Far East Cynic

How stupid is this?

Pretty stupid if you ask me. There are certainly ways to save money without resorting to this:

Under heavy pressure to find real cuts, Navy officials are seriously considering decommissioning a nuclear aircraft carrier halfway through its planned lifespan, two Pentagon sources said.

George Washington’s three-year-long refueling overhaul, scheduled to begin in 2016, would be canceled under the scheme, and the ship would be decommissioned as its reactor fuel ran out.

Along with the carrier, the Navy could also disband one of its 10 carrier air wings — a move which would save roughly as much money and people as cutting the ship.

Decommissioning GW would leave the Navy with a 10-ship carrier fleet, a move which would need to be approved by Congress. U.S. law currently mandates an 11-ship force.

Navy officials would not confirm or deny the story.

So lets think this all the way through. Rather than refuel GW-and keep the rotation that is barely sustainable with 11 carriers, we would cut to 10 or even 9. All the while, CENTCOM and PACOM get away with 2.0 and 1.7 carrier commitments in each theater. Why not just end the wars-and reduce the OPTEMPO to 1.0 apiece? That would save a lot of money-and a few lives to boot. Or better yet, really shrink NAVCENT? Close NAVCENT forward in Kuwait, reduce JTF Horn of Africa, and reduce the size of the presence at Ft. Apache-er I mean NSA Bahrain. Real savings there. Off shore all but essential functions back to NAVEUR or PACFLEET.

And lets not even talk about the cost to change a home port again for a CVN………

  1. Skippy,
    Yes this is a pretty dumb idea. I have not heard about it in the local press here, but I am sure that it will soon be a topic on all of the Commander’s Corner videos. Along the same lines of another story I saw on Navy Times, about homeporting ships in Spain for BMD. There used to be ships homeported there in the past I believe, and even though we do have an infrastructure at Rota, why not send them to the bases in Italy. I guess some things will never change.

  2. Maurice,

    I am very familair with the machinations behind homeporting the ships in Rota. Foward deploying them makes sense because of the NAVEUR RFF for BMD ships. As it is a Sailor on a BMD ship is lucky if he gets 8 months between cruises. The deal with Rota was simple. CNIC fought tooth and nail against any other location-becasue they felt it was going to be a “bill” they were stuck with. Gaeta was looked at-and rejected immediately by C6F as well as CNIC. Lots of “personalities” involved in that decision as well.

    It is the same with Aegis Ashore. Big Navy is going out of its way to screw over the Sailors who will man the site-from refusing to build adequate accomodations for the Sailors, to not manning the place with sufficient numbers of people. Navy , after having jumped up and down to be lead service, has really recoiled at the real cost of basing Aegis Ashore-in big part because they thought they could stick MDA with the whole bill. MDA told them ( quite rightfully) to go fuck themselves. Rather than PCS families and give the Sailors a good shore tour overseas-they are going to screw them with Blue and Gold rotations which after a BMD sea tour will suck just as much. Can’t wait to see the stupid liberty restrictions they put on the Sailors as well.

    We suck.

  4. Well to just balance it out 72yrs ago today Admiral Radford testifying in front of congress said that the unification hearings they were having about defense, basically said that air power is useful and yet the USAF proposal of only using nuclear weapons with the B-36 was bad idea. So the opening shot of the Revolt of the Admirals started today. Do you have any faith that any of our current GOFOs could pull the same ideas off?

  5. Skippy,
    Thanks for the insight. I was always a west coast sailor so I never have been to “Club Med” and had any liberty calls. But I imagine they will have the same restrictions that we have here. No drinking after midnight, leave the massage parlors alone, and when the ships do pull in, make sure you go build a school or paint an orphange or do some other type of “community service” to show that you are a “Force for Good.”

  6. But in Romania-the women are really good looking. Once these guys get to Bucharest and sample the local “talent” all bets are off.

  8. Maurice,

    The Med is awesome even more so in the summer time. I did my first deployment in the Med during the summer. The best set of things I remember was sitting on a clothing opitional beach in France, with a waiter bringing burgers and suds; all while judging the pretty ladies walking along the beach. It was awesomeness to level 11. Then the other game to play is the commando game as you watch all the local ladies walking around in their summer threads.

    As to the restrictions, standard liberty attire was collared shirts, tucked in unless it is squared off on the bottom, non-american iding logos, clean jeans or slacks with belt, and the women had to be in full blouses and skirts that had to to down to the knees. The booze rule is interesting because it is all dependent on local conditions, ditto with buddy rule. I spent one time in Naples where Booze was supposed to be severly limited and you couldnt’ go out in town in groups less then 5 people and one of those persons was supposed to remain sober. The BatGru commander actually had local SP and the Ships SP with breathilyzers and arresting anyone that was blowning above .08 BAC for violating liberty policy. That was the start of an unfun deployment for liberty.

