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HASC chair: Don’t mothball the cruisers, upgrade them
DoD Buzz ^ | March 14th, 2012 | Philip Ewing

Posted on 03/14/2012 8:46:38 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki

HASC chair: Don’t mothball the cruisers, upgrade them

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon said Wednesday he wants the Navy to keep the seven cruisers it has proposed decommissioning because the fleet needs the ships to reach their full lives.

He told an audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library out in California that he would try to help save the ships that Secretary Panetta and other top leaders — though not Navy leaders — have basically characterized as worn out.

“We will try to hold back cuts to the Navy’s cruiser force,” he said, “finding the money for our cruisers to undergo proper upgrades, instead of mothballing ships needed to sustain the shift to Asia, before those ships reach the end of their lifespan.”

The surface Navy loves the cruiser and destroyer modernization it has begun with the early ships in the two classes, which gives crews nicer accommodations and brings the ships’ weapons, sensors and electronics up to the latest standards. But the yard work costs money and it sidelines warships for months that, as we keep hearing, are in high demand from combatant commanders.

McKeon did not detail what the Navy should give up to keep its cruisers, or go into many specifics on much else in his Reagan Library speech. The remarks weren’t really for the usual Washington eggheads — by donning the mantle of Reagan, McKeon seemed to be aiming his call for support at a wider audience of conservatives outside the defense family.

“To put it plainly, we need your help,” he said. “We need your help restoring the concept of the Reagan military. Just the name invokes the concept of strength and certitude. I need you to be advocates for the principles that President Reagan advocated. I need you to stand with our troops. I need you to reject government intrusion in our lives, and refocus this great Republic back to Constitutional obligations like providing for the common defense. These cuts can be stopped, averted, held off. But it requires you to be involved. To be vocal. To be strong. How can we call ourselves Reagan Republicans if we sit quietly by during the most systematic and catastrophic cuts to an institution that Reagan helped build?”

The Reagan Challenge! It’s the ultimate gauntlet for conservatives — the final trump card. The question is, will it work? Can defense advocates drum up a popular groundswell to pressure Congress to deal with sequestration and the other thorny questions in the defense world, or is this subject just too wonky?


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aegis; cg47; cruiser; usn

Dated upgrade plan

1 posted on 03/14/2012 8:46:43 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki

A couple of 5” guns on a cruiser is an insult. Also, where are the cruise missiles, AA missiles, and Aegis MGs, etc?


2 posted on 03/14/2012 8:52:00 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: sukhoi-30mki
ABSOLUTELY these ship must be modernized and kept in service.

While we have a couple hundred extremely capable surface combatants, it's not enough.

These new Aegis units are as big as the Cruisers in question. And bad-ass.

But they can't be everywhere all the time.

Yes, keep these Cruisers and build 100 Frigates in the 3-4k ton class...with all the modern voodoo.

3 posted on 03/14/2012 8:52:47 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
Look up VLS.

Those tunes are state of the art.

4 posted on 03/14/2012 8:54:27 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Mariner

They don’t fit in Obama’s ‘green navy’.

It’s recently reported that currently deployed ships are running with burnt out light bulbs because commanders say they are too expensive to replace.

Obama refuses to fund the current military. How do you justify modernizing ships if currently up to date ships can’t keep lights on?

Light bulb or refurbished cruiser? What’s more important to our currently deployed sailors?

BTW, I hate the idea that they are decommissioning so many ships, but I have to think of the men and women we are sending into harms way.


5 posted on 03/14/2012 8:57:37 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: sukhoi-30mki
So, can someone make the case for keeping these aging cruisers when everything I can envision them doing is already being done by the Burke class destroyers at lower operating costs?

Those newer destroyers are nearly the size of the the cruisers of yesteryear. The Burke class vessels are essentially "pocket cruisers" now that they have enhanced cruise missile launch capability.
6 posted on 03/14/2012 8:57:42 PM PDT by Goldsborough
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks sukhoi-30mki.


7 posted on 03/14/2012 9:15:54 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.)
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Panetta thinks our soldier’s guns are worn out too.


