Shrinking Assets

As I stand on the bridge wing of my own ship, and look across the concrete, dual-level pier at the Norfolk Naval Base, a retiring warrior gazes back. USS Arthur W. Radford is the latest of the Spruance-class destroyers to fall along the way. It's readily apparent that she is different than other Spru-Cans, though. One look at her after mast makes that obvious. Encased in a diamond-shaped shell, it's not even possible to tell if the mast still exists underneath or not.

Radford has been a test platform before (the shell is testament to that), and after she decommissions March 18th, she will be again, and for the rest of her life. She's due to be handed over to Northrup-Grumman next year as the test ship for the new DD-X designs that they are creating.

This is a better end than most ships that have been decommissioned in the last few years. They've been sold to foreign countries, including, in a completely idiotic move, Egypt (yeah, let's sell our ships to a country whose population hates us). They've been put in mothballs, just in case they're needed again in the future, never mind that they're needed now. Worst of all, some (and most of the Spru-Cans fall in this sad category), they're simply dismantled or destroyed as target ships.

The DD-X ships are supposed to replace the Spru-Cans, which is great. Ships and ship classes come and go. That's the nature of things as knowledge and technology progress. By the time the first DD-X would come online in 2011, even the youngest Spruance-class would be well over 30 years old. Their replacement is necessary and wise, but their retirement is happening too early.

The problem is what will fill the gaps in the meantime? My ship, the Stump, is currently scheduled to be decommissioned in 2005, and she'll be one of the last, and if my first month aboard is any indication, one of the proudest to go.

The frigates can't do it. The Perrys are disappearing just as fast as the Spruances. The cruisers? Nope, the Navy is done building Ticonderoga-class ships too. In fact, their design is so heavily based on the Spruance design that they're virtually identical from the main deck down, and they're almost as old as the Spruances. It won't be long, I think, before the Ticos are targeted for mass retirement.

So that's three entire classes of surface combatant that will be gone by the time DD-X becomes a reality in 2011, or actually later if research and development history is any judge of what will happen (USS Seawolf, anyone?), leaving just the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers by then. Though the Burkes are highly capable ships, I defy anyone to explain to me how 40-odd ships, no matter their capabilities, will replace over 100, especially at the operational tempo that is expected over the next decade.

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