Disposable toys?

Every once in a while I drive up past the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and being something of a maritime history aficionado I always check out the decommissioned warships docked and moored there. In the not so distant past it was home to an amazing collection of World War II era Essex and Independence carriers, cruisers and Fletcher destroyers. Those are all gone now (to the scrap yard or sunk as targets, unfortunately; it seems almost criminal that the more historic weren't preserved), to be replaced in the mothball fleet by much more modern ships.

Among the ships floating there now are three Aegis missile cruisers. I didn't expect any ship so modern to be languishing there, awaiting the scrapper's torch or the ignominy of being sunk as a target, so I did a little research, and saw that the first five of the Aegis cruisers have been stricken, including the U.S.S. Vincennes, a ship infamous for shooting down an Iranian airliner and killing all 290 people aboard. One of the five has already being "expended" as a target. Two of them (Valley Forge and Thomas Gates) had served only 18 years old when decommissioned, and the oldest of the five (Ticonderoga, the name ship of the class, was only 21).

From what I learned, the "Tico" class ships cost about a billion dollars each in 1980 dollars, which is the equivalent of about $2.75 billion today, and were planned to have a 35 year service life. That means their cost is being amortized over just half the time, effectively doubling the cost of the ships.

Indeed, this seems to be typical of an accelerating and exceedingly expensive trend. The first Spruance class destroyers lasted 30 years but many of the later ones were in service for only 18. Indeed, a large number of several comparatively short-lived classes were decommissioned during the administration of George W. Bush.

Warships are basically platforms for weapon and electronic systems, and should be rather durable. The systems may change, but the basic ship remains essentially the same over time. Some of the Essex and Midway class carriers built in World War II were modified time and time again, with service lives of thirty and even forty years, despite the profound changes in aircraft technology over that period. The post-World War II carriers such as the Forestall, Kitty Hawk and Enterprise classes have had similarly long lives. Even the Iowa class battleships, already dinosaurs when first commissioned, served from Franklin Roosevelt's administration until Bill Clinton's.

This accelerating rate of decommissioning and scraping seems to run counter to trends seen in other services. The Air Force keeps its designs in service for an astonishingly long time, compared to the Navy. The various models of the B-52 bomber have been in service since 1955, and the youngest, which is still a front line combat airplane, is 47 years old. The F-4 Phantom II of Viet Nam fame served for 38 years. The F-16, still a front line fighter and fighter bomber, entered service thirty years ago. Another front-line Air Force fighter, the F-15, has been in service for 32 years. Variants of the M-1 Abrams tank have been in service for 28 years. If anything, one would think modern naval ships would have longer service lives than modern aircraft or tanks.


One is lead to wonder why these modern and very expensive ships are being retired so early. Are they poor designs? Are they poorly built? I've not seen any reports that suggest they are. Is their retirement being driven by military considerations? It's hard to think so, since the military is still happily building F-22 and A-35 aircraft and littoral combat ships and both Arleigh Burke and Zumwalt destroyers, and planning a "CD/X" cruiser, which suggests the Pentagon sees a continuing need for high-cost, hi-tech weapon platforms. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has never lost its enthusiasm of all things military, nor relaxed its view that the world is an exceedingly dangerous place.

Then why are we scrapping all these expensive ships before their time? If the ships aren't defective, and the Navy still thinks it needs ships, and the Bush White House still wants to lavish money on the military, one is left inferring that the driving force is political or economic. Scrapping good ships and building new ones may not be about defense, but about pleasing lawmakers and the defense industry. In short, it may be nothing more than pork barrel politics and corporate welfare.

Compared to the rest of the mess the Bush administration is leaving for Barack Obama, this issue is small potatoes, but one hopes the new administration will take a look to see whether the money being poured into naval construction is money well spent.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 2 January 2009