What Happens If The U.S. Navy Can’t Fix The Fire-Damaged Assault Ship ‘Bonhomme Richard’?
By: David Axe - Forbes News - 07-27-20
Re:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax.../#2dbbce9512fd
As we already know a fire broke out on the U.S. Navy assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard while the vessel was pier-side at the Navy’s base in San Diego on July 12.
The fire burned for five days, possibly damaging the 844-foot-long amphibious ship beyond the possibility of economic repair. The implications for the Navy, and for Washington’s long-delayed strategic “pivot” toward the Asia-Pacific region, could be serious and long-lasting.
The fire likely has achieved what no foreign power has accomplished since 1945—destroying an American capital ship. In doing so, the blaze could reduce the Navy’s front-line combat power at a time when the U.S. fleet is facing stiffening competition from the Chinese navy.
The fire aboard Bonhomme Richard apparently began in a cargo hold. The 22-year-old ship at the time was in the midst of a planned, $250-million upgrade that included enhancements for supporting F-35B Lightning II stealth jump jets. Before they can embark F-35Bs, older assault ships require reinforcement of their flight decks, among other improvements.
Temperatures inside Bonhomme Richard reached 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit during the five-day blaze, collapsing the superstructure and warping the deck and hull. “There is fire and water damage, to varying degrees, on 11 of 14 decks,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday wrote in a letter to the service’s senior leaders.
In the weeks following the blaze, the Navy quickly awarded National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego a $10-million modification to the company’s existing contract to upgrade Bonhomme Richard.
The extra millions are to pay for clean-up from the conflagration. “We're absolutely going to make sure it sails again," Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, said of Bonhomme Richard while the fire still burned.
But the NASSCO contract—and Sobeck’s pledge—don’t mean the Navy plans to repair Bonhomme Richard and return her to service. Several American warships in recent years have suffered major accidents. Not all returned to the fleet.
In 2017 the U.S. Pacific Fleet destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain both were involved in collisions that killed 17 sailors, combined. The Navy spent billions repairing the destroyers.
Fitzgerald, her repairs finally complete, was moored near Bonhomme Richard during the fire and might have suffered some smoke damage before crews towed her away from the burning assault ship.
The service deemed Fitzgerald and McCain, respectively 26 and 25 years old, worth repairing. But it reached a different decision when the attack submarine USS Miami burned at a shipyard in Maine in 2012. The Navy estimated it would cost around $450 million to repair the then-12-year-old Miami, and decommissioned her, instead.
The damage to the Bonhomme Richard surely will cost more than $450 million to repair. Navy officials have just begun investigating the fire and likely won’t make a decision about the assault ship’s future until a detailed assessment is complete.
Even if the Navy repairs Bonhomme Richard, the ship will be out of service for years, reducing the fleet’s seaworthy assault ships from 10 to nine. Leaving aside Bonhomme Richard, the assault ships now include seven Wasp-class vessels and two America-class vessels. The most recent ship in the latter class, USS Tripoli, commissioned in mid-July.
The reduction has implications for the Navy’s amphibious ready groups and its new “light carrier” or “Lightning carrier” concept. An amphibious group usually sails with one Wasp or America. To prevent a gap in amphibious deployments, the Navy likely will have to accelerate or delay shipyard maintenance for an existing assault ship.
Besides costing potentially tens of millions of dollars, the changes to the yard schedule could increase wear and tear on existing ships, hastening their own decommissioning.
The Pentagon’s regional commanders also will have less naval air power at their disposal as a consequence of the Bonhomme Richard blaze. Not counting Bonhomme Richard, the Navy so far has modified five Wasps to carry F-35s. The two newer America-class vessels came out of the shipyard ready to support the jump jets.
The Navy increasingly has deployed the modified assault ships as light carriers by embarking a dozen or more F-35s in place of the usual rotorcraft. Many Pentagon leaders, notably including Defense Secretary Mark Esper, have argued for light carriers as a cost-effective alternative to nuclear-powered supercarriers.
The latest Ford-class supercarriers cost $13 billion apiece, more than three times what an America-class ship costs.
At the very least, Bonhomme Richard’s fire slows the momentum of the light-carrier concept. The implications are the most serious in the Asia-Pacific region. When it comes to F-35Bs and their compatible assault ships, the Navy has placed a priority on the Pacific Fleet.
Both of the assault ships that in recent years have embarked large numbers of F-35s for front-line deployments—Wasp and America—sailed from Japan or San Diego, although Wasp later shifted to the Atlantic Fleet. Tripoli will sail from San Diego.
Navy planners’ reasoning is clear. Assault ships embarking F-35s are a key capability for confronting a growing, and increasingly aggressive, Chinese fleet. "China has moved out to sea, and they have long-range weapons and a lot of them," U.S. Marine Corps commandant Gen. David Berger said in February. "Those two things have changed the game."
To thwart Chinese planning, Berger called for the U.S. fleet to spread its combat power across a greater number of vessels, which themselves should spread out across a greater expanse of sea. "I'm in favor of things like the Lightning-carrier concept because I believe we need to tactically and operationally be ... unpredictable," Berger said.
Losing Bonhomme Richard, even for just a few years, decreases the Navy’s options—and limits how unpredictable the fleet can be in deploying air power across the Pacific. “This is a big hit in the Navy’s deployment plan over the next 10 years,” Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain who is now an analyst with the Virginia-based Telemus Group, told Defense News. “Obviously we can’t just wave a magic wand and create another one.”
Eventually to replace Bonhomme Richard, the Navy could accelerate acquisition of new America-class vessels, but that too would take years and cost billions of dollars. Just one U.S. shipyard, Huntington-Ingalls in Pascagoula, Mississippi, builds the aviation-optimized America class.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** NOTE: But the White House actually has slowed assault-ship construction. In early 2020 the administration of Pres. Donald Trump diverted $650 million from construction of the third America, in order to pay for a few miles of the administration’s wall on the southern U.S. border.