"Hence, if rather than intentionally undermaintaining, then retiring and destroying the Spruances, the Navy had properly maintained them, they would even today be some of the most powerful naval ships in the world, and our Navy’s ASW capabilities would be much greater than they are right now. And by using the Navy’s cooperative engagement capability (CEC), they could have been easily networked with Aegis-class ships such as the Burkes and Ticonderogas, making their large complement of missiles a valuable part of Aegis-directed fleet defense or offense. But they weren’t, and they are now sitting at the bottom of the sea having been destroyed in meaningless SINKEX exercises.
And why were they destroyed? They were destroyed because back in 2003, the Navy decided to adopt the most risky option (option 2) for maintaining a viable force structure by destroying the Spruances to make room for ships that had yet to be designed and tested. This decision resulted in over $50 billion being spent on the Littoral Combat Ship and Zumwalt-class destroyer, ships that have yet to deliver even a tiny fraction of the combat power the Spruances would have delivered over the past 20 years.
Option one, which would have involved buying new Burkes, while modernizing and upgrading our existing fleets of Spruance-class destroyers, Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, and Ticonderoga-class cruisers, would have given us a more powerful Navy today."
#usnavy #pentagon #spruance #littoralcombatship #zumwalt #PentagonWaste #MIC
Retired - Operations Security (OPSEC) Specialist with the Nevada National Security Site - Opinions are my own.
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