US NAVY U-TURN AS IT DECIDES TO SUPERSIZE LARGE SURFACE COMBATANT FORCE

摘要

The prioritizing of the new destroyer, currently called the DDG(Ⅹ), comes at a critical moment for the world's leading sea service. The US Navy (USN) is decommissioning its elderly Ticonderoga Class cruisers at an accelerating rate. At the same time it is about to buy the last of the Arleigh Burke Class destroyers, a type that after multiple upgrades no longer has any spare space, displacement or power. Unless the USN starts building new destroyers soon, the fleet's inventory of large surface combatants could begin declining (and fast.) This could occur at the same time the Chinese fleet is adding large surface combatants. The looming destroyer-and-cruiser gap could help to explain the sudden urgency in the USN to get the DDG(Ⅹ) into production and acquire potentially dozens of the type. "Naval planning for the 21st Century requires upgrades for the future fight," Captain David Hart, the DDG(Ⅹ) programme manager, wrote in a January briefing.