The Navy’s fiscal year 2025 30-year shipbuilding plan detailed the service’s plans and reasons for requesting to decommission 19 ships, including 10 ships before the end of their expected service lives.
Earlier this month, the service’s FY 2025 budget request outlined the 10 ships the Navy wants to retire early: two
Ticonderoga-class; two Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ships, one Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship (LSD), the four oldest Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport ships, and a Montford Point-class Expeditionary Transfer Dock ship (Defense Daily, March 12).
The ships planned to be decommissioned in FY ‘25 in line with their expected service lives are two other cruisers, three Los Angeles-class attack submarines, and four Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships.
The plan argued decommissioning the early ships “frees up additional resources to construct more capable and lethal platforms relative to current threats. Legacy platforms that are expensive to repair and maintain and unable to provide relevant capability in contested environments must be retired in order to invest in essential capabilities the Navy needs for our national security. “
It specifically wants to retire the USS Shiloh (CG-67) and Lake Erie (CG-70), two and three years before the end of the expected service lives, respectively.
The plan said while these cruisers have a larger vertical launch capacity, their age has put them in poor material condition and they have reached the end of their useful service lives.
“There are ongoing concerns with functionality, reliability, and obsolescence for sensors, weapon systems, and hull, mechanical, and electrical (HM&E) systems installed more than 30 years ago.”
The FY ‘24 plan also sought to retire CG-67 along with four other cruisers, but Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told lawmakers last year it was one of three cruisers whose life could be extended by one or two deployments if given more funding (Defense Daily, April 28, 2023).
The Navy is again seeking to retire the USS Jackson (LCS-6) and USS Montgomery (LCS-8). Given the Navy’s plan for LCSs to be divided into ten Freedom-variant LCSs dedicated to Surface Warfare missions and 15 Independence-variant LCSs dedicated to the mine countermeasures mission, these ships are extra to that need. LCS-6 and 8 were originally meant to be surface warfare ships, a task now taken up by the other variant.
The document said it would take to upgrade each ship with lethality and survivability systems, while their positions are set to be replaced by new Independence-class ships delivering in the five-year Future Years Defense program (FYDP).
It also argued the USS Germantown (LSD-42) Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship is not required to maintain the congressionally-mandated floor of 31 amphibious warships but it is in “poor material condition due to her advanced age and high rate of operations.”
“The substantial costs to repair and modernize this ship outweighs the potential combat capability she would contribute over her limited remaining service life,” the report said about LSD-42.
The service also wants to inactivate the four oldest Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transport ships, reducing the inventory from 16 to 12. It argued the 2023 Battle Force Ship Assessment and Requirement (BFSAR) says the Navy only needs eight of these ships while the Marine Corps needs four as part of the bridging solution as it develops and buys the Medium Landing Ship (LSM).
Notably, the EPFs are only 11-12 years old, with an expected service life of 20 years. The plan said the Navy has faced challenges in maintaining crew manning and operator proficiency while class operational and material availability is lower than projected.
“Shifting resources to other platforms and capabilities better supports fleet operations and provides more operational capability to the Navy,” the plan said.
It also argued against maintaining the Montford Point-class Expeditionary Transfer Dock ship USNS John Glenn (ESD-2) for its planned 29 more years of expected service life, retiring it at 11 instead of 40 years.
The Navy said the ESDs were originally designed and configured for a “specific concept of operations that has been obviated by the evolution of the threat environment.”
The plan said operational limitations like low sea-state restrictions, lack of organic surface connectors, protracted ballasting and fender deployment timeline and limited suitable communications “limit the utility of this platform as presently configured.”
Unlike the other nine ships retiring early, the Navy plans to designate the John Glenn as Out of Service in Reserve (OSIR) ships, which are retained on the Naval Vessel Register as reactivation candidates.
Beyond 2025, the Navy plans to retire 17 ships in FY 2026, with only one LCS and two LSDs; 12 ships in FY 2027, including one Coast Guard ship and the USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) Blue Ridge-class amphibious command ships; seven ships in 2028 with only the USS Tortuga (LSD-46) decommissioned early; and nine ships in 2029 with only the USS Comstock (LSD-45) one year early.