[Tallguy]

I would expect that the USS Washington would be maintained in a higher level of readiness so that she could be taken out & readied in event of war or a future fleet expansion. The USS Nimitz is going to be decommissioned either way. I don't know that there would be that much savings to the USN when you consider that as a nuclear vessel she would require an engineering staff just to maintain the reactor. If they removed that there wouldn't be much point to the whole exercise.

[Oztrich Boy]

. If they removed that there wouldn't be much point to the whole exercise.

That is the point. These ships operate a little over 20 years before reactor refuelling. If they are going to cut the number of carrier groups, it makes a weird kind of sense to scrap and not do a mid-life refuel on a ship with half its hull life remaining.