Running Ahead of the Rust: The Dangers of Extending Warship Service Lives
The MOC
Photo from Seaforces.org.
By
Dr. Steven Wills
June 6, 2023
The U.S. Navy is starting to see a lot of long-term, poor planning’s effects on the design and service life management of its surface combatants and amphibious warfare ships. Hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the 2015 cruiser modernization program are in danger of loss, as the Navy now desires to decommission the Ticonderoga-class cruisers over the next several years, despite funds spent to prolong their service. The aging amphibious warships of the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships are also on the chopping block, despite the Navy proclaiming they would have forty-year service lives. This year, the entire Cyclone Patrol Ship class, that was the workhorse of Persian Gulf patrol efforts, was decommissioned in its entirety. Finally, the first flight of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (those without a flight deck) is getting a further service life extension out to forty years (which, for the first of the class USS Arleigh Burke, would mean service until 2031).
Will the Navy return in 2027, however, and ask to retire Burke and her flight one sisters early? Congress is right to be unhappy about these decommissionings that result in lost funds. But current Navy leaders have inherited problems that began decades ago, at the end of the Cold War. Congress and the Navy need to come to a common understanding on the ship retirements. The Navy owes the legislature a bottom-up review of force structure, not only in terms of the strategy those ships will support, but also in the long-term, practical preservation of those ships, along with a regular build process to replace them before they become unusable.
Service Life Depends on Multiple Factors
Some Navy surface warships like the Iowa-class battleships have been around for decades of on-and-off service while others, such as the Spruance-class destroyers and earlier Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, left service much earlier than planned. In general, as this chart from a 2008 American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) paper by naval architects Philip Koenig, Don Nalchajian, and John Hootman shows, Navy surface warships do not have exceptionally long service lives:
Figure 1. Service lives of the 23 surface combatant classes introduced since WWII. Published by Philip Koenig, Don Nalchajian, and John Hootman in 2008 article “Ship Service Life and Naval Force Structure”.
It seems that a 25-year lifespan is common, and the 33-year long service of the nuclear-powered cruiser USS Long Beach was an outlier in the graph. In contrast to these figures, a 2018 memo from Naval Sea Systems Command suggested much longer service lives could be achieved if the class maintenance plan was executed as planned and on individual ship histories, as every vessel has a slightly different record of maintenance and repair. Most importantly, the memo states that it did not consider “modernization and evolving warfighting requirements” which are controlled by OPNAV and Fleet commanders and not Naval Sea Systems Command.
Figure 2. 2018 Memo from Naval Sea Systems Command to Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Warfare Systems (OPNAV N9).
Other factors that change warship service life, according to the Koenig, Nalchajian, and Hootman presentation, include “world events that impact the national security posture, technical obsolescence, maintenance issues, and industrial base considerations.” Additional operational employment can age a ship beyond its physical years, and if that additional service causes maintenance delays, the results can be dangerous as the authors relay here: “Carefully maintained vessels can serve out their entire expected service lives and more. But inadequate maintenance during the early and middle ranges of a ship’s life can make life extension prohibitively expensive and this, in the absence of other overriding factors, would prompt a decision to retire early.”
The U.S. Navy’s primary purpose is to generate combat-ready units for employment by forward-deployed joint commanders. The Navy generally deploys about 100 ships per year, a figure attested to by many authorities. It is easier and causes less “wear and tear” on the force to perform that rotation with 529 ships, as the Navy possessed in 1991 to the less than 280 warships the service has presently. To keep the same number of ships deployed using a smaller force, the Navy has often deferred maintenance in port to keep ships at sea in support of deployed commander requirements. The 2008 naval architects article states, “Service life extension on a ship that has had extensive maintenance deferral will incur a substantial maintenance catch-up cost along with the corresponding additional in-yard time. A general, long-term movement to longer service life implies that vessel maintenance will assume greater relative importance and will incur increased cost.”
