U.S. Navy SEALs operate in December 2021 from the USS Georgia using a special compartment affixed to the hull of the submarine. (Russell Rhodes Jr./U.S. Navy)
The U.S. Navy plans to remove 14 ships and submarines from its fleet this year, according to a Pentagon report.
Plans for disposing of or reusing the vessels were contained in an April 26 administrative memo from Rear Adm. M. D. Behning, the acting deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities.
The inactivation list includes three Cold War-era nuclear-powered submarines: Los Angeles-class fast attack submarines USS Newport News and USS Alexandria, and the Ohio-class missile submarine USS Georgia.
The Navy has been phasing out the Los Angeles-class submarines as it received new Virginia-class attack submarines.
The Newport News, commissioned in 1989, collided with the Japanese tanker Mogamigawa while submerged in the Strait of Hormuz in 2007. The Alexandria was commissioned in 1991.
The Georgia was commissioned in 1984 as an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, carrying Trident I missiles to launch at targets in the event of nuclear war. The submarine collided in March 1986 with harbor tugboat USS Secota near Midway Island. The Secota sank, with the loss of two sailors. The Georgia suffered only minor damage.
The Georgia was converted in 2005 to a guided-missile submarine that could fire volleys of Tomahawk cruise missiles. It could also operate with a special compartment on its hull to carry and deploy special forces commandos.
The three submarines are to be “recycled,” a process at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in which they are decommissioned and stripped of parts, and their nuclear reactors are removed. The reactors are encased in protective materials and taken by barge from Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean, then down the Columbia River, where they are unloaded into a special trench for spent nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear site in southeastern Washington state.
The other vessels are either scrapped, designated as logistics support assets or turned over to the U.S. Maritime Administration for disposal.
Two Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers — USS Lake Erie and USS Shiloh — along with the dock landing ship USS Germantown and replenishment oiler USNS John Ericsson, will be used as “logistics support assets” to be “cannibalized” for spare parts, Behning says in the memo.
The Freedom-class littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth would be dismantled.
Five ships would be transferred to the U.S. Maritime Administration. Three are the vehicle cargo ships USNS Red Cloud, USNS Watkins and USNS Pomeroy.
The agency would also receive the offshore petroleum distribution vessel USNS VADM. K. R. Wheeler, and the replenishment oilers USNS Pecos and USNS Big Horn.
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