Destroyers Get a New Life

The Navy added an interesting twist to the new budget. In the 30 year plan, they extended the life of the DDG-51 class by 5 years per ship.

“The Navy must manage meticulously the service lives and modernization of legacy ships during this period to prevent block obsolescence from causing unacceptable gaps in capability and capacity,” the document says.

The Navy’s 2007 plan was short about 26 cruisers and destroyers after 2020. Last year’s 30-year plan shrank the gap to about 10 ships by adding destroyers to the final years of the plan.

“This year’s 30-year plan erases that remaining shortfall, and even maintains a slight surplus, by assuming a 5-year extension of the service lives of the DDG 51s,” said Ron O’Rourke, an analyst for the Congressional Research Service.

The article goes on to highlight that no money was added to the budget of the 30-year plan to reflect this change. After watching so many platforms be retired early, it is difficult to get very excited. I doubt that when the Spruance class was built the Navy was thinking they would be sinking them within 22 years of commission, but the Navy did just that. Point is, the future is hard to predict.

The article describes some of the modernization plans for the CG and DDG-51s that are beginning this year. We are yet to see a really good article on the full modernization plan, but expect to see one this year. While this is good news, until we see money in the plan for this, it is hard to adopt it as real.