Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
What I find even MORE interesting is that roughly 60-70% of the US naval strength was of 1940's and 50's vintage with upgrades consisting of little more than the addition of a newer radar and fire control systems and often replacement of a gun turret with a missile system of some type.
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Yep, that was President Reagan & Navy Secretary John Lehman's biggest lever: the fleet was really aging, and many ships needed replacements. Nearly all of those postwar DDs were replaced by
Spruance-class DDG and
Perry-class FFG by the '90s. And the
Spruances are being replaced by the
Burkes, just much more slowly.
Their second biggest lever was that same Soviet build-up.
Edit: by "lever," I mean argument to get funding for new ships, of course.