220606-N-AO868-1167 ADRIATIC SEA (June 6, 2022) The Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) transits the Adriatic Sea on June 6, 2022. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Conner Foy/Released)
The eighth Nimitz-class supercarrier and the first warship named for the WWII/Korean War-era 33rd President may have just gotten a lifeline.
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) was originally authorized as the second USS United States on 30 June 1988 during the last few months of the Reagan administration and just 16 months before the Berlin Wall fell.
By the time she entered the fleet a decade later, the Cold War had ended, the (first) Gulf War and been fought and won, and the Lehman-Reagan-era “600 Ship Navy” was being slaughtered by the Clinton administration. At the time, it seemed unlikely that big deck carriers would ever be needed outside of things like enforcing no-fly zones over countries like Iraq or Bosnia or in shelping helicopter-borne Army light infantry to places like Haiti.
Then came Afghanistan, the second Gulf War, a drastic ramp-up in tensions with China, the invasion of Ukraine, and whatever you call the thing with the Iranian-backed Houthi in the Red Sea. Suddenly, carriers are as much in need as they ever were.
With that, while the Navy had thought seriously about getting rid of old Harry in both 2019 and again in 2021, the service has pulled the trigger on massive mid-life reconstruction– the Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH)– that would add 25 years to the ship’s lifespan.
From DOD’s Friday contract announcements:
Huntington Ingalls Inc., Newport News, Virginia, was awarded a $913,150,550 cost-plus-incentive-fee and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for advanced planning and long-lead-time material procurement to prepare and make ready for the accomplishment of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) Refueling and Complex Overhaul. Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia and is expected to be completed by June 2026. Fiscal 2023 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $250,000,000 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 3204(a)(1), (only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements). The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-24-C-2106). (Awarded Jan. 25, 2024)
For an idea of just what is involved with such an effort, remember this from the horrific 69-month RCOH of Truman’s slightly older sistership USS George Washington (CVN-73, which occurred during the COVID shutdown/supply chain crisis:
“George Washington’s RCOH represents 26 million man-hours of work, that involved refitting and installing a new main mast, updating the ship’s shafts, refurbishing propellers, and modernizing aircraft launch and recovery equipment,” said Capt. Mark Johnson, manager of the PEO Aircraft Carriers In-Service Aircraft Carrier Program Office. “The work enhanced nearly every space and system on the carrier, from the hull, screws, and rudders to more than 600 tanks; thousands of valve, pumps, and piping components; electrical cables and ventilation; as well as combat and aviation support systems. Beyond the critical need to defuel and refuel the ship’s two nuclear reactors and to repair and upgrade the propulsion plant, this work touched every part of the ship—and challenged every member of the planning team and ship’s force.”