200304-N-NK931-1001 PHILIPPINE SEA (Mar. 4, 2020) Landing Signalmen Enlisted (LSE), assigned to the Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52), directs night flight operations of an MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopter, assigned to the “Saberhawks” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 77, during the U.S.-Japan Bilateral Advanced Warfighting Training exercise (BAWT). (U.S. Navy photo by Ensign Samuel Hardgrove)
The SECNAV this week announced he has given the green light to keep operating yesterday’s destroyer tomorrow.
The idea is to squeeze another 48 ship years out of 12 early Flight I Arleigh Burke-class (DDG 51) destroyers, pushing each beyond their 35-year expected service life.
The oldest hull, the Ingalls-built USS Barry (DDG-52), left Pascagoula in 1992 and was set to retire in FY28 at age 36, and will instead be stretched out to FY31. The newest, USS The Sullivans (DDG-68), which left Bath in 1997 and was scheduled to head to mothballs in FY32, will instead linger until FY35.
There will be no extensive service life extension program for these ships, just the determination “to maximize the service life of each ship before it required another extensive and costly docking availability.”
The feeling is that this is a move that had to happen, rather than a move that the Navy wanted to happen. After all, these early short-hull Burkes are really nowhere near the same capability as their recent Flight IIA and Flight III sisters, which really should have been designated different classes.
While not addressed, you can be sure this early raiding of the future mothball fleet is due to the inexcusable delays in the Constellation-class multi-mission guided-missile frigates, which was supposed to take a proven off-the-shelf (Italian FREMM) program and make it here in the states to speed up the acquisition process, at least until Big Navy got involved and wanted to change every compartment. The program is currently at least three years behind schedule and you can bet that will lapse even further as the first ships have to be rebuilt after initial trials.
The CNO rubber-stamped the DDG 52-68 extension as one would expect of a good CNO, saying:
“Today’s budget-constrained environment requires the Navy to make prioritized investments to keep more ready players on the field,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti. “The Navy is actively pulling the right levers to maintain and grow its Battle Force Inventory to support the United States’s global interests in peace and to win decisively in conflict.”
As detailed by Breaking Defense, the ships and their associated life extensions included in the announcement are:
- USS Barry (DDG-52) – three years – FY28 to FY31
- USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) – five years – FY28 to FY33
- USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG-54) – five years – FY29 to FY34
- USS Stout (DDG-55) – five years – FY29 to FY34
- USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) – five years – FY29 to FY34
- USS Laboon (DDG-58) – five years – FY30 to FY35
- USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60) – five years – FY30 to FY35
- USS Stethem (DDG 63) – one year – FY30 to FY31
- USS Carney (DDG-64) – one year – FY31 to FY32
- USS Gonzalez (DDG-66) – five years – FY31 to FY36
- USS Cole (DDG-67) – five years – FY31 to FY36
- USS The Sullivans (DDG-68) – three years – FY32 to FY35