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Reporter's Notebook: Navy, Congress continue to wrangle over fate of San Diego-based warships
[SD UT] Boy, those LCSs are sure popular The Navy wants to decommission some ships early and some that are near or have reached retirement age. Congress is balking. San Diego Bay is awash in warships the Navy no longer wants but may have to keep, at least for the short term. Congress continues to push back on efforts by the Navy to decommission some ships early, as well ships that are near or have reached their retirement age. Many lawmakers say the vessels are still needed, especially Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers. The Navy disagrees, insisting that the ships should be scrapped to free up money to build new, more advanced platforms. The matter wasn’t clearly resolved when the U.S. House of Representatives recently approved a defense authorization bill for fiscal 2024. The matter has been passed onto the Senate. That leaves a question mark over the fate of three San Diego-based cruisers, each of which were designed to last at least 35 years. The Navy wants to get rid of the USS Cowpens (age 32), USS Mobile Bay (36) and the USS Bunker Hill (37). A fourth locally-based cruiser, USS Lake Champlain (36), recently returned from its last mission. But a formal decommissioning date hasn’t been announced. It’s also unclear when the cruiser USS Princeton (36), which has operated out of San Diego for years, will be taken out of service. The Navy has indicated it would like to take the ship out of service in 2026, but that’s not a formal commitment. The Navy also has expressed a desire to decommission two comparatively new, San Diego-based littoral combat ships, the USS Montgomery, which is 7, and the USS Jackson, which is 8. They were designed to last at least 25 years. Broadly speaking, littoral combat ships haven’t met the Navy’s performance expectations and they’re proving to be far more expensive to upgrade and operate than once thought. Posted by: Frank G 2023-07-25 |
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