Pentagon retires aircraft carrier -- New $6 Billion Destroyer Emerges in U.S. Plans

[bigtree]

Feb 01, 2009

More than 2,000 people were expected yesterday at the decommissioning ceremony for the 47-year-old aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in Bremerton, Wash. The conventionally powered carrier was among the first of the nation's supercarriers and was built in 1961 for $265 million. Named for the North Carolina town where aviation was born, the carrier originally was home-ported in San Diego before it was moved to Japan in 1998 as the nation's only forward operating aircraft carrier.

The carrier sent aircraft into combat over Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Ceremonies decommissioning the carrier was held at Naval Base Kitsap's Pier D. The Kitty Hawk was relieved in Japan by the nuclear carrier USS George Washington in mid-2008 and arrived in Bremerton's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on Sept. 2.

read: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090201_Pentagon_retires_aircraft_carrier.html


2 February 2009

A "future surface combatant" (FSC) and the accelerated development of an anti-missile radar could be the U.S. Navy's answer to new missiles under development by China.

The new ship could become even more central to Navy plans. The price tag for the DDG 1000 destroyer has hit $6 billion a copy, Pentagon documents show. The Zumwalts may be in a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which would require the Navy - already downplaying the ship - to recertify the program's value to the nation's defense.

The viability of the Zumwalt class was already in question because of its price tag, which the Navy has declared to be $3.3 billion per ship but which non-Navy analysts put at $5 billion to $7 billion.

A Jan. 26 Memorandum for the Record by John Young, the Pentagon's top acquisition official, said that the per-ship price as of last July is $5.964 billion. That's $2.7 billion, or 81 percent, over the Navy's estimate.

read (fixed): http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3927940

[BlooInBloo]

1. Yah! We're in a recession dammit! Build more Kittyhawks!

:rofl:

[bigtree]

4. while China feeds off of our debt

. . . we accelerate that debt to 'defend' against the increase in their military budget afforded them by our payments of the interest on our borrowed money.

[Auggie]

2. $6 billion for a Destroyer?

Give me a break

[bigtree]

5. fixed link

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3927940

It's a power struggle between Lockheed and Raytheon to get production contracts for a new Air and Missile Defense Radar system . . .

"The Navy sees a need for a radar that can handle emerging threats such as a ballistic missile with independently targetable warheads, a weapon under development by China . . ."

[Auggie]

8. I hope that includes leather seating

[Captain Hilts]

15. Insane.

Seven million dollars for one of these:

[L0oniX]

3. Well ain't that special. Should make the MIC happy.

[tabbycat31]

6. at least make the carrier here

and put people to work doing so

[bigtree]

9. Let's make certain that the 'defense' needs of these projects comes first

In this case, the article describes a power struggle for those defense dollars between Ted Kennedy (Raytheon) and others in Congress, against those who support Lockheed in developing and producing the missile radar technology.

William J. Lynn III, a recent lobbyist and former top executive for defense contractor Raytheon, was just nominated to be deputy defense secretary (and holds stock in Raytheon: http://www.blnz.com/news/2009/01/23/Pentagon_nominee_agrees_sell_Raytheon_8629.html). National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair was also employed by Raytheon.

Let's keep our eye in the justifications for the push for this new technology - ostensibly to defend against a Chinese military build-up - and make certain that political largess isn't being fueled by fearmongering nonsense about threats from Chinese missiles; much like the entire missile-defense largess is being fueled by nonsense about a missile threat from Iran.

[unhappycamper]

7. The new Ford-class aircraft carriers are $11 billion a pop sans

airplanes and people. Empire is expensive.

[NoPasaran]

10. Damn, ships have gotten expensive!

The price tag on HMS Iron Duke, Jellicoe's flagship at Jutland, was about Two Million Pounds Sterling in 1912 money.

[Earth_First]

11. We'll take 6, please. n/t

[Captain Hilts]

12. Give the Shitty Kitty to India and keep churning out Burkes and Nimitzes.

[tabasco]

13. Profiteering run amok.

The result of republican government by corporations.

[Auggie]

16. Exactly

[The Traveler]

14. A war ship too expensive to risk ... a bank too big to fail ...

hmmm ... do we see a pattern? Someone mentioned Jellicoe's Iron Duke ... Jutland was the last hurrah of the battleship as everyone realized they just couldn't afford to risk them like that. I would think the same constraints would apply to a $6billion tin can.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. $6 Billion for a boat while the Ship of State is broke? Well, sailors know how to bail.