Posted on 02/08/2010 8:52:25 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The Navy is willing to make trade-offs to pay for its strategic decision to move a nuclear aircraft carrier to Florida, according Rear Adm. Bill Burke, who ran the Navy’s portion of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
Burke told reporters this week that the QDR, a sweeping review of military strategy and capability, reached the same decision the Navy reached a year ago, because it makes “good sense.” It also made “good sense” at the highest levels of the Pentagon, Burke added.
To pay for the move, the Navy could have to make some tough financial decisions down the line. Burke did not specify what those trade-offs would be.
The Virginia and Florida delegations are fighting over the proposed move of a nuclear aircraft carrier from Virginia to Florida. The QDR says that one aircraft carrier should be based in the Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Fla. “to mitigate the risk of a terrorist attack, accident or natural disaster.”
Norfolk, Va. is currently the only homeport for aircraft carriers assigned to the East Coast. The Navy had already decided that it wanted to send a nuclear aircraft carrier to Florida, but the Virginia delegation has fought to stop that decision and extracted a promise from Pentagon leaders to study the issue as part of the QDR.
But now that the QDR conclusion is the same as the Navy’s, the congressional fight will center around the funding for all the projects needed to prepare Mayport to house a nuclear aircraft carrier.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Mayport had a carrier assigned there for years, but moving a Nimitz hull there as a homeport is a tall order. Any kind of nuclear maintenance would require shipyard work in Norfolk, or a casualty assistance team to be sent remotely to Mayport.
Not a simple decision to make.
This is stupid. We Have No Money. We Are Broke.
So even if it made some sense to spend a billion dollars replicating a facility that already exists in Norfolk, NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO WASTE THE MONEY — WE DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY!!!!
There is usually a carrier in Pensacola but it is just used for training.
ping
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it....
No time to favor small ports. Many ships in the East and Gulf have been relocated here to San Diego along with many of the new ships.
San Diego already has the Nuclear Carriers, Ronald Reagan, Nimitz and the Carl Venson.
>>>If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it....
With Google-Earth I once glanced at Norfolk. There was four carriers bunched together tied pierside. One fat bullseye. It was like Battleship Row all over again, with all its implications.
The fleet is grossly over-concentrated at Norfolk. Nuke Norfolk today and we are pretty much out of the Navy business in the Atlantic.
TEXAS
should build a home port for nuclear carriers and subs.
The TEXAS NAVY will need a major home port.
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“but the Virginia delegation has fought to stop that decision”
Frustrating to constantly see people putting their own selfish needs ahead of the country. At least we won't have Murtha to do that any longer.
That's common in Norfolk.
There were many calm, quiet evenings when I walked the flight deck of USS Theodore Roosevelt and thought exactly the same thing.
Small boats and planes are all over the area.
Saratoga was in Mayport for some time. Although, maintaining a nuke carrier is a little different.
I definitely think it’s good practice to sread out the east coast CVN’s.
A non-issue. Surely if we can homeport a nuclear carrier in Japan then we can homeport one in Mayport. The requirements to support it can't be that much different.
Not for years. Not since they decommissioned the Forrestal.
If your enemy has nukes, it’s easier to defend one naval base than it is to defend two. And if we don’t defend either, it won’t matter that there is two.
When do we ever have 4 carriers in dock at the same time? Was it during a hurricane?
And you could make docking facilities to spread out the fleet, without making them full support facilities.
Sure, it would be “better” to have 2 facilities with full capabilities on the east coast. It would be better to have 4, one of which we never use and is disguised as something else. And we could use another 4 ships so if someone blows up a few, we can bring them out and keep fighting.
So maybe “it ain’t broke” is too black and white. There are many ways I can think of to spend money we don’t have that solve more immediate problems than only having one full-service dock on the east coast.
Like actually building a tanker to replace our aging fleet, and buying more F22s because the F35 won’t cut it against the next-generation fighters Russia is building, and China will acquire using the trillion dollars of our money they are holding.
I guess my point is that the fleet is in no more danger today than it was last year, or a decade ago, or 30 years ago. There is no new threat that makes it critical to build a new facility now. better to spend the money on missle intercept if the fear is that one of our enemies will get long-range missle capability and fire a random nuke at our facility.
Nice thing about Norfolk is it is rarely shut down because of a hurricane, unlike ports in Florida.
And it’s much harder for Cuba and Nicaragua to attack.
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