Destroyers, LSDs to undergo inspections - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Destroyers, LSDs to undergo inspections

The head of the Navy’s surface forces has ordered technical inspections of dozens of warships to see “exactly what their lifespan is” through assessments of their material readiness.

First up are Harper’s Ferry and Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships, said Vice Adm. D.C. Curtis, and followed by Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

The Navy’s steam-powered gators are getting old, Curtis told Navy Times. “We may think a ship is 14 years old,” he said, but with a high operational tempo, “is it really 17 years old?”

Under the Naval Surface Force pilot program, inspectors from Naval Sea Systems Command and the Board of Inspection and Survey will assess the warships’ readiness and expected lifespan. The Navy’s goal of reaching a minimum 313-ship fleet means that every ship has to serve as long as possible, Curtis said, and to plan accordingly, he wants the best information he can get about the condition of the force.

Curtis said there wasn’t a specific ship or inspection that led him to ask for joint NavSea and InSurv inspections, although his announcement came less than a week after the firings of the captain and executive officer of the Japan-based dock landing ship Tortuga.

On Tuesday, he spoke at the Surface Navy Association’s national symposium outside Washington in a talk that emphasized the importance of material readiness. He plans to create a “surface ship life-cycle maintenance activity” to look at readiness across the fleet.

“We want to make sure our ships are ready to go to the playoffs,” Curtis said, comparing them to the ongoing NFL postseason, “that they’re blocking and tackling correctly.”

Curtis has spent the last year working to get SurFor “back to basics,” after a series of embarrassments in early 2008 that included failed inspections for two Aegis warships and a disappointing visit by Curtis to the San Diego waterfront. Since then he has increased the amount of live-fire training for surface sailors; reinstituted waterfront instruction for freshly minted surface warfare officers; and called for computer instruction to give way to more hands-on training.

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