A Gathering of Burkes Sails East
a busy two weeks
While prepping for an interview later today (details to follow on X when appropriate), I noticed the details of something I only caught in passing the last couple of weeks.
“The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, USS Laboon (DDG 58), transits the Strait of Gibraltar and enters the Mediterranean Sea to conduct operations in the U.S. Sixth Fleet area of operations, Dec. 11, 2023.” Laboon is stationed at Norfolk.
“The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), currently assigned to the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (GRFCSG), arrived in Souda Bay, Crete, for a regularly scheduled port visit December 10, 2023.” Burke is based in Rota, Spain. (NB: Probably she or one of the others is a functional replacement for the USS Ramage (DDG 61) that was part of the FORD CSG but returned to her homeport on December 4th after a 214-day deployment. The FORD CSG has been deployed since May. The cruiser Normandy and the DDG’s Carney, Hudner, and Roosevelt remain deployed with the Ford).
“The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, USS Delbert D. Black (DDG 119), transits the Strait of Gibraltar and enters the Mediterranean Sea to conduct operations in the U.S. Sixth Fleet area of operations, Dec. 14, 2023.” She just got back from a 8-month deployment in April. Homeported in Mayport.
“The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, USS The Sullivans (DDG 68), transited the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean Sea to conduct operations in the U.S. Sixth Fleet area of operations, Dec. 17, 2023.“ She just returned from a 4-month deployment in February 2023. Homeported in Mayport.
Don’t forget, there are other of our “indigenous” Burke’s homeported in Rota, Spain about as well;
“USS Bulkeley (DDG 84), a part of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (GRFCSG), arrived in Piraeus, Greece, for a regularly scheduled port visit December 8, 2023.”
There are others about … but quite the surge. It will be interesting to see what our NATO allies will be surging to match. If you know a good tracking site, please let us know in comments.
A final note. Remembering the abuse we gave our wonderful Spruance Class destroyers, remember this from 2018?
The Navy will keep every one of its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in service for 45 years, extending the life of the entire class. The move allows the Navy to reach a 355-ship fleet by 2036 or 2037, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems said on Thursday.
I hope we are watching maintenance…
Lets hope the USG is ready to pay for all of this. Even a 5 inch round is expensive; $482 for a BL&P up to $1900 for more expensive rounds, to say nothing of the cost of an SM-2 (about $2m a round.) Of course, there will be a lot of downstream maintenance costs on all of these ships for deploying out of synch with plans that could be again deferred with predictable, poor outcomes.
We have a less than 300 ship navy in what is still a 600-ship Navy world.
Two thoughts. The first is the Navy should be proud of the fact that the DDG-51 class destroyers have been updated so they can operate in an environment that was not forseen in 1990.
The second thought is the Joint Force Commander should consider an attack operations course of action against the Houthis launch vehicles. From the number of weapons they are shooting into the Red Sea it seems to me that we will run out of multimillion dollar SAMs before they run out of their lower cost cruise and ballistic missiles.