BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK
The U.S. Navy is reportedly planning to decommission half of its remaining Ticonderoga-class cruisers within a decade, just as reports have emerged that life aboard one of them, the USS Shiloh, had become like a "floating prison." The decision could only put additional strain on the service, which has already begun to suffer dangerously low readiness and morale, leading to a series of deadly accidents, in the face of high operational demands, difficulties in obtaining new ships, and crumbling shipyard infrastructure.
On Oct. 9, 2017, Navy Times reported that the Navy would retire two Ticonderoga’s each year starting in 2020, with a total of 11 out of service by 2026. At present, the service has a total of 22 of the cruisers, the oldest of which, the USS Bunker Hill, joined the fleet in 1985. On the same day, the news outlet began to disclose horrifying details about life aboard another ship in the class, the USS Shiloh, in a series of articles based on official, internal command climate surveys it had obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.“I just pray we never have to shoot down a missile from North Korea,” on the Shiloh’s crew wrote. “Then our ineffectiveness will really show.”
Part of the forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan’s accompanying Carrier Strike Group, itself part of the U.S. Seventh Fleet headquartered in Japan, the cruiser is tasked in part with the ballistic missile defense role, though the latest version of its primary interceptor, the SM-3 Block IIA, remains in testing. In addition, to the increasing threat of North Korea’s arsenal, which the sailor noted, China is fielding a increasing number of long-range ballistic missiles of various types, including one, the DF-21D, that it has designed specifically to take out aircraft carriers and other large ships at sea. Ballistics missiles are quickly proliferating around the world in general, too, with 2017 having already seen other tests in Iran, Israel, and South Korea among other locales.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/15060/us-navy-plans-to-cut-cruisers-by-half-amid-reports-one-became-like-a-floating-prison
