The head of naval operations, Admiral Michael Gildai, told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that anti-submarine ships could not fulfill their main mission.
“I refuse to put an extra dollar against a system that would not be able to track a high-end submarine in today’s environment,” Gildey told the committee. He said the main reason for early retirement was that the ship’s anti-submarine system was “not working technically”. Decommissioning will save the Navy approximately $ 391 million, according to the service’s proposed budget for fiscal year 23.
But that recoups only part of the cost of the nine coastal warships, which cost about $ 3.2 billion.
The USS Indianapolis, USS Billings and USS Wichita were commissioned in 2019, which means that the Navy plans to decommission ships that are only part of their path to life expectancy. The Navy also plans to retire six other coastal warships, all from the single-hull Freedom variant, as opposed to the Trimaran Independence variant. Both options can reach speeds of 40+ knots.
Under the 2016 Navy plan, all Freedom-class variants were relocated to Myport, Florida, primarily for use in Atlantic operations. Independence-class variants have been relocated to San Diego and are designed primarily for operations in the Pacific.
The decision is an embarrassing acknowledgment that some of the Navy’s newest ships are unfit for modern warfare.
Despite the Navy’s plans to scrap ships, Congress has the final say on the military budget and is refraining from previous requests for decommissioning. Reducing the number of warships may be even more difficult as lawmakers focus on the growing size of China’s navy and the gap between the US and Chinese navies.
Last August, Vice President Kamala Harris visited the USS Tulsa, one of the Independence-class ships while he was operating from Singapore. She highlighted the Navy’s mission to “help ensure peace and security, freedom of trade and freedom of navigation” and the role the ship plays in countering China’s increasingly persistent push in the western Pacific.
But fighting coastal warships face ongoing problems, including recurring damage and limited armaments issues.
The ships were hailed as part of the US deterrence against China, as they were designed to operate in shallow waters such as the South China Sea. But the decommissioning of so many in one year seems to be a recognition that expensive surface fighters have failed to live up to expectations.
“We can’t use them”
Representative Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said: “We can’t use them, number one, because they’re not ready to do anything. Number two, when they are, they’re still falling apart.”
“They’re incredibly expensive and they don’t have the opportunities we expected. So no matter how old they are, that’s a lot of money that needs to be spent to get close to nothing,” the Washington Democrat continued.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhoff, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has joined the criticism of the Navy.
“As China’s navy continues to climb to 460 ships by 2030, unforced naval shipbuilding mistakes, such as the coastal warship, must stop. “Programs that can expand and expand our fleet must be a priority,” Inhoff tweeted on Wednesday.
Many of the countless problems facing the coastal warship program stem from a lack of focus on the mission during the design process, said Emma Salisbury, a researcher at the University of London who focuses on US military weapons manufacturers.
“The LCS is essentially counting on solving each of the Navy’s problems at once, and everything will be fine,” Salisbury told CNN with a touch of irony. The ships’ missions included surface warfare, mine action and anti-submarine warfare, based on a modular design that was to allow the Navy to customize the ship for the role.
“Essentially, this magical design would solve everything,” Salisbury said. “So that was the problem – that since he had all these options, he never did any of them very well.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby defended the program and the ships at a press briefing in mid-April, saying “they served a purpose.”
Still, even when the Navy plans to scrap nine of the Freedom-variant ships, the newest ship in the class was named last weekend. USS Beloit marked the cornerstone with the presence of members of Congress and Navy officials, as well as the ceremonial breaking of a bottle of wine through the nose.
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in a statement that the ship “will be ready to respond to any mission wherever and whenever it is needed.”
The LCS independence option faces its own problems. The Navy has identified structural cracks in six of these ships, requiring updates to inspection and redesign procedures in the affected areas, according to a statement from Alan Baribro, a spokesman for the Naval Command. The cracks, first reported by the Navy Times, were originally discovered in late 2019 in high-voltage areas of the ship’s structure.
“The problem was identified after routine quality assurance inspections and does not pose a risk to the safety of seafarers on board ships. In the same way, the problem does not pose a risk to the safety of the affected ships, nor does it hinder their ability to start and carry out missions, “Baribo said.
The Navy plans to retire two of these Independence-class ships in fiscal 2024.
At the same time, the Navy is working to develop a new class of ships better suited to the challenges of China’s rapidly expanding army and the threat posed by Russia. These ships will have “more opportunities than LCS” for potential battles in the future, Kirby said.
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