The fleet was short of sailors, and those it had were often poorly trained and worked to exhaustion. Its warships were falling apart, and a bruising, ceaseless pace of operations meant there was little chance to get necessary repairs done. The very top of the Navy was consumed with buying new, more sophisticated ships, even as its sailors struggled to master and hold together those they had. The Pentagon, half a world away, was signing off on requests for ships to carry out more and more missions
I remember all too well Reagan’s strategic vision of a 600 ship navy and once attained we could ill afford the cost to maintain and operate the ships. Does this sound familiar? As the Fed reports an increase of $1 trillion in debt it is hard not to seethe with rage over misplaced priorities and the militaries endless fascination over new toys at the expensive of what they currently have.
As a side note there were 31 Spruance class Destroyers built in the 70’s and 80’s. The navy ended up retiring them early and scrapping them as they were considered too expensive and manpower intensive to operate.
I wonder how history will look back upon the Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) currently being built. Or for that matter the new generation of carriers at $13 Billion+ a pop while the current inventory suffers deferred maintenance and training.
Your are right, I forgot to mention the Zumwalt. The cost of the ship itself not to mention it’s vaulted “gun system”. It might even work but we can’t afford the bullets.
Cdr S? Their high end stuff is it’s all Obama’s fault, the low end is yeah, it’s the crew’s fault but only because of all the time that’s spend on diversity training.
Maybe OK for the latest flux capacitor the Navy has but that’s about it.