U.S. Navy struggling to maintain ships

Michael Fabey, from Aviation Week, reports on the deteriorating health of some our Navy’s ships, mostly due to budget cut backs tied with our involvement overseas.

“As conflicts were heating up in the latter years of the previous decade, the Navy shifted its funding focus from ship repair to buying items like helicopter components or combat vehicles.”

Now, as budgets tighten all across the board, the U.S. Navy needs to come up with ‘billions of dollars’ in order to keep their ships from sinking. Literally. Coming directly from the February 2010 Fleet Review Panel study- “The material readiness of the surface force is well below acceptable levels to support reliable, sustained operations at sea and preserve ships to their full service life expectancy”.