Friday, September 18, 2020

US Navy May Delay The Decommissioning Of Its Nimitz-Class Carriers

Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) conduct a barricade drill on Oct. 28, 2019. US Navy Photo

USNI News: Navy Mulling Extending Service Lives of Nimitz-class Carriers

The Navy is considering an extension of the service lives of the first few aircraft carriers in the Nimitz-class, the head of the service’s carrier program said on Thursday.

The Navy is assessing whether to delay decommissioning timelines for the first few ships in the Nimitz-class, Program Executive Officer for Carriers Rear Adm. James Downey said at a symposium hosted by the American Society for Naval Engineers.

Specifically, the Navy is evaluating the timeline for USS Nimitz (CVN-68), with an eye toward coming to a conclusion about the first-in-class ship within the next one to two years, he said.

“You have 40 more years of Nimitz life, but Nimitz herself is coming up to potentially an end-of-life-cycle at the end of this [future years defense program]. But she has capability beyond that point,” Downey said. “So we’re looking at where that capability sits from a timeframe perspective. It’s — generally the math takes you to the 52 or 55 years, so we have that issue that we’re going through.”

Downey said the Navy is analyzing its upcoming refueling and complex overhauls (RCOH) and docking availabilities as it assesses whether or not to delay Nimitz’s decommissioning.

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WNU Editor: I say if it is possible, and if it makes economic and military sense, why not.

2 comments:

copley7 said...

If it makes allot of sense I expect our Naval geniuses to retire the ship. There is NO REASON why they can't extend the service life of allot of these ships.

A classis case was the 2017 decision to NOT rehab and bring back the 7 Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates out of the "mothball" fleet. This would have helped bring our ship numbers up above 300 as they could have handled lesser missions like counter drug, piracy and show the flag instead of using billion dollar Burke destroyers for low scale ops. 2 OHP series even survived missle and mine attacks!

All OHP's were retired or sold off early by the Bush/Obama admirals. 71 were built from 1975 through 2004 (yes 2004!). THIRTY EIGHT OHP frigates are still plowing the oceans as part of 8 separate countries fleets! We retired 33......and the 7 available were not "good enough" for returning to duty. Every excuse was found to not bring them back.

Anonymous said...


But good enough that other countries accepted them for purchase. My my.
Blank checks are too common in our government despite what I think are budget charades every now and then. We know the outcome but it's something we do for appearance's sake.