It would be but what you rather spend your money on an old unit that has 20 years or so behind it and is ageing has about 10 years left on its clock or a brand new unit which has more capibility and a good 30 to 40 years life span in it?

Seems that the americans are taking the replace old with new route.

But the Ticos are not being replaced. In fact, the article stated that there were no plans to scrap the others. Not upgrading Valley Forge seems to be a waste to me.

If they upgraded the lot of them it wouldnt be a waste no quite right i know they are not going to replace them ive crossed the lines again but the ones that have been paid off have only got 10 years hull life left anyway there are more capible ticos out there, some one like South Korea or Australia or Canada might benefit from them but the USN wont get much out of them.

Theres always a good reason to get rid of ships sometimes its just the cost of crewing them not the acctual vessel.

Personaly i think the USN over crews its ships and submarines it could do the same with less people and it would save a fair bit of money with it.

Bingo.

LOL got there in the end thats what ive been trying to say for a while you best thank my girl friend for that she is the one who broke it all down into tiny simpleton chunks and explained it too me with thanks to her doodleing :D

Australia looked at buying a second hand Tico or a New Burke, but found they were too big and would cost too much maintain. Austalia is now going to build a Aegis destroyer (smaller than the burke).

The Sprunce Destroyers no one wanted as they cost a lot to run and maintain, as well as a large crew, compared to newer designs.

Whoa, expensive target for sure. Newer than anything I ever set foot on from '86 to '92. Might as well have sold it to the Chinese, "we" probably let them steal all the tech already anyway. :damn:

Australia should have made an offer for one if they were going cheap. If we have plans to purchase a carrier of some description in the future then we must invest in an Aegis ship of some type. At present we really don't have much an air defence umbrella for our navy. :down:

Edit: I wasn't aware of the news that bookworm_020 posted above of Australia building it's own smaller Aegis destroyer. About time is all I can say. :yep:

I commissioned the Ticonderoga and spent 5 years aboard her. When they came out with the first VLS ships there was alot of talk and even some planning to convert her during her first major overhaul. It wasn't as simple as dropping a box in. It would have involved and entire gutting and reconfiguration of several lower decks. The project would have involved a 3 year overhaul. It was more cost effective to build a replacement which could serve for another 30 years than to retro fit the 4 lead ships for only 20 years of service.

heh I know this is an old old thread, but I just happened to run into it googleing my ships name and thought I'd throw a reply out there to you all.

I served aboard the valley forge from 94 to 98.

I'm pretty amazed at some of the commments in this thread as some of them are spot on, almost too spot on haha.

The lack of a VLS system was the real nail in the coffin for the valley girl. As was also mentioned her spy and sonar arrays were early models and not up to date.

She would have been relegated to crack pacs and UN sanctions bording duties if she was kept in commission. Her ability to act in her original capacity as an anti-air platform was still somewhat viable but because she lacked the latest spy and VLS systems it pretty much put her miles behind the capabilities of the latest tyco's. The lack of flexiblity and the cost of operations (at least in my opinion) justified taking her off line.

The way they did it though seems like a waste to me. I put a lot of blood in to that hunk of steel and to think it was used as target practice makes me snicker and cry at the same time.

4 years of your life tied to a ship tends to create a bond that never quite leaves you no matter how old you get hehe.

We're already buying a couple, but i believe that they're a hell of a lot older than valley forge!

going slightly OT, as far as the decommissioning and downsizing of the attack sub fleet goes its silly when you get nations such as china, india, pakistan hell even indonesia massively upgrading and increasing their fleets. sure they're not needed right now, but in 5 or 10 years, they will be again! and lets face it, later model 688is and whatnot extend the potential threat. They can keep capital ships in harbour for fear of being sunk by an unseen, unheard adversary - and as subsim members, we all know how seriously good an asset that is!

Smaller faster cheaper - THis all rings of Rumsfelds idea of the future military, and one that I think is of flawed logic. The new Defense secretary doesn't follow this flawed logic, and yes we need more subs.

-S

The sub issue for Australia is one that's causing some worry for Australia. Quite a few countries in the region are buying sub's and new equipment. China is part of the reason, as it's doing such a big upgrade and expansion program, other nations seem compeled to boost there spending. The other part of the equasion is the boom in Asia is give the chance to many nations to upgrade old equipment and expand there presence.