Navy Links
 

For Those wondering about what ships are in storage

US Ship Force Levels 1886-present

https://www.history.navy.mil/researc...vels.html#1993

National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF), 1945-2000

https://www.bts.gov/archive/publicat...02/table_05_05

National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) Vessel Inventory Reports since July 1990

https://cms7.marad.dot.gov/data-repo...orts-july-1990

Navy’s 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan to Congress for Fiscal Year 2016

https://news.usni.org/2015/04/03/doc...scal-year-2016

The NATO sealift ship list circa approx. 1982-4:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18ig...ew?usp=sharing

US Naval Aircraft Allocations and Locations from the 1980s:
https://www.history.navy.mil/researc...1980-1988.html

Keep in mind too that a lot of ships that got put in the boneyard or storage yard may not have been put there in V1 where the Cold War never ended. One reason for the big draw down was the Cold War ending.

Example

USS Salem

The ship was surveyed in 1981 for possible reactivation as part of the 600 ship navy project, and while the inspection results showed she was in excellent condition, funding to reactivate Salem and her sister Des Moines could not be secured from Congress.

Given the Cold War not ending there is every chance she got reactivated prior to the Twilight War (both were reactivated for sure at the very least during the war) and Newport News might not have been scrapped in 1993

Or for that matter the last light cruiser the USS Oklahoma City that was expended as a target in 1999 but would have definitely been back in the Navy if possible with the Twilight War, especially after the losses the USN took

Good point, but some of the older vessels on the rolls would likely have been retired nonetheless. What would be really helpful is a gov't document from pre-'89 or '90 where the USN forecast which vessels it was planning on retiring in the near future. Vessels on that list probably would have been decommissioned (or transferred, sold, mothballed, scrapped, or used as targets) before the Twilight War started.

Once the Soviet Union invaded China, I reckon the Pentagon would probably postpone any ship retirement plans (and, once the USA is at war, reactivate any vessels it was practical to do so).

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I think that the funding that was needed may have been approved with an expansionist Soviet Union especially once they invaded China - would have time for throw buckets of money at the military time.

Thats similar to the issue with the M8 AGS - cancelled in our time line because they needed the money to support ops in Kosovo.

But in V1 and V2.2 - 100% percent going into production once the Soviets went into China

Would the Salem be turned into a missile cruiser ore be kept as a gun cruiser.

Always wondered if the modernization would have added Tomahawk's and Harpoon missiles like they did to the Iowa's

Would that fit on the Salem.

Wow. I don't know how often the film is shown in other countries but 'The Battle of The River Plate' is on TV a lot here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Salem_(CA-139)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ba...er_Plate_(film)

@Brit: I lived in Montevideo, Uruguay from 1990-'93. You could still see one of the Graf Spee's masts protruding above the river surface from the harbor. Don't know if that's still the case. IIRC, one of its main guns is on display at the Uruguayan naval museum (yeah, that's a thing).

If the USN brought it back into active service (very likely, IMHO), I think the Salem would definitely have been fitted with Harpoons, at least (assuming there were still SSMs in US stockpiles by the time the refitting was completed). As Lordroi pointed out, there might not be enough room on board for the larger Tomahawks (without removing one of the gun batteries).

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I suspect that they were retrofitted but with less of them than the Iowa's had -but that by 2001 any she was equipped with would have been fired - or maybe just one or two "magic bullets" left

FYI that is the reason my GM changed the weapons in the Last Submarine from torpedoes to harpoons and tomahawks - i.e. by 2001 there would be hardly any left whereas the Navy most likely had enough torpedoes for a full weapons load out still around - though some may have been older "dumb torps" instead of guided torps

I was able to get to my deep file storage last night and found some of those documents you mentioned above. They are not pristine since I jotted notes on them back in the day! It looks like they only put out a five-year plan, so what the mid-late 90s would have looked like in a continued Cold War will need more digging.

The FY 88-92 shipbuilding plan is here.
The FY 87 aircraft procurement plan is here.
A list from the early-mid 90s of ships that the Navy still had but had identified for disposal is here. A lot of interesting ships on there that you wouldn't be aware of otherwise!

it shows just how many ships could have been brought back from the boneyard for sure - including a decent amount of subs and DDG's - and didnt know there were some old Fletchers and Gearings in the US inventory

And you can see some of the ships in the disposal list that the USN took out of mothballs that show up in the East Africa Sourcebook

The Spiegel Grove and the Richard S. Edwards were both brought out of the graveyard to serve again as was the Preble.