Seapower chairman wants ship-retirement limitsBy John Reed - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 13, 2010 19:41:47 EDT
House Armed Services seapower panel chairman Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., will work to insert language into the 2011 defense authorization bill requiring the Navy to replace every two warships it retires in the coming years with three brand-new ships. It’s a move designed to get to a 313-ship fleet.
“There have now been at least three (Chiefs of Naval Operations) who tell us that they need a minimum of 313 ships and yet they submit budget requests that don’t get them anywhere near that — in fact, this request would actually take us backward by about four ships if enacted,” Taylor told reporters Thursday after his subcommittee’s mark of the bill.
Taylor went on to say that he will also work to keep two 30-year-old Tarawa Class amphibious assault ships, Nassau and Peleliu, in commission since “they still have about 10 years of life left.”
The congressman also wants to keep two frigates in service past next year, a move — designed together with keeping the two amphibious assault ships in service — to limit the number of ships the Navy retires next year to six.
“We’d then commission seven ships next year, decommission six ships instead of the 10 that the Navy wants to, and grow the fleet rather than shrink it,” Taylor said.
unhappycamper comment: If you silly motherfuckers would stop throwing money away on shit like this:
We own two of these and they only cost $5+ billion dollars each.
$11.5 billion sans people, weapons and airplanes.
We build two of these each and every year to the tune of $2.8 billion dollars each.