For two years in a row the US Navy has been trying to retire USS Vicksburg, a Ticonderoga class
cruiser. But the US Congress keeps outlawing the Navy request. Now I know what you are thinking,
why on earth would anyone want to retire such a NIIIICEEE ship. Especially considering that
Vicksburg was getting modernized and by 2022, 85% of the work had been completed.
Today, the US Navy is trying to decommission this cruiser yet again, but will the congress outlaw
this for the third time? You see, the United States is entering a period of rising threats
from China, which already has the largest navy in the world by the number of hulls. Meanwhile,
just as the threat of China is expected to peak, by 2027, the US Navy is projected
to hit a multi-year low of just 280 ships. This is 75 ships short of the United States
policy of having a 355-ship fleet, a figure that the service doesn’t project to hit until
2038 at the earliest or ever as portrayed by the alternative to the shipbuilding plan. Now
one would expect that the US Navy would build more ships, and they are almost double that
of what was built two decades ago, but still dramatically less than what was built during
the 1980s. What makes things worse, is that the US Navy has been recently retiring more ships
than it’s been building. Nothing to worry about though, because having fewer ships is all part of
the Navy's plan, and it’s Not What You Think! It all started back in 2015 when the US Navy
started a cruiser modernization program with USS Gettysburg that would allow the cruiser’s service
life to be extended from 35 to 40 years. Within a year, another six cruisers joined the program
for a total of 7 ships. The US Navy promised the lawmakers that modernizing these aging ships would
keep them in the fleet for years to come, meaning that Ticonderogas would sail into the 2030s.
As part of the modernization, seven ships were supposed to receive improved combat systems, new
sensors and computers, electrical and mechanical systems, as well as completing major work on the
aging hulls that were prone to leaks and cracks. Nine years later, the US Navy conceded that things
hadn't gone according to plan. Part of the problem was that the modernization program was phased,
which meant that cruisers sat idle for up to six years before the deep repair work had begun.
In 2016 Vicksburg entered the Navy's Cruiser Modernization Program, so her crew was reduced
from 350 to 50. As the ship sat at the pier for four years, waiting for its turn in the shipyard,
only some minor repair work was done. Finally Vicksburg entered BAE shipyard in Norfolk,
Virginia in 2020 for an 18-month Service Life Extension Program. The ship was scheduled to
complete the modernization by March 2021, then June 2022, then March 2023, and then Summer of
2023. According to BAE systems, as of September 2023, the work on Vicksburg was still ongoing.
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So far Vicksburg has been in Norfolk for over 7 years and has been awarded more than
$500 million dollars for modernization. What’s unfortunate, is that it’s almost certain that
she will never be deployed ever again, and that's not my words, but that of the Secretary of the
Navy. During congressional hearings in April 2023, SECNAV Carlos Del Toro said that two cruisers that
are part of the modernization program: Vicksburg and Cowpens “will never see another deployment,
regardless of how much money we put into them.” So far, only two cruisers, Gettysburg and Chosin,
have successfully navigated the cruiser modernization program. It took the cruisers
8 and 7 years respectively to return to the fleet. Meanwhile the work on USS Cape St. George
continues. With regards to the other four ships, the US Navy deemed them too old and broken down,
so the service decided to retire all four of them back in 2022. While Congress agreed to retire Hue
City and Anzio, it prohibited the service to retire Vicksburg and Cowpens. At the time,
according to the BAE shipyard, Vicksburg modernization was 85% completed, with more than
$200 million dollars spent on the ship. The Navy hasn’t publicly said how much money they’ve spent
on the cruiser modernization program in total. However Vice Adm. James Kilby publicly stated that
the Navy had spent at least $2.4 billion dollars between 2016 and 2021 on modernizing 7 cruisers.
Now here comes the kicker! The US Navy wants to retire all Ticonderoga class cruisers by fiscal
2027. This means that Gettisburg would be retired in 2026 and both Chosin and Cape St. George would
be decommissioned in 2027. This means that for the billions of dollars spent, the Navy would
only get a handful of extra deployments from those three ships in the best case scenario. No
wonder the congress called this “unacceptable” and kept prohibiting the retirement of those
ships. But how did so much money end up being wasted? Well, there are two conflicting views:
one from Congress and the other from the Navy. While the Navy wants to do things a certain way,
at the end of the day, it's the US Congress that ultimately gets the final say. Lawmakers were
concerned about the fact that the Navy has been decommissioning more ships that it plans to build,
and accused the service of not efficiently managing taxpayer funds. For example,
in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, the Navy called for building 9 new ships while retiring 11. A year
earlier, it wanted to retire 24 ships while only building 8. The same trend is projected for 2025,
2026 and 2027. What also didn’t help was that the US Navy was already in a bad spot due to failures
of several programs like Zumwalt, the CG(X) and of course the Littoral Combat Ships, which are now
being retired only after a few years of service. Congress was concerned that retiring cruisers
meant the US naval fleet would have a shortfall of VLS cells, which coincides with the heightened
risk of a conflict with China in mid to late 2020s. Ticonderoga-class cruisers have a capacity
of 122 VLS cells which is 27% more than 96 VLS cells on the Arleigh Burke destroyers.
The Navy won't recover its VLS cell capacity until the mid-2030s in the best case scenario.