8 posted on 03/14/2012 9:25:55 PM PDT by FedsRStealingOurCountryFromUs
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To: Goldsborough

Until I looked them up I didn’t realize these ships were built on a destroyer hull. One of them, the Lake Erie, was the ship that took out a satellite in orbit. With 122 missiles available for immediate launch, these ships are still an enemy’s nightmare.

That’s a lot of firepower in a relatively small package. That’s needed if we have to augment a carrier’s protective screen in a hurry.


9 posted on 03/14/2012 9:30:03 PM PDT by meatloaf (Support House Bill 1380 to eliminate oil slavery.)
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To: Mariner

Barky and the rest of his commie corksucking crew will not be happy until our armeds forces are as small as Canada’s. They really hate our country and want to see it defenseless.


10 posted on 03/14/2012 11:23:17 PM PDT by jospehm20
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To: sukhoi-30mki

I served in Vietnam in ‘68-’69-’70. I was on flight duty out of Danang. I can remember flying over the Battleship New Jersey as it was lobbing big shells at the NVN coast.

The Battleship New Jersey was mothballed years before that. Thankfully, it didn’t become a reef and it turned out that we decided we needed it again. The same is probably true with these carriers. Who knows what’s next with evil folk around the world?


11 posted on 03/14/2012 11:42:26 PM PDT by Rembrandt (.. AND the donkey you rode in on.)
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To: Rembrandt

You wanna see a real cruiser? Go to Boston area and look up the USS Salem, CA-139. Now that’s a real cruiser and the ONLY one of it’s kind/era still left. All other CA cruisers have been mothballed or scrapped. Sad!

Now that we have today’s missle fire power, unfortunately, we won’t be seeing ships of the “CA” class anymore.

Ex-Radioman 1st - USS Salem CA 139
- Admiral’s Staff (on board Salem)


12 posted on 03/15/2012 4:26:10 AM PDT by DaveA37
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To: Progov

Here’s a link to the USS Salem CA-139

http://www.uss-salem.org/museum/history/photo_gallery.htm


13 posted on 03/15/2012 4:28:54 AM PDT by DaveA37
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To: Progov

The older CA and BB hulls were designed to withstand shell impacts. Thick, serious steel. Many modern anti-ship missiles would bounce off that armor plating.

Of course, there’s those pesky terminal-diving missiles, but that’s another story...

I have always wondered what a contractor outside the usual DoD/Navy sourcing gravy-train could do with an older platform. What the actual costs would be as opposed to the “cost-plus” costs that always seem to run into the billions.

Imagine replacing the 14” turrets with multiple railgun mounts...


14 posted on 03/15/2012 6:41:18 AM PDT by BrewingFrog (I brew, therefore I am!)
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To: Progov
The Salem class and the previous Baltimore Class Heavy Cruisers are the peak of cruiser development. They were handsome looking ships too...

I still can't understand why the Navy completely abandoned guns on cruisers. While I understand the need for missles, having more than a few 6in or 8 inch guns would give the ships additional options. It's easier to run out of missiles than it is to run out of shells. I understand the newer ships have the rapid fire 5 inchers, but IMHO one or two turrets is not enough. And frankly 5 inches is not big enough to hit a target on shore if someone needs fire support.

15 posted on 03/15/2012 6:44:02 AM PDT by GreenLanternCorps ("Barack Obama" is Swahili for "Jimmy Carter".)
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To: GreenLanternCorps

It’s the primacy of carriers that provides your answer. Naval gunfire support just doesn’t deliver the goods the way that aircraft delivered precision bombing does. The surface combatant escort ships are almost all geared towards three missions—ASW screening, AA protection for the carrier, or independent cruising, none of which heavily relies upon naval artillery.


16 posted on 03/15/2012 10:53:13 PM PDT by Goldsborough
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To: GreenLanternCorps

The Salem in Venice. I was on that particular cruise at that time. We stopped there on more than one occasion. I remember the day we arrived as I was taking a test for advancement during the achoring process. Those were some really great ships and like you, I wonder why somone whould not have upgraded those vessels with more modern weaponry.
I realize the weight of the ship and armamount did use lots of fuel so may have been the justification to remove them from the list of assets.........too bad!


17 posted on 03/16/2012 4:21:02 AM PDT by DaveA37
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