Keepers

And this is why the Navy picked the cruisers for decommissioning.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon wants the Navy to keep seven Ticonderoga-class cruisers the service planned to retire to meet congressionally mandated budget cuts.

McKeon, R-Calif., said in a March 14 speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., that the ships are needed to secure U.S. interests in the Pacific, the focal point of the Obama administration’s new national security strategy. His plan would call for funding needed upgrades to keep the ships — all of which were commissioned in the 1990s — for their full 35-year service lives.

“Though the administration says we’re shifting to Asia, they’re actually reducing the number of ships and planes we have available to respond to contingencies anywhere,” McKeon said. “We will try to hold back cuts to the Navy’s cruiser force, finding the money for our cruisers to undergo proper upgrades, instead of mothballing vital ships needed to sustain the shift to Asia.”

The question I have been asking myself since the beginning is how many cruisers the Navy expects Congress to save. 100%? 75%? 50%? Both the House and the Senate has several members that would prefer to keep these vessels. It isn't just the capabilities of the ships, it is the workload for the yards and industrial base support that needs these ships to stay around.

The thing is though, I don't think the Navy will keep all 7. The USS Port Royal (CG 73) is a perfect example, ever since hitting the reef off Hawaii to become the first AEGIS ashore asset for the United States, that ship has reportedly not been right. Cracks in the hull are just the beginning, the bottom line is the SPY radar is built into the superstructure of these ships - a little damage from grounding can go a long way towards causing serious combat related problems.

So my guess is Congress will find a way to keep at least 2 and as many as 6 of the cruisers. It really isn't as much money as you think, and if modernization is fully funded for each of these cruisers, most of them should be able to serve 40 years with expectations of being viable and competitive naval assets.