[url]http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/05/13/congress-blocks-navys-plan-to-lay-up-11-cruisers.html?ESRC=navy-a.nl[/url]
Spark Notes version:
-Cruisers fulfill a crucial anti-air and anti-ballistic missile (nuke) role.
-There are 22 Ticonderoga-Class Cruisers in the fleet; this would remove 11.
-"Lay Up" means they'll be sent to a maintenance cycle for an indeterminate amount of time. Possible more than a decade. The idea is to slowly modernize them over time so that instead of buying new ships they can just redeploy the retrofitted ships.
-Their roles would be filled by the latest generation of Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyers.
-Burkes are not designed to cover the role of a Cruiser
-The cruisers still have a couple decades of service life
Q: Why did Congress block this move?
A: The House Armed Services Committee specifically legislated to prevent mothballing such a large portion of the fleet
Pros:
-Cuts costs
-Peacetime (though there's arguably never a peacetime for the Navy) allows less strict roles among ships
-Allows Congress to forego purchasing new ships when their service life is up (~2030)
Cons:
-Leaves a massive hole in our strategic defense
-Destroyers cannot currently fill the role of the cruisers, primarily where it concerns being able to shoot down nukes
-Does not leave room for an actually new, modern fleet of cruisers in the next few decades
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Edited by Raptor: 5/23/2014 12:41:52 PMWait destroyers can't fulfill the missile defense role? that isn't right. The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is actually equipped with one of the most sophisticated fire control radars in the world (the AEGIS system), it can engage all sorts of air threats including ballistic missiles. Now not all of them are currently equipped but they will all eventually have this anti-ballistic missile system. As for the overall decision to lay-up these cruisers I have to agree that it isn't good with the current Geo-political situation, specifically between China and its neighbors.