The problem for the Navy is that this choice to conduct more maintenance on vessels slated for longer service lives has not happened. Also, since 2018, the employment of cruisers, destroyers and amphibious ships has continued at historical norms. While modular upgrades that cost less and are easier to install relative to past warships have enabled upgrades to the combat systems of cruisers and older destroyers to be upgraded, their hull, mechanical and electrical systems have no such easy replacement scheme. All these problems; a shrinking fleet with the same employment as its larger predecessor; multiple deferred maintenance actions; lack of adequate replacement construction over time; and attempts to get more service life from aging and overused hulls have created a “Black Swan moment” where the U.S. Navy is about to face a major capability crisis. Entire classes of cruisers and amphibious warships, as well as the first flight of DDG-51’s, are just too expensive to maintain in service. These ships will need to be retired over the next five years. This just happens to be in the middle of a period of concern, voiced by many, when China will take decisive action of some kind against Taiwan.
What can the Navy do?
The service needs to take immediate actions to slow the major reduction of its surface warship and amphibious ship fleets. These include but are not limited to: (1) accelerate the production of the FFG-62 Constellation-class frigate to offset some of the surface combatant losses and start building the basic design in more than one shipyard and (2) replace the retiring LSD-41 ships on a one-for-one basis with new LPD-17 vessels. Was that not the point of selecting a mature vice, a clean sheet frigate design? Disagreements about amphibious ship numbers remain, but getting the hard-run LSD-41s to incredible 45-year lifespans is not in the cards. Continuing to at least replace existing amphibious ships on a one-for-one basis is a basic requirement.
Like cars that are driven far past the mileage recommended by the dealer for maintenance or when the “check engine” light comes on, several Navy ship classes have seen hard service over the last 20 years due to a shrinking fleet size and overly deferred maintenance. Just as parts start to fail on cars over 180,000 miles, parts are starting to fail on the cruisers and the amphibious ships to the point where the Navy needs to retire them, as they are beyond economical repair. Future Navy ships must have their life expectancy and maximum mileage informed by a maritime strategy which should suggest how much service the Navy can expect to get from them. Commander demand signals cannot overcome the maintenance cycle to the point where it saps life expectancy so that modernization programs cannot reverse decades of poor maintenance. The Navy must learn this lesson from the cruisers and dock landing ships’ lingering demise and create a better maintenance program for future classes in line with the maritime strategy, fleet size and force design, and deployed commander employment.
Dr. Steven Willsis the Navalist at the Center for Maritime Strategy. His research and analysis centers on U.S. Navy strategy and policy, surface warfare programs and platforms, and military history.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Dr. Steven Wills
The U.S. Navy is starting to see a lot of long-term, poor planning’s effects on the design and service life management of its surface combatants and amphibious warfare ships. Hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the 2015 cruiser modernization program are in danger of loss, as the Navy now desires to decommission the Ticonderoga-class cruisers over the next several years, despite funds spent to prolong their service. The aging amphibious warships of the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships are also on the chopping block, despite the Navy proclaiming they would have forty-year service lives. This year, the entire Cyclone Patrol Ship class, that was the workhorse of Persian Gulf patrol efforts, was decommissioned in its entirety. Finally, the first flight of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (those without a flight deck) is getting a further service life extension out to forty years (which, for the first of the class USS Arleigh Burke, would mean service until 2031).
Will the Navy return in 2027, however, and ask to retire Burke and her flight one sisters early? Congress is right to be unhappy about these decommissionings that result in lost funds. But current Navy leaders have inherited problems that began decades ago, at the end of the Cold War. Congress and the Navy need to come to a common understanding on the ship retirements. The Navy owes the legislature a bottom-up review of force structure, not only in terms of the strategy those ships will support, but also in the long-term, practical preservation of those ships, along with a regular build process to replace them before they become unusable.
Service Life Depends on Multiple Factors
Some Navy surface warships like the Iowa-class battleships have been around for decades of on-and-off service while others, such as the Spruance-class destroyers and earlier Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, left service much earlier than planned. In general, as this chart from a 2008 American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) paper by naval architects Philip Koenig, Don Nalchajian, and John Hootman shows, Navy surface warships do not have exceptionally long service lives:
Figure 1. Service lives of the 23 surface combatant classes introduced since WWII. Published by Philip Koenig, Don Nalchajian, and John Hootman in 2008 article “Ship Service Life and Naval Force Structure”.
