Jeanette Steele, one of the better national security reporters working today, chatted with me about the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), which will, in 2012, be headed off for a year’s maintenance in far-off Washington State. The story is here.
This was big news for the San Diego region, which was all excited about being the homeport for three carriers. Well, now, with the permanent dispatch of the Nimitz (CVN-68) up north, to Everett, San Diego is not happy to see a second carrier leave. Obviously, once the ship is away, it is easier to send off to Guam or Hawaii someplace. Well, in my mind, the good people of San Diego can rest easy, because I am willing to bet more carriers (that is, if we have the money to keep the current fleet afloat) will, in a few years, be on the way:
Defense analysts say it makes strategic sense, given San Diego’s proximity to Asia, to keep a stable of carriers in San Diego. However, they acknowledge that untethering one of Virginia’s five flattops, or Washington’s two permanent ones, would mean a tough political battle.
“Given China’s rapid naval modernization and confrontational stance, chances are good that a few more carriers may start calling San Diego home,” said Craig Hooper, a national security strategist and defense consultant in San Francisco.
But the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson said the Navy may not be willing to rock the boat further. A hotly contested move of a flattop from the Norfolk, Vir., area to Mayport, Fla., is still being considered after at least two years of debate.
The moment China deploys an indigenous carrier battle group, national security taste-makers (Loren Thompson included) will take to their fainting couches in droves, demanding carriers be dispatched throughout the Pacific. Rather than San Diego, it is the East Coast that needs to worry: Norfolk’s days of being a five-carrier homeport are numbered.
I also touched on the Reagan’s operational tempo–most of of my readers know that, after arriving in San Diego, the ship went on four deployments in four years. Surge deployments take a toll, and I wonder how much maintenance got, well, overlooked. The ship was scheduled for an INSURV in mid 2010 (caution–the sked is an Excel file), but I haven’t heard anything.
I sure would like to know how much wear and tear the deployments had on this new carrier, but, well, after some highly-publicized INSURV fiascoes (the failures of the USS Stout and USS Chosin), the Navy decided to bury the embarrassments, and classified INSURV reports. Signs suggest that things are still not going well, so, given the current trends, it would be nice if the Navy gave policymakers sufficient information to know just how well (or how poorly) key Navy ships are standing up to hard use.
As I say in the article:
Hooper, the San Francisco analyst, said the way the Navy has pushed the Reagan probably led to some maintenance being delayed until now. However, the carrier just finished a six-month fix-it period in May, and Hooper said the results of a major inspection that followed are classified.
“It would be good for policymakers to know if our carriers are holding up under the strain of sustained combat operations,” he said.
Given that this overhaul is set to occur after another deployment, the Reagan probably is fine. But it would be nice to know.
Anyway, the final line is this: in 2012, the Reagan is getting a year-long update to, oh, handle any regional conflict under high tech conditions–so, let’s say, that the ship will be able to operate in a satellite-denied environment and so forth. It’s also getting set to handle the JSF–which, well, is somewhat ironic given that the Reagan, of all the Nimitz-class is probably the carrier most highly optimized to handle F-18 operations.
Oh well.
Hopefully by the time the Reagan heads to the dry dock, they’ll have a better idea of just how they’re going to actually optimize carriers for the hotter’n heavier JSF. We already know the blast and noise will be a problem for exposed sailors, but…how are those jet blast deflector modifications doing? The powerful JSF blast will likely warp legacy jet blast deflectors, so…ah, the
clock is ticking, I guess.
Also–not to bring up a sore point–what about EMALS? When can we expect that to be retrofitted on the old carriers? What’s the plan for that?
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Aircraft Carrier is the power demonstration of a navy. To become a blue water navy, aircraft carrier is essential.