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Senate authorizers want to stop the Navy from retiring half the ships it planned to decommission next year, according to a summary of the bill.
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s Fiscal Year 2023 defense authorization bill would halt the Navy’s plans to retire 12 ships, half of the 24 the service proposed decommissioning in its budget request.
Should the upper chamber’s bill become law, the Navy would need to keep four Dock Landing Ships, five Littoral Combat Ships, two Expeditionary Transfer Docks and one Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser.
The cruiser the Navy would need to keep in service is USS Vicksburg (CG-69), which is nearly finished with a modernization overhaul at BAE Systems Ship Repair in Norfolk, Va. The four LSDs are USS Germantown (LSD-42), USS Gunston Hall (LSD-44), USS Tortuga (LSD-46) and USS Ashland (LSD-48), while the two ESDs are USNS Montford Point (ESD-1) and USNS John Glenn (LSD-2). It’s unclear which five LCSs the committee is saving in its bill. The Navy asked to decommission nine LCSs in the FY 2023 budget request.
Asked why the panel is preventing the Navy from retiring some of the ships, committee staff said the vessels still have years of service life left. Staff also noted that the committee included a requirement for 31 amphibious ships, meaning the service would need to keep the LSDs. The LCSs are young ships, and the cruiser’s modernization overhaul is almost complete and would give it more years of service life, according to staff.
The bill follows a similar provision in the House Appropriations defense subcommittee’s legislation, which would also mandate the Navy keep five LCSs and allow the service to retire four. Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Committee seapower and projection forces subcommittee’s mark of its policy bill would require the Navy keep Vicksburg and the four Whidbey Island-class amphibs.
The SASC bill, which the committee approved on Thursday, increased the defense topline by $45 billion, about half of which will go toward inflation, according to committee staff.
The panel met the Navy’s request for ship procurement by authorizing eight battleforce ships: two Virginia-class attack boats, two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, one Constellation-class frigate, one San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, one T-AO-205 John Lewis-class oiler and one T-ATS 6 Navajo-class towing, salvage and rescue ship.
https://news.usni.org/2022/06/16/senate-defense-authorization-bill-halts-half-of-navys-planned-ship-retirements#more-95082