Also here in USNI News
https://news.usni.org/2020/11/30/nav...nhomme-richard
Navy Will Scrap USS Bonhomme Richard
.....“After thorough consideration, the secretary of the Navy and the chief of naval operations have decided to decommission the
Bonhomme Richard due to the extensive damage sustained during that July fire. In the weeks and months since that fire, the Navy conducted a comprehensive material assessment to determine the best path forward for that ship and our Navy,” he said.
Three main options were considered: rebuild and restore the ship to its original function of moving Marines and their gear around for amphibious warfare; rebuild the ship to a new configuration for a new mission, such as a submarine or surface ship tender or a hospital ship; or decommission and scrap the ship.
Ver Hage said restoring
Bonhomme Richard to its original form would have cost between $2.5 billion and $3.2 billion and taken five to seven years. That work would have taken place in the Gulf Coast, he said.
Rebuilding the ship for a new purpose would have cost “in excess of a billion dollars” and also taken about five to seven years. Though cheaper than rebuilding to the original configuration, Ver Hage said it would be cheaper to just design and build a new tender or hospital ship from scratch.
Decommissioning the ship – and the inactivation, harvesting of parts, towing and scrapping the hull – will cost about $30 million and take just nine to 12 months.
“Examining those three courses of action, we reached the conclusion that we needed to decommission the platform,” he said.....
The Navy will now be down an amphibious assault ship – and one that had been recently upgraded to accommodate the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter – which will be a blow to operators. However, Ver Hage said the comprehensive assessments looked at what would happen to the industrial base and new ship construction for the fleet if the Navy opted to rebuild
Bonhomme Richard, and the price – not in dollars, but in burden on the industrial base – was too great to justify.......
Ver Hage did not want to comment on what this could mean for future Navy procurement and trying to insert another amphibious assault ship to help replace
Bonhomme Richard.
He said the current America-class LHAs cost about $4.1 billion apiece and that Ingalls Shipbuilding has a hot production line, simply saying that the Navy is in a good place for LHA construction for now.