[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 [url=http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Octavioperez/1288114074_girl-discus-throw-fail.gif]Discus.[/url]