The United States Navy (US Navy) obtained in its 2020 budget only 7 cruisers of the class Ticonderoga are modernized against 11 initially planned, which is less than the ambition of Congress, that is to say the 22 cruisers still in service. This raises questions about the succession of these platforms, the usefulness of which remains important for the operational organization of carrier strike groups, naval groups centered on an aircraft carrier.
It was initially planned to launch the program Nuclear-powered guided missile strike cruiser (CSGN) with a target of 8 to 12 units. THE CSGN would have taken over the hull of the CGN-9 USS Long Beach. A parallel program was to complete them: future destroyers, equipped with the system AEGIS, reusing the hull of the class destroyers Spruance (31). The CSGN was abandoned. The “Spruance AEGIS” were transformed into a new class of cruisers: the future Ticonderoga.
The Ticonderoga therefore take up the shell of the Spruance as well as the propulsion configuration (4 x gas turbines General Electric LM2500). The superstructures are redesigned to integrate the system AEGIS whose most visible aspects are the four flat faces of the radar AN/SPY-1A. To do this, two roofs or rather castles are erected in the middle of the building, each carrying a pair of flat faces of the radar (front starboard and starboard on the first castle; port side and rear port side on the second). This architecture consumes space and does not allow refrigeration systems to be centralized, reasons why destroyers of the type Arleigh Burke were designed with a single castle carrying the four flat faces of the radar.
The full load displacement was increased from 6900 tonnes of Spruance to the 9600 tons of cruisers of the class Ticonderoga. The cruisers were laid up in two different shipyards (Ingalls Shipbuilding and Bath Iron Works) between 1980 and 1991 to be admitted to active service between 1983 and 1994 with an average rate of one vessel entering the fleet every three years. These 27 cruisers exist in two variants, namely:
- the CG-47 to CG-51 whose main weapon system is articulated around two dual-ramp launchers Mk-xnumx (88 missiles, total);
- CG-52 to CG-73 (Improved Ticonderoga), equipped with a vertical launch system consisting of two groups (2 x 61) of vertical launchers Mk 41.
It should be noted that the vertical launch system has been increased to 128 silos on the latest units modernized since 2015. The armament is completed by two 127 mm artillery pieces (5″/54 caliber Mark 45 Mod 2). These cruisers remained the only ships of theUS Navy carriers of more than one piece of naval artillery until the entry into service of the DDG-1000 USS Zumwalt (2016), first of three destroyers of the eponymous class from the program DDG(X) and DDG-1000.
Planning in the early 1990s included two major programs to ensure the renewal of the surface fleet of theUS Navy, namely the DDG(X) and CG(X) or program Surface Combatant for the 21st Century (SC – 21). The target of the program DDG(X) was brought from the 32 initially envisaged to 27 then only 7 and finally to only 2 in 2005, target raised to 3 in 2008.
The programme CG(X) was intended to ensure the succession of Ticonderoga with 18 to 19 cruisers equipped with a vertical launch system reaching 200 silos compared to 122 for the Improved Ticonderoga. But the CG(X) was built on the same rationalities as the DDG(X) and was therefore virtually doomed to the same failure. The program CG(X) was officially abandoned in 2010.
Since 2003, the future of the surface fleet in the cruiser segment has been discussed. The CG-47 to CG-51 were decommissioned between 2004 and 2005. Their operational service was restricted to training squadrons of typical destroyers. Arleigh Burke as a command ship, a role similar to the old French flotilla leaders. However, their redesign was planned until 2003, only to be abandoned in 2004.
The Ticonderoga are equipped with command and control facilities enabling them to centralize the air defense of a squadron or a carrier strike groups. This exclusive argument alone carried enough weight to decide in favor of the modernization of cruisers rather than considering their replacement by Arleigh Burke Flight III.
THEUS Navy launched the Cruiser Modernization program in 2014 which was broken down into two main actions. The first was to maintain 11 cruisers in the operational cycle so that each carrier strike groups can have one. The other 11 cruisers benefit from Cruiser Modernization program with, among other things, the system AEGIS brought to standard AEGIS Baseline 9 (implementation of SM-6, engagement of targets spotted by other platforms via data links). As of 2020, the 11 Ticonderoga modernized ships will begin to replace the other 11 ships.
The cruisers to be modernized entered a four-year cycle but it was not until the modernization contract (average value of $150 million) was notified to a shipyard that the modernization work could be carried out. 7 of 11 Ticonderoga were actually injected into the Cruiser Modernization program, namely:
- 2015: CG-6 USS Cowpens (2018 contract), CG-64 USS Gettysburg (2018 contract);
- 2016: CG-6 USS Vicksburg (contract 2017), CG-65, USS chosin (2019 contract);
- 2017: CG-68 USS Anzio (contract 2017), CG-71 USS Cape St. George (2019 contract);
- 2019: CG-66 USS Hue City.
Congress had opposed the Navy since 2014. Parliamentarians added to the Cruiser Modernization program le 2-4-6 plan in 2015: two cruisers entering construction each year, work spread over four years and no more than six cruisers injected into the process at a time. This opposition focused on defending two important points for parliamentarians: not withdrawing cruisers from service. BMD "(Ballistic Missile Defense) in order to maintain in service the 34 platforms capable of these missions; forcing the US Navy to modernize the other 11 cruisers.
In 2019, no budgetary solution could be found to modernize the 11 cruisers not covered by the Cruiser Modernization program. So the disarmament schedule updated in 2019 is as follows:
- 2020: CG-53 USS Mobile Bay, CG-52 USS Bunker Hill ;
- 2021: CG-54 USS Antietam, CG-55 USS Leyte Gulf ;
- 2022: CG-56 USS San Jacinto, CG-57 USS Lake Champlain ;
- 2024: CG-58 USS Philippine Sea, CG-59 USS Princeton ;
- 2025: CG-60 USS N, CG-61 USS Monterey ;
- 2026: CG-62 USS Chancellorsville.
In March 2019, theUS Navy asked Congress to abandon the modernization of 6 class cruisers Ticonderoga. The following compromise has apparently been found and endorsed by the budget for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20). The replacement of the 22 cruisers of style Ticonderoga will be provided by two distinct programs:
- Lesson 15 Ticonderoga decommissioned between 2020 and 2031 will therefore be replaced by 15 destroyers Arleigh Burke Flight III (DDG-125, DDG-126 and DDG-128 to DDG-138) which with their radar ADMR (SPY-6) will be platforms BMD.
The program Large Surface Fighter whose target is 61 units will ensure the succession of destroyers Arleigh Burke types Flight I (20) Flight II (7) Flight II 5/54 (2) Flight IIA 5/62 (4) et Flight IIA 5″/62 one 20mm CIWS (27) during the 2020s and 2030s. LSC will only be a modest improvement in Flight III and the US Navy does not classify them as either a destroyer or a cruiser according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which concludes that their displacement will be close to 10 tonnes (000 for one Ticonderoga, 9800 tonnes for one Flight III). The Navy hopes to order the first unit in 2025.
By what will the Ticonderoga modernized (7), to be disarmed between 2034 and 2037? The destroyers Arleigh Burke Flight IIA: Restart (4) et Flight IIA: Technology Integration (10) will need to be replaced at the end of the 2040s and during the 2050s. Two options remain: increase the target of the program Large Surface Fighter ; or study a new destroyer or cruiser by partially redesigning the program target LSC.