  9. SAp,
    Thanks for the insight. I imagine that those French beaches are off limits to US military. They tried to keep telling us that we should participate in the local customs here in Japan, but once when the Blue Ridge pulled into Nagoya, they tried to downplay a local Fertility Festival that was going on. Didn’t want Sailors walking around town with dildo statues like the rest of the people were doing. They were too worried about some incident that would happen.

    Pulling into PI and Thailand used to be fun. Fun still can be had, but you run the risk of SP breaking up the fun. In the PI, you have to be off the streets by dark in some places. We had pulled in to the “new” Subic in 2004, and we had to be back on the base compound by 1800, and in our rooms by 0000. That didn’t stop you from calling “room service” but I thought how far the mighty had fallen in regards to liberty.

    With all of the restirctions set on you now, the smart thing to do is just get to an online dating sight, and set up appointments in the places you visit. That was what a lot of people are doing now to get around SP. But that damn Buddy System is still a major drawback.

  10. The Med in the 80’s was awesome-and I am told was the same in the 70’s. Of course in those days, liberty restrictrions were not so prevalent, and thanks to the miracle of European trains, you could easily escape from 2100 of your “friends” and head off to some place a little nicer. Thanks to the miracle that was NATO then-there were some decent places to drink and roll dice, however if you did want to spend some time with your shipmates.

    Thanks to the idea of giving ships regular port visits, there was a decent amount of liberty to be had-and you still got to execute WASEX’s against real Russians leaving the Straits of Gibaltar, as well as do Navy type things like fly Alfa strikes into French and Turkish ranges.

    And of course if you were really lucky you got to do a DACT det in ( fill in the blank), Then along came the Gulf War and fucked it all up……………

  11. Skippy,

    Remember Tony’s bar in Naples? My dad told me this story of CAG Zap Zlatoper rolling in there after hearing about either CPO advancement or the LDO/CWO list came out and buying a round for all the new selectees. That was the day your right.
    When I was out with CAG 8 and Big E, we had CAG Yukon Jack Goldlewisk hook up all us airdale POs who advanced with a round at the base club at the Naval Base in Naples. Another adventure I had same deployment, 2001 before the world flipped. In port in Rhodes and at the same time was a cruise liner that had about 20 stewardrees from the Scandinavian Air Service on their vacation. I spent the night on a pub crawl with these angels and if I had remembered it was my last night ashore then I would had a chance for breakfast in bed.

    The Med was a good place and the few places I have been on the Pacific pale to the adventures in the Med.

  12. I know where Tony’s is-a Zap was my CAG in 1983. On the whole I was not really a fan of Naples, safe for AFSOUTH O’Club and getting on the train to Rome or Sorrento. I usually took permanent shore patrol in Naples. By doing that-I was able to bankroll my next two port visits from the per diem you got paid.

  13. The Med sounds like fun. I can only add that I remember going to Subic in 1990, and heading into the “Jungle” where all of the “soul brothers” hung out. Fun times at Sam’s Soul Food Cafeteria, a place runby a retired YNCS, and other clubs like the New Yorker and Airport Lounge.

    First time in Singapore, I went to Orchard Towers (4 Floors of Whores) and had a great time in a place called Ceasars. Funny thing is I met a local native in the band that was playing and find out that she has the same birthdate (day and year) that I do. We have been in touch for over 20 years.

    But alas, now with TIP, those days are just a dream. It is getting so a man can’t take a walk out of CFAY main gate and go into the Honch and get a decent HE. They have forced close all of those places by having SP stand in front and bust guys going in and coming out for Article 92’s. The only way to cheat the system is to go very late at night or try to get there before SP arrives. I have heard that there is a Delivery Service that caters to us gaijin here in Yokosuka. But for the average guy who has been here for sometime, you have to go outside the Navy relm.

    I guess this just goes back to Webb’s article to the USNI, on how Naval Aviation has lost its “swagger.” No more “boys will be boys” but now we have to be choir boys (I could bring up a joke about choir boys and priests, but I will not). Oh well, I guess I will have my memories until old age takes them away.

  14. Because the chicks didn’t like it. So they were the ones who got the Navy to crack down. They don’t like places like Orchard Towers-I mean after all, what greater threat to a woman, than another woman who will go all night long, provide all the services you require for a set price and then leave in the morning? Can’t have that.

  15. Skippy,
    You are correct. On one WESTPAC our SAG escorted a Tender (AD) to the Gulf. Along the way as we made our journey westward (Hawaii, Guam, Singapore), the women onboard the ship were a “dime a dozen” and no one really wasted their time when all you had to do was walk off the ship and out the gates and could come up pretty easy.

    Once we hit Jebel Ali and the rest of the Gulf ports, the women on the tender were a high commodity item and they knew it. They were the only game in town and they knew it. You could smell it on the mess decks when all of the sailors would wear cologne while they sat and entertained the women onboard. The CO I had on the CG I was on was an old schooler, and he banned fraternization after hours on the mess decks with the female crew from the tender. I thought that was a good call.

    As we left, and hit Thailand and Singapore, their value went down again, just as you mentioned.