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Caudle told Defense News the first step he\u2019s taking is trying to create a metric that considers the ship\u2019s combat power, including its weapons systems, sensor package and magazine size; its level of modernization, including recent updates and lethality enhancements; and its material condition, major degradations and potential depot repair challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These three factors are considered against how much money it would take to get the ship combat-ready, and how many more deployments the ship would be able to make for this investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, if it will take $200 million to fix up a ship for one more deployment before its planned end of life, is that combat power worth the money, or can the Navy decommission it early?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNobody has any question about decommissioning a nuclear submarine or a nuclear aircraft carrier; when the fuel is over, it\u2019s done,\u201d Caudle said. \u201cEverybody slaps the table on that plan. It\u2019s our surface navy that lives in this purgatory, that we could do more things with it\u201d if only the Navy were willing to pay to keep it in the fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to actually help build that business model that allows us to objectively grade out a ship in an objective way on its combat power versus the cost of the combat power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Caudle said he\u2019s been working with the Center for Naval Analyses to create a figure of merit, or scoring metric, to assign to ships being eyed for potential early retirement. He\u2019s also partnering with two deputy chiefs of naval operations, for warfighting requirements and capabilities and for fleet readiness and logistics, on this effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once a scoring system is established, the Navy would have to work with Congress to agree upon a process that looks at ship decommissioning debates at the most appropriate time, rather than during the annual budget talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMature organizations have a divestment strategy that\u2019s agreed upon \u2014 if you look at Congress as our board of directors, our board should agree with our divestment strategy. It shouldn\u2019t be last-minute,\u201d the admiral said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adm. Daryl Caudle wants to have a data-driven — and binding — debate with Congress well ahead of decommissioning ships, to avoid any last-minute changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":117565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["home","left-column","news","your-military"],"primary_category":"your-military"},"7":{"categories":["newsletters","daily-news-roundup","home","left-column","news","your-navy"],"primary_category":"your-navy"},"8":{"categories":["home","federal-oversight","congress"],"primary_category":"congress"},"9":{"categories":["home","battlefield-tech","c2-comms"],"primary_category":"c2-comms"}}},"categories":[160,29,16,93,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3354],"class_list":["post-64564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-naval","category-navy-league","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"EJOQAUVNRRFGXJUQIEQC6YR2J4","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2023\/04\/03\/navy-admiral-wants-data-to-decide-ship-decommissionings\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n