were considered-
1. Rebuild and restore the ship to its original function of moving Marines
and their gear around for amphibious warfare 2. Rebuild the ship to a new configuration
for a new mission like a hospital ship 3. Decommission and scrap the ship.
Ver Hage said restoring Bonhomme Richard to its original form
would have cost between $2.5 billion and $3.2 billion and take five to seven years.
The cost of a brand-new America-class assault ship, by contrast, is around $4 billion.
Rebuilding the ship for a new purpose would have cost “in excess of a billion dollars”
and also taken about five to seven years.
Though cheaper than rebuilding to the original configuration,
Ver Hage said it would be cheaper to just design and build a new hospital ship from scratch.
Decommissioning the ship – and the inactivation, harvesting of parts,
towing and scrapping the hull – will cost about $30 million and take just 9 to 12 months.
He stated, “Examining those three courses of action,
we reached the conclusion that we needed to decommission the platform”
Ver Hage said the comprehensive assessments looked at what would happen to the industrial base
and new ship construction for the fleet if the Navy opted to rebuild Bonhomme Richard,
and the price – not in dollars, but in the burden on the industrial base – was too great to justify.
Four investigations are taking place in parallel: a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS)
criminal investigation, which now includes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF); a command investigation led by Vice Adm. Scott Conn,
the commander of U.S. 3rd Fleet; a Naval Sea Systems Command failure review board,
which will look at safety, structural and design issues related to the ship and how changes could
be made to prevent a fire from moving through the hull the way it did on Bonhomme Richard;
and a NAVSEA safety investigation board to examine the events that took place on the
ship leading up to the fire compared to existing policies and procedures.
The comprehensive investigations are likely to determine the root cause
and circumstances that lead to the unfortunate incident.
U.S. Navy has revealed that it was looking into the possibility of arson.
Wasp-class vessels like USS Bonhomme Richard are critical for amphibious assault operations.
For example, during Operation Iraqi Freedom,
she offloaded more than 1,000 marines and gear from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines into Kuwait.
Bonhomme Richard was close to the end of a maintenance period when the fire broke out.
Importantly among the work that had been done to the ship was a modernization of
computers and other systems to support F-35B Joint Strike Fighter operations.
The U.S Navy spent about $250 million for an 18-month availability to upgrade Bonhomme Richard
to support the F-35Bs. Ver Hage said that work was “clearly a loss” for the Navy and Marine Corps.
The loss of Bonhomme Richard reduced the Wasp-class to 7 vessels.
The Wasp-class will be augmented by two newer America-class amphibious assault ships,
with a third - USS Bougainville under construction.
If we see the larger picture, it a major setback since U.S Navy is trying to
increase the number of warships as it faces a rapidly growing Chinese Navy.
U.S Navy is suffering from these mishaps quite regularly - USS Kearsarge & USS John F. Kennedy
both faced fire incidents.
It is paramount that the service reviews its safety protocols
and standard operating procedures.