Experts explained why the US Navy is decommissioning warships
The US Navy has released a list of 24 warships that are planned to be taken off combat duty and decommissioned in 2023. The relevant document of the Navy includes a list of the ships being withdrawn by name with an indication of their index. "Newspaper.Ru" figured out what the reason for the write-off was.
Among them are two age-old Los Angeles attack submarines, four Ticonderoga-class cruisers, as well as nine fairly new ships of the Freedom project, recognized as expensive and inefficient.
In addition, the Vicksburg cruiser, whose modernization proved ineffective, four Whidbey Island-class amphibious assault ships, two Montford Point expeditionary docks and two Kaiser-class tankers will be withdrawn from the Navy.
Doctor of Military Sciences, retired captain of the first rank Konstantin Sivkov explained to the newspaper.Ru", that the decommissioning of old ships is necessary in order to make room for new ones. At the same time, he called the choice of ships for decommissioning "quite reasonable."
"The Los Angeles project is an outdated type of submarines that have not been modernized and that it makes no sense to maintain further, because in terms of their technical characteristics they are already inferior to our submarines and even new submarines of China," Sivkov explained.
According to him, it is an "expensive pleasure" to maintain a submarine, so the elimination of boats that are not needed for combat missions will save fleet resources for other projects.
- Sivkov gave an example.
In turn, Deputy director of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis Alexander Khramchikhin noted that more than half of the submarines of the Los Angeles project have already been written off, and the remaining ones will also be withdrawn from the fleet in the coming years
Los Angeles-class submarines were created in the 1970s and were produced until 1996. These are multipurpose boats with a nuclear power plant, they can strike ships and ground targets. To do this, they are armed with torpedoes, and Los Angeles, produced after 1982, and Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be fired through torpedo tubes.
The Ticonderoga missile cruisers were created in the 1980s, and later received RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) anti-missiles, which became the strike part of the US global missile defense. In 2008, a satellite was shot down from the side of such a cruiser at a distance of 275 km . The United States planned to deploy similar anti-missiles in Europe.
In addition to anti-missiles, Ticonderoga cruisers carry Tomahawk cruise missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, anti-aircraft and artillery guns and torpedoes. A total of 27 ships of this project were built.
Another project that will be withdrawn from the US Navy is the relatively new multipurpose ships of the Freedom project, developed by Lockheed Martin in 2005. Moreover, they will be taken out at once by all nine that managed to be built and adopted. The main reason is a malfunction of electronics, frequent engine failure and a design defect in the gearboxes of the main power plant.
The ships are equipped with 3D radars, artillery installations, a machine gun, electronic warfare systems, missiles for destroying ground and air targets, as well as the MH-60R/S Seahawk combat helicopter.
According to Alexander Khramchikhin, Freedom is being written off "because they are bad." "They are very expensive and at the same time very poorly armed. After the write-off, they will stop devouring money for their maintenance," the expert noted.
He explained that these ships were laid down in the era of the general fight against terrorism, so its armament is too weak for serious naval operations.
- Khramchikhin explained.
Denis Telmanov