The decommissioning ceremony of the USS Mobile Bay (CG-53), a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, took place on August 10, 2023, at Naval Base San Diego, the second-largest surface ship base in the United States Navy and the principal homeport for the Pacific Fleet.
Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener, commander, Naval Surface Forces served as the ceremony’s guest speaker and wished the current crew fair winds and following seas as they bid farewell to their ship. Commanded by Capt. Brandon J. Burkett, Mobile Bay maintained a crew of 30 officers and 300 enlisted members. Burkett, the last commanding officer of the ship, concluded its address to the crew stating “Those who’ve gone to sea know that a ship is more than a machine that floats. When you are away from home for months on end your ship becomes your home and your protection. We take care of her and she takes care of us. Simply put, she becomes family. It has been an honor to serve with my crew on this exemplary warship.”
USS Mobile Bay was built by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi and commissioned on February 21, 1987, at Alabama State Docks in Mobile, Alabama. The ship was the first named after and in honor of the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864, one of the most important battles in the American Civil War and Union’s victories. The famous naval battle was fought between Union forces under the command of Adm. David Farragut and Confederate forces under Adm. Franklin Buchanan. The ship’s motto, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” is based on Adm. Farragut’s famous command issued during the battle and typifies the Admiral’s key to success in war, straight thinking and determined action.
Mobile Bay will be inactivated and towed to the Navy’s Inactive Ship’s facility in Bremerton, Washington where she will be in a Logistic Support Asset (LSA) status. Inactive ships labelled as assets serve as a reserve that can be reactivated in future if the need arises. Mobile Bay becomes the 11th cruiser retired by the US Navy, out of a total of 27 units constructed in the Ticonderoga class. Prior to her decommissioning, she held the distinction of being the second oldest cruiser in active service, following the USS Bunker Hill (CG-52), which has been in commission since September 20, 1986, and is also anticipated to retire in 2023. She was the seventh ship in the Ticonderoga-class and the second ship in the class after USS Bunker Hill equipped with the Mk41 VLS. During its service, the ship received numerous alterations, and modifications that updated and improved her military and technical capabilities. Mobile Bay was the first cruiser to upgrade from the AEGIS Baseline 8 Combat System to the updated AEGIS Baseline 9 Combat System.
At the time, AEGIS Baseline 9 was the most advanced integrated combat system in the world enabling Mobile Bay to employ the SM-6 missile, conduct Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA), and employ the latest AEGIS Weapons Systems capabilities against air and missile threats. The ship tested the new combat systems update during a live-fire missile exercise off the coast of Southern California in 2017. One SM-2 missile engagement was accomplished using only the SPQ-9 radar system, a first in U.S. Naval history.
Prior to that, the ship had received an extensive modernization in 2010 where she received an upgrade to the AEGIS Baseline 8 Combat System as a key aspect of a cruiser modernization endeavor. This comprehensive modernization initiative encompassed significant enhancements to the ship’s structural, mechanical and electrical elements. Among the notable improvements, the legacy AEGIS Weapons System computing suite was extracted and substituted with commercially available off-the-shelf hardware, referred to as Technical Insertion-08. This transformation not only modernized the weapons system but also transitioned it into an open architecture environment. She was the second ship in the US Navy to undergo such extensive upgrades. About ten years earlier, in 2001, she had completed a 7-month Extended Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability (E-DSRA) at NASSCO shipyard in San Diego.
The end of an era
The Ticonderoga-class is one of the world’s most advanced classes of warships. They are multi-mission (Air Warfare, Undersea Warfare, Naval Surface Fire Support and Surface Warfare) surface combatants capable of supporting carrier strike groups (in air warfare commander role), amphibious forces, or of operating independently and as flagships of surface action groups. With a length of 173 meters, full load displacement of almost 10,000 tons and an impressive armament consisting of 122-cell Mk41 VLS for a mix of weapons (Standard Missiles and ESSM SAM, VL ASROC, Tomahawk LACM), two 5 inch guns, two Phalanx CIWS, two triple torpedo launchers, eight Harpoon SSM and two 25mm RWS, as well as the capability to carry two Seahawk helicopters, in combination with a wide array of sophisticated sensors and electronics, these ships are some the most powerful surface combatants in the US Navy today. However their operational life comes to an end as they are reaching their expected service life (ESL). Ticonderogas are being phased out in favor of the newer Arleigh Burke-class (Flight III) destroyers with the most advanced electronics available (less weapons on board however in comparison with a Ticonderoga-class cruiser), “the best warships in history” according to the former Naval Surface Force Atlantic commander Rear Admiral Brendan McLane.
According to the former U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Michael M. Gilday, “Tico cruisers” are being phased out due to the high cost to own and operate these vessels, the low reliability due to their age, and the reduced lethality as some of their systems are approaching obsolescence. Regarding the modernization efforts he had stated that “The cost alone for cruiser modernization is running tens of millions of dollars above what we originally estimated largely due to the unknowns related to hulls that are over three decades old.” Gilday referred to the fact that cruisers are having to pull into ports while on deployment for structural repairs (water leaking into the main engine room or berthing areas below the water line, ongoing cracks in fuel tanks, etc.). The U.S. Navy believes that the money saved from the divestment of the seven Ticonderoga-class cruisers will go towards funding modernization programs and new shipbuilding efforts.
In April 2022, the Navy, with its “Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2023” requested to retire all 17 remaining cruisers by the end of Fiscal Year 2027. The Department of the Navy’s assessment is the Department is better supported by investing in warfighting readiness, capabilities or capacity other than those of these legacy platforms. Cruisers have been the Navy’s premier air defense command and control platforms for over three decades and this mission is now transitioning to Flight III destroyers. Cruisers on average are 35 years old and there would be little return on investment in maintaining these ships given their poor reliability, affordability, and lethality. The ships have a large vertical launch capacity; however, the substantial cost of repairing the poor material condition of these ships due to their age, and ongoing concerns with overall legacy sensor, and HM&E system reliability, outweighs the potential warfighting contributions of these platforms over their limited remaining service life.
