By Kyle Mizokami
A full half of the U.S. Navy's largest surface warships are set to retire in three years, with nothing available to take their place. Eleven Ticonderoga-class cruisers, each with more than a hundred vertical missile silos, are scheduled to retire starting in 2020. The retirement of these ships will leave a bog hole in the Navy arsenal.
The U.S. Navy's Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers were introduced in the 1980s. Weighing nearly 10,000 tons and measuring 567 feet long, the ships were designed primarily for the air defense roles. Equipped with the Aegis Combat System, the Ticonderogas were designed to protect capital ships—such as the Navy's aircraft carriers and the Iowa-class battleships—from mass air attack. Each is capable of carrying a large number of guided missiles. While earlier ships used a pair of twin-arm missile launchers and have since been retired, the 6th through 27th ships of the class stored their missile armament in huge fields of armored missile silos.Traditionally, cruisers fill in the gap between battleships and destroyers. Fast and well armed, they were given missions that didn't require the awesome firepower of battleships, but did require more oomph than a destroyer could provide. The Navy is refurbishing half of the remaining 22 Ticonderogas, enough to protect a planned eleven aircraft carriers into the 2030s. But the other eleven ships will start to age out in 2020.
The Ticonderogas were planned to serve 30 or so years, at which point they would be retired and replaced with a newer, more capable ship. The Navy has tried twice to field a replacement, first with the SC-21, or Surface Combatant for the 21st Century program, then the CG(X) program. Both failed, for a variety of reasons. There was a lack of funding, an emphasis on land warfare after 9/11, and the Navy's own inability to articulate and sell the program.
While each cancellation was a mere setback, the end result of these multiple failures is that the half of the Ticonderoga fleet the Navy has no plans to upgrade are reaching the end of their service lives with nothing set to replace them. According to DefenseNews, the cruisers Mobile Bay and Bunker Hill will retire in 2020, and the last of the eleven unmodernized ships will retire in 2025.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a28565/the-navy-is-set-to-retire-its-biggest-surface-combatants/
