Quote:
Originally Posted by swaghauler
Thanks for saving me the trouble of looking those up.
Another factor to consider when comparing the navies is the Age of the fleet in question. A LARGE number of Soviet Era ships were "scrapped/salvaged" between 1998 and 2003. I can imagine a number of the Udaloys and Sovremennyys have the equivalent of an 8 Wear Value. The US fleet was much newer with the exception of the gas powered carriers (Wear of 7 or 8?) and the OHP Frigates. The Perry class was designed in 1975 with a service life of 20 years as a cost-cutting measure (most ships are designed for 40-50 years with a 20-year upgrade) and most of them were on the verge of needing an upgrade.
|
The Spruance class were also old by this point - the first of them was laid down in 1972 (ordered in 1970) and none remained in service more than 30 years (7 Perrys served between 31 and 34 years). The Spruances and Perrys were the "high/low" escorts in Zumwalt's fleet plan. By the early 90s, the Burkes were a badly needed upgrade. The four dead admirals (the Kidd-class) were more capable, particularly after the New Threat Upgrade allowed the Ticonderoga cruisers to take over Kidd-launched missiles in mid-flight, using the superior Aegis arrays to improve performance. Aegis was a big reason for the accelerated disposal of the cruisers and destroyers not of the Ticonderoga and Burke classes, since the newer ships were considered far more capable than even upgraded older ships.
For the Soviet ships, there are a few old ones that will still be around:
Admiral Golovko - a Kynda-class cruiser, commissioned in 1964 and serving as Black Sea Fleet flagship from 1995-1997.
Krasny Kavkaz - a Kashin-class destroyer, commissioned in 1967 and decommissioned in 1998. One of the modified Kashins with rear-firing Styx (SS-N-2) launchers.
If the Soviet Union slows the decommissioning of ships due to tensions, there were still three Skoryy-class destroyers on the books until 1994, the Besposchadnyy (commissioned 1951), Besshumnyy (also 1951), and Svobodny (1952).