Why so many Carriers at home ports and not deployed?

I was noticing that the US has 9 of it's 11 carriers sitting in home ports. This seems to me like a lot of our boats are idle right now. With Syria and Iran and Turkey heating up is seems unwise to have so many boats at home and not deployed. Basically one in the Sea of Japan and one close to the middle east is it right now. It seems prudent to have 2 near Japan and Korea and 2 near the Straits of Hormuz. That still leaves 7 carriers resting at home port.

originally posted by: machineintelligence
I was noticing that the US has 9 of it's 11 carriers sitting in home ports. This seems to me like a lot of our boats are idle right now. With Syria and Iran and Turkey heating up is seems unwise to have so many boats at home and not deployed. Basically one in the Sea of Japan and one close to the middle east is it right now. It seems prudent to have 2 near Japan and Korea and 2 near the Straits of Hormuz. That still leaves 7 carriers resting at home port.

Logistics and so on. Also, if you are upset somehow about it, the longer a carrier is in port it would seem that more money is being saved. It's amazing the resources that are needed to support a carrier group out at sea.

a reply to: machineintelligence

Because they're years behind on required maintenance schedules. They kept deferring their maintenance to keep the ops tempo up, and pushed them to the point they can't deploy anymore until they finish maintenance. And those maintenance periods aren't exactly short.

Washington just returned to the water, but still has two years left in her RCOH.
Stennis is preparing for RCOH.
Nimitz is in post maintenance trials, and needs a lot of work up time.
Eisenhower is preparing to deploy
Vinson is in a 15 month maintenance period that started in February.
Roosevelt is in work ups.
Lincoln is deployed.
Truman suffered a major engineering casualty during her COMPTUEX.
Reagan is deployed.
Bush is in DPIA.

a reply to: Fools Certainly not upset about it but am curious as to why have so many ships and not deploy them in times of such political tension is all?

a reply to: Zaphod58

So mostly maintenance issues. Got it.

originally posted by: machineintelligence
a reply to: Fools Certainly not upset about it but am curious as to why have so many ships and not deploy them in times of such political tension is all?

TO be honest, there really isn't that much political tension in a military sense with the exception of China. And even then, in a Naval sense, at this moment there is nothing to stress about. Future stress, possibly, current stress, not really - its all clickbait and previous weak Naval policy.

Nothing to be concerned with. We have about 11 fleet battle groups. Who has more than one. I keep trying to explain to people that nobody on this planet, even combined with everyone else, they can't match the US naval force.

Not only that, the US is the only country to attempt sorties at night last time I checked. They can run operations 24-7 if they wanted. NOBODY can do that on this planet. The US is not losing any naval battle anytime soon rest assured. It's actually a joke other countries have a carrier. One of theirs is no way comparable to a US carrier.

a reply to: machineintelligence

This is what happens when you keep pushing maintenance off. Maintenance was delayed due to OPS and unwillingness to spend the money to do it, so now there is a huge backlog.

a reply to: machineintelligence

I'm sure they were paid for in the name of DEFENCE. What's the problem? Not enough WAR for ya?

The USN's infrastructure is a mess and the backlog of maintenance is effecting all of the fleet

Between 2008 and 2018, attack submarines undergoing heavy maintenance experienced a combined total of more than 8,470 days of delays – equivalent to more than 23 years of total operational time lost. Boats in the aging Los Angeles-class, the Navy’s primary attack submarine type at present, alone accounted for more than 6,280 of those days.

On top of that, attack submarines spent nearly 1,900 days – more than five years of total time – simply sitting idle in port, waiting to begin maintenance availabilities. www.thedrive.com...

The sequester was and will continue to have ripple effects as well

a reply to: FredT

Eisenhower went into yard hands in August 2017, for a six month PIA, and came out this year. Her previous 14 month PIA ran to 24.

originally posted by: nerbot
a reply to: machineintelligence

I'm sure they were paid for in the name of DEFENCE. What's the problem? Not enough WAR for ya?

War is to be avoided but the war machine is there for the purpose of detouring the potential adversaries from hostile actions.

Point is it seems like a Pearl Harbor scenario x10......ducks just sitting everywhere....overly confident...or maybe this scenario or dynamic is ON PURPOSE...mmmmmm….like maybe Pearl was a sitting duck on purpose to???...mmmmmmmm.

a reply to: one4all

There is currently no one with the capability to launch a conventional attack on that scale, over that distance. Russia is still rebuilding and relearning some of the capabilities they'd need to do it, unless they wanted to launch ballistic missiles and take a chance.

China doesn't have the ability currently to hit the US mainland, unless they want to launch a missile attack and take the risk.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Not to be a negative Nelly....but a well co-ordinated Drone attack or simply using Planes again in 7 different locations....or possibly setting up some localised EMPs that would fry the innards of the big ships while they are all close enough to land to git er done are just some ways we could see things get sticky.

I agree with you about the distance and logistics....and the improbability.....but its still un-nerving to see the ducks in a row no matter the circumstances.

originally posted by: one4all
….like maybe Pearl was a sitting duck on purpose to???...mmmmmmmm.

Agreed. It was terrible how the carriers were just left sitting in Pearl so the Japanese could bomb them.

a reply to: one4all

Emp would not work on a carrier. They are a giant faraday cage and as far as drones it would take hundreds not likely to happen over US territory.

Even a sub is useless if they got one that far which is highly unlikely if not impossible. There is no safer place those carriers could be.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Those old outdated carriers that were very quickly repaired?

Oh wait, the carriers left Pearl earlier and were out at sea during the attack. Of the 100 ships in port only 3 were not repaired. Oklahoma and Utah were considered too obsolete and the Arizona to be too badly damaged.

The Lexington was on its way to Midway and the Enterprise was due in that afternoon returning from Wake Island. Enterprise actually was close enough that it launched planes that intercepted Japanese Fighters that morning during the attack. The Saratoga was in San Diego waiting on transfer orders to Pearl having recently completed repairs in Washington.

a reply to: machineintelligence

Most of this tension either does not require a carrier, orca carrier would only make it worse.

If you put a carrier off of the Turkish coast you'd only make things more tense. The same with Iran, China and North korea. Those three nations see a show of force as a challenge to be overcome.

Imagine what would happen if a foreign carrier were to be stationed off of new york. It would be seen as a threat and be met as such. Tensions would sit rocket.

a reply to: one4all

Those wouldn't work again. Military bases are fielding drone countermeasures of various sorts, and the carriers are spread over such a large area that one aircraft couldn't do major damage to the fleet. Yes, losing one or two would hurt like hell, but carriers are really really hard to kill, so there's a good chance that even if they were hit, they could be repaired and returned to service.