https://sputnikglobe.com/20260315/us-navy-delays-retirement-of-uss-nimitz-amid-carrier-fleet-crunch-1123827338.html
US Navy Delays Retirement of USS Nimitz Amid Carrier Fleet Crunch
US Navy Delays Retirement of USS Nimitz Amid Carrier Fleet Crunch
Sputnik International
As the US continues its aggression against Iran, its own Navy scrambles to maintain its legally mandated 11 operational aircraft carriers, according to ISNI News.
2026-03-15T08:54+0000
2026-03-15T08:54+0000
2026-03-15T08:54+0000
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Faced with long-duration deployments, maintenance backlogs, and an aging fleet, the US Navy has decided to keep the aging USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in service about 10 months longer than planned. The carrier’s mothballing has been pushed to March 2027, the news service of the Naval Institute revealed. To prepare for Nimitz’s eventual retirement, the Navy has already issued a $96 million contract to Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding for planning and materials related to the ship’s nuclear defueling and inactivation. The USS Nimitz will first take part in exercises under United States Southern Command, before heading to its new homeport at Naval Station Norfolk, where preparations will begin for nuclear defueling and eventual decommissioning. The decision to postpone the retirement of the nearly five-decade-old carrier follows delays in the delivery of the new USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), a next-generation Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier still under construction. Years of maintenance backlogs and aging hulls have left the US carrier fleet stretched thin, with a looming “carrier crunch,” according to analysts cited by 19FortyFive.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20260313/us-navy-may-escort-ships-in-strait-of-hormuz-as-part-of-international-coalition---bessent-1123816833.html
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US Navy Delays Retirement of USS Nimitz Amid Carrier Fleet Crunch
As the US continues its aggression against Iran, its own Navy scrambles to maintain its legally mandated 11 operational aircraft carriers, according to ISNI News.
Faced with long-duration deployments, maintenance backlogs, and an aging fleet, the US Navy has decided to keep the aging USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in service about 10 months longer than planned.
The carrier’s mothballing has been pushed to March 2027, the news service of the Naval Institute revealed.
To prepare for Nimitz’s eventual retirement, the Navy has already issued a $96 million contract to Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding for planning and materials related to the ship’s nuclear defueling and inactivation.
The USS Nimitz will first take part in exercises under United States Southern Command, before heading to its new homeport at Naval Station Norfolk, where preparations will begin for nuclear defueling and eventual decommissioning.
The decision to postpone the retirement of the nearly five-decade-old carrier follows delays in the delivery of the new USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), a next-generation Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier still under construction.
Years of maintenance backlogs and aging hulls have left the US carrier fleet stretched thin, with a looming “carrier crunch,” according to analysts cited by 19FortyFive.