Another frequently cited reason for opposing the decommissioning of cruisers is that repairing old
cruisers meant guaranteed jobs in the lawmakers' districts, which is why Congress has been opposing
Navy's decision for the past decade. Now that's the backstory on the US Congress side,
but what about their view on Vicksburg and the whole cruiser modernization program?
Kay Granger, a republican representative, stated during a subcommittee hearing that “Some of these
ships – especially the Littoral Combat Ships – are among the newest in the fleet. The Navy
claims they don’t have sufficient funding to maintain and operate these ships, but
that’s not the case. Instead, they’ve mismanaged billions of dollars in maintenance funding. One
glaring example of this is the USS Vicksburg, a cruiser up for decommissioning this year,”
According to US Congress, through fiscal year 2021, the Navy has spent over $3 billion dollars
on the cruiser modernization program, with each of the ships receiving in excess of $500
million dollars to complete the modernization. The work completed on those ships ranged from 57% to
93% and an additional $407 million dollars were required to complete the modernization of these
ships to return all five to the fleet. The document notes that “previous Navy officials
have testified that this extended modernization program would result in some of the most capable
surface combatants in the Navy, with an extended 40-year service life”. So it’s understandable
why Congress has now twice prohibited the US Navy’s plans to retire USS Vicksburg.
Not only that, but the Vicksburg fiasco has led Congress to be ever more critical of the service,
questioning the Navy’s upcoming and more ambitious destroyer modernization
program that aims to retrofit older Arleigh Burke Class destroyers with
SPY-6 radars. But what does the US Navy have to say about all this?
As the modernization work began, and shipyards opened the cruisers for the very first time,
a variety of unexpected problems were found. Problems with ventilation, cracked fuel tanks,
leaks below the waterline, you name it. No wonder the costs per ship ballooned beyond the original
$160 million dollars estimate, to as much as $500 million dollars. This is why the Navy
wanted out of the cruiser modernization program as early as 2018. In their view,
upgrading the cruisers in that state was no longer worthwhile. And in the case of Vicksburg,
the Navy was skeptical that she would complete its maintenance on
time. They had to be real. It made sense to retire the ship. So they tried in 2022,
2023 and again in 2024. As Congress prohibited retiring cruisers, the Navy kept arguing that
those modernized ships would not be going underway to fight because they are not lethal.
The Navy argues that the Ticonderoga class, which is a 40-year old design, as well as the
Littoral Combat Ships, would not stand up well in a potential conflict against Russia or China.
During simulated warfighting, both classes of ships performed at the bottom of the list. While
Littoral Combat Ships lack lethality, the cruisers have an older radar system that cannot detect the
newest Chinese threats. Therefore Ticonderogas would miss their targets more often when compared
to Flight III Arleigh-Burke class, equipped with AN/SPY-6 radars. So even though the cruisers would
bring additional VLS cells to the fight, they are simply not as effective. In the Navy’s point of
view, Congress doesn’t look past the number of VLS cells that the cruisers have, and is
therefore missing important points with regards to old sensor technologies and aging hulls.
Speaking of hulls, Ticonderoga cruisers have been suffering from hull cracks for
almost two decades. One of the issues is that the cruiser's aluminum superstructure
was installed on top of a Spruance-class destroyer hull, which is made of steel.
This was done as a cost cutting measure back in the day. As it was learned the hard way,
aluminum-steel joints are prone to cracking, which resulted in much unplanned maintenance
throughout the lifespan of the Ticonderoga class. In contrast, the Arleigh Burke
destroyers are made entirely from steel, so they don't have this problem. Even cruisers
that are currently in active service, would have to pull into ports while on deployment,
to patch holes below the waterline that otherwise would take in water. The cruisers are old.
But even if the Navy gets its way and retires the cruisers, what would those
hulls be replaced with? According to the Navy, the replacements are already being built;
the Arleigh Burke destroyer Flight III. This is precisely why the Navy wants to stop throwing
good money after bad, and instead put the funds into Arleigh Burke Destroyers, both old and new.
This strategy is known as “divest to invest”, and argues that instead of maintaining legacy ships
that are not well-aligned with future mission priorities, they should be retired. This in turn
releases the funds to build new ships, and upgrade the ones that make operational sense. For example,
by retiring USS Cowpens in 2024 instead of 2026, the Navy would save $130 million dollars. A
larger Navy that incorporates Littoral Combat Ships and old cruisers would be less capable,
less lethal and less ready. The US Navy prefers to have a smaller but more lethal fleet.
So who’s right here, the Congress or the Navy? Bad decisions had been made and the US Navy
service leaders acknowledged that the cruiser modernization program was disorganized in
planning and troubled in execution. But they say they’ve learned their lesson and
are confident the destroyer modernization program would go smoothly. In addition,
the costs get much higher as ships approach their end of life. With budgetary constraints,
the harsh reality is that Ticonderogas have to go.
But the concerns of Congress are also valid. There is a risk of potential
Chinese military action against Taiwan in the upcoming years. Retiring legacy ships
will result in a shortfall that cannot be filled by Arleigh Burke destroyers in time.
Maybe the legacy ships should be maintained to retain whatever usefulness they may have,
while at the same time additional funding is provided to build new ships?
The latest government documents show that Congress is prohibiting the retirement of cruisers,
USS Cowpens and USS Shiloh. The fate of Vicksburg remains unknown, although records indicate that
the Navy plans to retire her and USS Cowpens on June 29th and August 30th, 2024 respectively.