US Navy may lose four aircraft carriers
The US Navy will be forced to disable and preserve four nuclear aircraft carriers if the US lawmakers and the White House do not reach a compromise on the upcoming budget sequestra March 1, the report said to the US Congress.
The country's naval command indicates that the aircraft carriers "John Stennis", "Eisenhower", "Ronald Reagan" and "Roosevelt" will have to be put out of action "with different time intervals," Voice of Russia reports, citing Interfax.
Earlier, the US Navy has already reported that because of a possible reduction in the defense budget, it was decided not to send an aircraft carrier strike group led by the nuclear aircraft carrier Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf region, to cancel the reloading of the fuel and overhaul on the aircraft carrier Avraham Lincoln, postpone repairs on the aircraft carrier "Roosevelt".
At present, there are ten nuclear aircraft carriers in the US Navy. In the event of the failure of four of them, the naval forces will be able to have only six carrier strike groups. At the same time on combat duty in the Middle and Far East at the same time can be no more than two aircraft carriers.
The rest, who will replace them, at this time will have to undergo maintenance and minor repairs at the bases, and the crews - to rest and undergo training. Thus, the U.S. Navy will not be able, if necessary, to concentrate in hot spots a large number of deck aircraft aviation for applying massive airstrike.
For the preservation of the four aircraft carriers will also follow the downfall of the four wings of carrier-based aircraft. In addition, the long-range cruise of an amphibious airborne group of three large amphibious ships, headed by the aircraft-carrying universal landing ship Batan, has already been canceled.
Automatic budget sequestration - cutting spending on 1,2 trillion dollars, equally distributed between the military and civilian spheres - will begin in the United States from the beginning of March 2013, if the US administration and Congress do not agree on ways to reduce the budget deficit.
As the newspaper VIEW, reported earlier, the head of the Pentagon Leon Panetta stated that the Pentagon had begun to implement cost-saving measures aimed at mitigating the financial consequences of a large-scale budget cuts by the US Department of Defense.
These measures include, inter alia, refusal to hire civilians, postponement of some maintenance work and reduce other items of expenditure.
According to the US Secretary of Defense, reducing the defense budget will have "devastating" consequences for the country's national security.
Recall that a year ago, Panetta confirmed that the United States intends to reduce the number of armed forces by 2017 by 100 by thousands of people, which will be done as part of the country's new defense strategy.
In order to save, the defense ministry will also abandon a number of programs for the purchase and modernization of weapons and equipment. Also, the armed forces in an accelerated mode will carry out the procedure for writing off obsolete or requiring expensive repair of military equipment.
According to the plans of the American administration, the United States will change the approach to the formation of the armed forces: the American army should become more mobile and modern, but its numbers will decrease.
Information