The Navy may scrap a half-dozen of its largest surface combatants

March 22, 2019

Task and Purpose:

The U.S. Navy is proposing soon to decommission six of its 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers. The 1980s-vintage ships, the largest surface combatants in the U.S. fleet, increasingly are suffering structural problems requiring costly and time-consuming overhauls.

But the Navy’s proposal to cancel shipyard work for six cruisers and retire them starting in 2021 could run into resistance in Congress. And not just for the usual political reasons. The Navy has a hard, non-negotiable requirement for a certain number of cruisers.

That’s because, among the Navy’s 92 large surface combatants, just the 22 cruisers have the space and communications capabilities to perform a vital command role. Every aircraft carrier battle group includes one cruiser that accommodates the group’s air-defense commander and his or her three- or four-person staff.

The commander, who usually is the cruiser’s skipper, along with their staff oversees air- and missile-defense for the entire carrier group, monitoring the air space and directing missile-armed escort ships to intercept incoming enemy planes and rockets.

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