“She just served on the cutting edge at the tip of the spear when she returned here in November,” Greenert said at the inactivation ceremony.
“It’s shown that the aircraft carrier can evolve as a platform with many payloads relevant for five decades and will be part of our national security for the foreseeable future as we bring on the Gerald Ford to replace the Enterprise.”
But that replacement won’t be immediate, and retiring Enterprise before the Ford entered service required permission from Congress.
The aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) are in port at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., the world’s largest naval station, Dec. 20, 2012. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ernest R. Scott
That’s because the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act requires the U.S. Navy to maintain a force of 11 aircraft carriers, but the service was given temporary permission by Congress in the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act to reduce that number to 10, allowing the Enterprise to leave service.
The Dec. 1 ceremony was only an inactivation; the ship’s reactors must be de-fueled before she can formally be decommissioned. Then the service will tow the ship to Bremerton, Wash., where her reactors will be removed and disposed of as the rest of the ship is scrapped.
Meanwhile, the Ford is currently slated to be christened in 2013 and commissioned in 2015. Mabus announced in early 2013 that the Ford, which will have the hull number of CVN 78, will be followed into service by a new USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79).
As part of the Enterprise decommissioning ceremony, Mabus gave a video message announcing that CVN 80 would be named the Enterprise, becoming the ninth warship and third aircraft carrier to be so named.
Even as the carrier levels dropped as 2012 drew to a close, there was uncertainty in the rest of the flattop fleet as well, as the Navy temporarily ended its two-carrier presence in the Persian Gulf by bringing the USS Dwight Eisenhower home for a mid-cruise break to resurface her flight deck.
Maintenance issues also temporarily sidelined the USS Nimitz in November, delaying her next deployment. A faulty reactor cooling pump was discovered during workups and her deployment was delayed while repairs were conducted, causing the Navy to revise its carrier deployment schedule for several ships.
“Our Navy is in high demand, operating forward all over the world,” said Greenert in a written statement in November when the carrier shuffle was announced.
“Expanded maintenance work on USS Nimitz was unpredictable and has required us to establish a carrier schedule that satisfies our commitments overseas and most important is mindful of the stress on our Navy family. This is the right thing to do.”
That revised schedule not only brought the Eisenhower home two months early in December for the quick flight deck resurfacing before it would return to the Persian Gulf, but left USS John C. Stennis as the only Navy carrier in the Gulf as the year came to a close.
One carrier casualty of the current budget crisis was the plan to make Naval Station Mayport, Fla., a nuclear homeport and move a nuclear carrier to the north Florida base by 2019. Officially the move is on hold, suspended indefinitely, due to a nearly $1 billion price tag to build the required maintenance facilities to keep the carrier there full time.
But in the meantime, Mabus announced in early 2012 that a three-ship Amphibious Ready Group, to include the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima, the landing platform dock New York, and the dock landing ship Fort McHenry, would move south from Norfolk, Va., and begin to call the Mayport base home as early as late 2013.
It was also announced that Mayport would be the East Coast hub for the littoral combat ship, with the first ships arriving sometime after 2015.
Cruisers in Flux
Meanwhile, in February, as part of its 2013 budget request, the Navy announced plans to retire seven aging or damaged cruisers and two older amphibious ships – and with them, the more than 3,100 billets for sailors who serve on them.
“Our FY 2013 decision to decommission seven Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers and two dock landing ships exemplify our resolve to provide a more ready and sustainable fleet within our budget constraints,” Greenert told Congress in March 2012. “The resources made available by these retirements will allow increased funding for training and maintenance [for the rest of the force.]”
The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Cowpens (CG 63) approaches the Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS Walter S. Diehl (T-AO 193) during a replenishment at sea, June 18, 2012. McCampbell is forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, and is underway in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Matthew R. Cole
Those savings, budget officials said at the time, would have totaled $4 billion over the next five years, and the Navy was moving forward to cut four of the cruisers in March 2013, along with the two amphibious ships.
The remaining ships were slated by the service to be removed from service in 2014.
Six of the seven cruisers require significant upgrades in capability to operate on par with the rest of the 22-cruiser fleet, and Navy budget officials estimated those upgrades would cost around $5 billion. The Port Royal, however, has been plagued with hull cracks since she ran aground off Hawaii, despite the Navy spending $24 million trying to keep her in service.