The San Diego Union-Tribune August 31, 2004
Valley Forge takes its place in history
By James W. Crawley
The sun set literally and figuratively yesterday on the Valley Forge as the Navy decommissioned the 18-year-old guided missile cruiser.
In a ceremony at dusk, the 384-member crew marched off the ship at the San Diego Naval Station. With that, the Valley Forge became the first ship with the Aegis radar system to be retired.
It was one more step in the Navy's plan to replace older, less-capable ships with newer, more versatile ones that cost less to staff and operate.
Newer ships, such as the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers being built and the next generation of surface ships, will replace older cruisers. The Navy also is downsizing its ranks to save money to pay for new ships.
"The Navy just doesn't have the money and the people to keep all the candles lit at the same time," said Eric Wertheim, author of the upcoming "Combat Fleets of the World."
A defense analyst, John Pike, said the Navy has decommissioned many "low-mileage ships," although the Valley Forge "may be an extreme example."
Older cruisers, like Valley Forge, can handle air and cruise missile threats, but it can't launch long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.
"We need ships that do everything," Wertheim said, "and these ships no longer do everything."
Valley Forge cost about $1 billion to build and joined the fleet in January 1986 during the Reagan Administration's 600-ship build-up of the Navy.
Since then, the Valley Forge has been deployed eight times to the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf. It participated in the Persian Gulf War and operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
The ship also was deployed on five counter-narcotics missions, each lasting from one to six months.
On its final cruise, which ended June 25, the cruiser confiscated 7 tons of cocaine and apprehended 21 suspected traffickers off South and Central America.
"The impact this crew made on the war against drugs can never be measured," said Cmdr. Patrick Rabun, the Valley Forge's last commanding officer.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the ship became the first West Coast warship to set up a radar picket off Southern California to stand watch for potential terrorists.
Air defense was the foundation of Valley Forge's naval career.
The fourth vessel of the Ticonderoga class, Valley Forge was designed to protect aircraft carriers from Soviet cruise missile attacks.
Using the same hull and power plant of the older Spruance-class destroyers, the cruisers' superstructure was redesigned to mount the Aegis combat system, a radar system that can detect enemy aircraft and missiles. The ship fires anti-air missiles.
However, the first five cruisers, including the Valley Forge, were built with less-capable twin-armed missile launchers that were replaced by a vertical launch system in the last 22 cruisers built in the series.
Unlike the newer cruisers, the older launchers can't fire long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles. Nor are the older warships capable of firing missiles the Navy is developing to down ballistic missiles.
Those inabilities relegated the early Ticonderogas to maritime interdiction and counter-drug roles in recent years.
"The Navy has made a decision to move to an all (vertical launch system) fleet," said Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an independent think tank in Alexandria, Va.
Besides the older Ticonderogas, the Navy has scrapped Spruance destroyers with twin-arm mechanical missile launchers and has removed launchers from frigates.
The Navy has decided it would have been too costly to maintain and modernize the veteran ships, so Valley Forge and four other cruisers - Ticonderoga, Yorktown, Vincennes and Thomas S. Gates - will be decommissioned in the next two years.
The Valley Forge will be towed to Pearl Harbor, where it probably will be designated as scrap and, possibly, sunk in a future naval exercise, said Lt. Cmdr. Pat McNally, a Navy spokesman.
© Copyright 2004, The San Diego Union-Tribune
