Another carrier gap coming

The Navy is having to choose between extending the Truman deployment beyond 7 months, which they have been trying very hard to do, or cutting the Reagan's necessary maintenance period short to prevent another carrier gap. Truman is scheduled to return to port in May, leaving Stennis to cover both the Gulf and the Pacific region.

That means that the Navy is going to have to choose between leaving the Pacific uncovered, or reduce assets against Isis in the Middle East. Reagan just moved to her new home port in Japan and is undergoing necessary maintenance before her next deployment. The only other carrier available for deployment is going to be Stennis, as all the others are currently entering, or in the middle of necessary maintenance periods.

The Navy had been running deployments of carrier groups as long as 10 months, but has recognized the toll that takes on sailors and their families. They have worked to cut those deployments down to 7 months, and are extremely reluctant to increase that for Truman. But at the same time, cutting maintenance periods is what got us into this mess.

The Navy currently has 10 carriers, but is trying to do missions for more than that. It was supposed to be a 14 month gap from the time Enterprise retired, and the time Ford was ready to go, instead it's going to be 8 years, as the Navy has required full shock testing of the hull before she is ready for service.

www.navytimes.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

A close relative of mine served in the Navy Reserves, so I've always had some interest in the Navy. It really just blows my mind to see just how poorly equipped the US Navy is when you look at the budgets involved. The budgets have always grown for as long as I've been alive. Yet the power of every branch seems to do nothing but shrink, especially relative to other countries. The US spends what seven times the next closest competitor. For every carrier they have deployed, they should have one or two backup copies at home. For what they are spending, they should have ten times the equipment. They should have several times the reserve troops as well.

Yet I have the feeling that China would do very well in a war vs. the US, not that such an event could really happen with any victor due nuclear weapons. After they were done blowing each other up, if China continued fighting I believe they would win simply because they have not had the time to grow as dependent on technology as the US.

The US has several times more money, and they waste several times more as other countries. I'd guess the other countries are not spending their defense budgets efficiently either, so I think its just a matter of being just that more more lazy with other people's money because they have that much more of it.

One small example of what would help would be control over which Federal Departments are getting their tax money and for what purpose. The problem is lack of accountability when it comes down to it, and that is one way to start with increasing that accountability.

Democracy is incredibly weak because the social contract is tattered and weak, as it always has been because of the nature of humans for corruption. The real area of ignorance for people around the world is what social contracts are and how they can establish democracy.

a reply to: centarix

The problem is that they had such an operations tempo during the Iraq and Afghanistan operations that they kept pushing maintenance off, and only doing the minimum maintenance, such as replacing the deck coating, between deployments, as well as running extended deployments.

Now that's biting them in the ass, as ships are wearing out and forcing their hand on the maintenance issue. They have to go in for maintenance now, which leads to gaps, as we've seen.

a reply to: centarix

Our military is definitely not as efficient as some other countries "per dollar" but I have a feeling that when the gloves come off we have toys that haven't come out to play yet...

Could just be delusional thinking from a propagandized mind but huge black ops budgets being what they are & a persistent scourge of "missing" money...I would be sorely disappointed if we found out they weren't hiding the cool stuff.

a reply to: coldkidc

Submersible carriers...black triangles we can't wait.

a reply to: Zaphod58

They're not going to have a choice, the operational tempo is going to have to back off. It's going to start getting these kids killed. The maintenance must be done.

Man, I'm old. I'm older than most, save the most senior, naval personnel. So they're all kids to me.

To fill carrier gaps generally air expeditionary forces or AEFs can deployed to region but, that is something the Navy hates to allows because it gives the perception the Air Force can handle the carrier mission which the AF will use to dip into the next Navy budget. Of course the costs of keeping these things at sea all the time is huge. Which is why most of the other worlds carriers rarely go anywhere. Terrible for training but, cheaper.

a reply to: MrSpad

These days, the Air Force isn't too fond of forward-deploying those expeditionary forces...something about tankers being in short supply...and when one's available, the idea of bombers in their 40s being refueled by tankers in their 50s and escorted by fighters in their 30s makes pilots in their 20s a bit skittish.

If you get the feeling that our military's procurement and maintenance systems worry the **** out of me, you'd be correct.

The op tempo isn't too awful. The Ford finally finished initial crit on one of their reactors, and is scheduled to leave shipyard soon. Lincoln should be out of the shipyard soon as well. The nimitz is a problem, but we all know that every shipyard avail goes way over planned if you're on a carrier. They've already cut down the op tempo on carrier deployments. They got rid of the 2 carrier requirement in the gulf, which was a huge part of cutting down carrier deployments. Truman will probably end up staying on station a little bit longer. The Ike is finishing up workups, and I believe they're going on deployment soon. Then the Bush is getting ready to start workups. I think all in all the carrier force looks slim, because of the delay between the Enterprise being decommed and the Ford coming up, but I think it'll even itself out. As far as I know none of the carriers are suffering any kind of critical breakdowns. Also, the Roosevelt just got to their homeport in San Diego. I think you'll see it pan out. Extended deployments, while awful, are never a surprise to any of us.