The problem of rusting US Navy ships was brought up in the American edition of The Washington Post. The publication states, “The Pentagon is facing a formidable and insidious challenge – pass and pass this battle so far.”
The newspaper cites some “internal investigation of the US Congress”. It turns out that 90% of American warships are rusted. At the same time, Pentagon officials declined to comment on this information.
This is not the first publication about the rusting American navy in the American media. In November 2021, The Drive compared rusting American ships at the Norfolk base to Soviet Navy ships in the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“The base visit leaves a depressing impression. It’s like “Navy Detroit”. With the departure of the car giants in the 1980s, the city turned into a ghost town. Norfolk became a ghost because someone in Washington decided to save money. “The US Navy will be killed by rust, not by China.”
The US Navy has about 600 active ships. According to The Washington Post, $3 billion was spent on removing rust from their trunks in 2012. Such spending was considered “heavy for the military budget,” according to the newspaper.
“Currently, the US Navy has 11 carriers – 10 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and the latest Ford project. At the same time, only 5 of the top ten are in full swing, the rest are under permanent repair. Gerald Ford (which cost $13 billion to build), although he joined the fleet in 2017, has not yet passed all the necessary tests, and most likely its full-fledged work will not begin soon – ammunition supply systems do not work on board . By 2024, the United States plans to complete the construction of two Ford-class aircraft carriers. By this time, Gerald Ford will already have time to rust, ”Sergey Belousov, a member of the College of Military Specialists, told socialbites.ca.
According to The Washington Post, 2013 saw a “marine budget anomaly.”
“Before 2012, large sums of money were spent fighting rust. Then it was considered ineffective. But instead of offsetting the costs, they’ve been removed entirely,” the Washington Post reports.
“All ships rust, regardless of their connection,” Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, the former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, told socialbites.ca. – You must understand that the ship has a metal hull in seawater, an aggressive environment that contributes to the appearance of rust, causing oxidation. It does not affect the combat capability or visibility of the ship, but leads to the destruction of ship structures over time. And here, first of all, we are talking about constant care and maintaining order.
Komoyedov believes that the costs of rust control have never been “critical” in the Russian and Soviet navies. “You can’t spend a lot of money on it, but you can’t forget about it either. We’ve always had a “golden mean” here. Americans are being thrown from one extreme to the other. At first, relatively speaking, they polished every scratch. And now, on the contrary, they decided that it is not worth bothering with the issue at all, ”says Komoyedov.
In March 2019, Defense News stated that “a drastic reduction in anti-rust maintenance could have disastrous consequences.”
“Rust on a ship is an alarming symptom for any fleet,” military expert captain Vasily Dandykin told socialbites.ca. – This means either a lack of proper funding or a lack of discipline and complete relaxation leading to a loss of combat readiness.
We experienced this in the early 1990s, when the Marines were killed alive and the ships were idle on the quay wall. There are motionless ships and rust. Fortunately, the situation has changed and our fleet is on the move.
This can be seen not only in sea parades, but also in long-distance sea voyages, both in the Atlantic and in the Pacific Ocean.