Tag Archives: ghetto navy

Bad news for FFG7 fans out there

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150417-N-SV210-036 SAN DIEGO (April 17, 2015) The guided-missile frigate USS Gary (FFG 51) arrives at Naval Base San Diego after completing its final deployment before decommissioning. During the seven-month deployment, Gary operated in the U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet and U.S. 3rd Fleet areas of operations and played an integral role in Operation Martillo. (U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist Donnie W. Ryan/Released)

It looks like the CNO looked at it and decided the “Ghetto Navy” is best left out to pasture.

It’s a common theme in bringing back high-mileage warships like the neutered FFG-7 class from mothballs. They were typically rode hard and put up wet. For example, when SECNAV John “600-ship Navy” Lehman went to look at the old carrier USS Oriskany in 1981 with an eye to putting her back into use after a four-year layup, she had grass and even small trees growing on her decks and was too far gone for Congress to okay the millions needed to get her back into the fold.

From Defense News:

The Navy estimates that bringing back 10 of the Perry-class frigates would cost in excess of $4.32 billion over 10 years, and take away from money needed to modernize the Navy’s existing cruisers and destroyers. In return, the Navy would get a relatively toothless ship only suitable for very low-end missions such as counter-drug operations.

“With obsolete combat systems and aging hulls, these vessels would require significant upgrades to remain warfighting relevant for another decade,” the document reads. “Any potential return on investment would be offset by high reactivation and life-cycle costs, a small ship inventory, limited service life, and substantial capability gaps.

“Furthermore, absent any external source of funding, these costs would likely come at the expense of other readiness, modernization or shipbuilding programs.”

The rest here.

The Ghetto Navy

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Philip Ewing at DODBuzz has a great piece  about the Oliver Hazard Perry class (FFG-7) frigates left around since the Carter/Regan era. The U.S. Navy commissioned 51 FFG-7 class frigates between 1977 and 1989. As of early 2011, 27 long-hull Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates remain in active service. Of these, 19 ships are in regular service, while eight ships are in active service with the Naval Reserve Force. They are the oldest non-carrier surface combatants in the US fleet and are all set to be replaced by 2019.

The now 23-year old USS Ingram is the youngest of the FFG-7 Figs left in the Navy’s inventory. It will be the last. Since the Navy removed the Mk13 SAM system and harpoons from the class post-1989, their armament is simply a 76mm cannon, a 20mm CIWS, ASW torpedo tubes, and balls.

“The life of a frigate sailor in the U.S. Navy doesn’t look much like what you see in the recruiting commercials.

As described by Navy Times’ senior writer Mark D. Faram, the crew of the frigate USS Elrod struggles constantly with breakdowns, old equipment and the limitations of a ship deliberately left out of combat relevance in the 21st century.

Plus sailors’ accommodations are cramped. Their clothes come back damp and wrinkled from the central laundry. Sometimes they shower without hot water for weeks.

The frigates, in short, are the self-described “Ghetto Navy,” the part of the surface force that makes the rest of the surface force — which has had its own maintenance, training and readiness problems — look good. But in the true spirit of the service, the crew has to look on the bright side. Everyone, starting with the ships’ chiefs, treats her or his time aboard as an experience that, as Calvin’s father might have put it, “builds character.”