07-29-2006, 12:51 AM
Quote:Mothball does not mean they're not commissioned, it means they are sitting at pier in status of where they can be quickly called up to duty if needed (minor maintenance throughout the ship to bring it up to speed). I don't doubt that we have that many CVNs commissioned, I'm talking about in actual operations (one of the big things during Afghanistan was the fact that one of the carriers was stuck at sea longer than normal because 2 of the Pacific Carriers were in for maintenance and it was than that I heard that there were 7 CVNs in operation, including those in port for maintenance).
"Mothball" is a term reserved for a ship that is sitting at the pier rusting, not one that is in either a maintenance availability, in a pierside ready surge status, or working up to deployment (training period where the battle group and the carrier's embarked airwing work together before deploying). Calling one of our current commissioned aircraft carriers "mothballed" would get a few sailors' ire.;)
Around PG1 we actually had 15 carriers commissioned--that ~used to be the number stated as the requirement needed to meet the DoD warfighting requirements. That number has dropped to 12 since around 1996. Part of that is due to the cost of keeping 15 carriers around, but more of it is due to the cost of having 15 airwings--the Navy's running about 10ish now, IIRC. Been a few since I was actively working with the air planners, so I may be off by one or two airwings.
And during DS1, six carrier battle groups were deployed in the Persian Gulf/Red Sea.