It seems that a 25-year lifespan is common, and the 33-year long service of the nuclear-powered cruiser USS Long Beach was an outlier in the graph. In contrast to these figures, a 2018 memo from Naval Sea Systems Command suggested much longer service lives could be achieved if the class maintenance plan was executed as planned and on individual ship histories, as every vessel has a slightly different record of maintenance and repair. Most importantly, the memo states that it did not consider “modernization and evolving warfighting requirements” which are controlled by OPNAV and Fleet commanders and not Naval Sea Systems Command.
Figure 2. 2018 Memo from Naval Sea Systems Command to Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Warfare Systems (OPNAV N9).
Other factors that change warship service life, according to the Koenig, Nalchajian, and Hootman presentation, include “world events that impact the national security posture, technical obsolescence, maintenance issues, and industrial base considerations.” Additional operational employment can age a ship beyond its physical years, and if that additional service causes maintenance delays, the results can be dangerous as the authors relay here: “Carefully maintained vessels can serve out their entire expected service lives and more. But inadequate maintenance during the early and middle ranges of a ship’s life can make life extension prohibitively expensive and this, in the absence of other overriding factors, would prompt a decision to retire early.”
The U.S. Navy’s primary purpose is to generate combat-ready units for employment by forward-deployed joint commanders. The Navy generally deploys about 100 ships per year, a figure attested to by many authorities. It is easier and causes less “wear and tear” on the force to perform that rotation with 529 ships, as the Navy possessed in 1991 to the less than 280 warships the service has presently. To keep the same number of ships deployed using a smaller force, the Navy has often deferred maintenance in port to keep ships at sea in support of deployed commander requirements. The 2008 naval architects article states, “Service life extension on a ship that has had extensive maintenance deferral will incur a substantial maintenance catch-up cost along with the corresponding additional in-yard time. A general, long-term movement to longer service life implies that vessel maintenance will assume greater relative importance and will incur increased cost.”
The problem for the Navy is that this choice to conduct more maintenance on vessels slated for longer service lives has not happened. Also, since 2018, the employment of cruisers, destroyers and amphibious ships has continued at historical norms. While modular upgrades that cost less and are easier to install relative to past warships have enabled upgrades to the combat systems of cruisers and older destroyers to be upgraded, their hull, mechanical and electrical systems have no such easy replacement scheme. All these problems; a shrinking fleet with the same employment as its larger predecessor; multiple deferred maintenance actions; lack of adequate replacement construction over time; and attempts to get more service life from aging and overused hulls have created a “Black Swan moment” where the U.S. Navy is about to face a major capability crisis. Entire classes of cruisers and amphibious warships, as well as the first flight of DDG-51’s, are just too expensive to maintain in service. These ships will need to be retired over the next five years. This just happens to be in the middle of a period of concern, voiced by many, when China will take decisive action of some kind against Taiwan.
What can the Navy do?
The service needs to take immediate actions to slow the major reduction of its surface warship and amphibious ship fleets. These include but are not limited to: (1) accelerate the production of the FFG-62 Constellation-class frigate to offset some of the surface combatant losses and start building the basic design in more than one shipyard and (2) replace the retiring LSD-41 ships on a one-for-one basis with new LPD-17 vessels. Was that not the point of selecting a mature vice, a clean sheet frigate design? Disagreements about amphibious ship numbers remain, but getting the hard-run LSD-41s to incredible 45-year lifespans is not in the cards. Continuing to at least replace existing amphibious ships on a one-for-one basis is a basic requirement.
Like cars that are driven far past the mileage recommended by the dealer for maintenance or when the “check engine” light comes on, several Navy ship classes have seen hard service over the last 20 years due to a shrinking fleet size and overly deferred maintenance. Just as parts start to fail on cars over 180,000 miles, parts are starting to fail on the cruisers and the amphibious ships to the point where the Navy needs to retire them, as they are beyond economical repair. Future Navy ships must have their life expectancy and maximum mileage informed by a maritime strategy which should suggest how much service the Navy can expect to get from them. Commander demand signals cannot overcome the maintenance cycle to the point where it saps life expectancy so that modernization programs cannot reverse decades of poor maintenance. The Navy must learn this lesson from the cruisers and dock landing ships’ lingering demise and create a better maintenance program for future classes in line with the maritime strategy, fleet size and force design, and deployed commander employment.
Dr. Steven Wills is the Navalist at the Center for Maritime Strategy. His research and analysis centers on U.S. Navy strategy and policy, surface warfare programs and platforms, and military history.