The decision to close the Long Beach Navy Yard in 1997 presented the Navy with what it saw as a problem concerning the disposition of the nine “surplus,” unused 16-inch gun barrels stored there. The problem was whether to destroy them or ship them to another Department of Defense installation for storage. The solution? You guessed it—The Navy opted to sell them to a scrap dealer. Standard Industries of Ventura. California, for $70,284.
Actually, all the Navy has to do is remove the “surplus” designation from the tubes—and the same base-closure funds earmarked to destroy the tubes can be used to save them and put them into storage elsewhere.
The Navy carries the tubes on the books at their World War II purchase price of $235,000 each, even though their actual 1996 value is closer to $9 million each (calculated on what it would have cost to manufacture a 16-inch tube in 1967, the last year in which we manufactured major caliber gun tubes translated into 1996 dollars). In fact, since we no longer can make these tubes or buy them, they are, for all intents, priceless. Nevertheless, on 20 March 1996, the Navy informed the Senate Armed Services Committee that the replacement cost of a 16-inch tube is $4- $5 million, without mentioning that these tubes can no longer be purchased.
The Navy's argument for declaring these tubes surplus and subject to destruction was that we already had 26 spare tubes in Virginia and Nevada. When queried by the White House, the Navy added that existing barrels could be relined after extensive use when, in fact, we have not had a barrel-relining capability in this country for years. The Navy also said that we no longer had flatcars that could handle these heavy tubes, when, in fact, the Defense Logistics Agency’s 40,010-series flatcars are ideal. Indeed, the Navy shipped an old model 16-inch tube from Portsmouth, Virginia, to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as recently as 1994.
In all fairness, it could be argued that the 26 spare tubes would enable two active battleships to fight for quite some time; in a really serious conventional war, however, we might well need all the tubes we can get, especially since we can no longer reline them. Remember that for a very long time to come, only battleships will be able provide our troops with truly effective, all-weather fire support in another war.
Standard Industries ran into environmental, health, and technical problems with the program, and eventually bowed out—leaving the tubes to be destroyed by the Navy, which already has run into the same problems that plagued the company.
On 19 July, Base Closure Officer John Pfeiffer, who is responsible for closing down the Long Beach installation, told me that it would be substantially quicker and cheaper to save these tubes and ship them to a nearby DoD installations—for example, the Marine Corps Logistics Base, Barstow, California, or the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, California. He added that this could be done with heavy-duty, trucks and cranes available in the Long Beach area. His sole interest is to get rid of the tubes as quickly as possible so he can close the base on time.
Surely the Navy can afford a little ink to change the status of these priceless assets.
Dr. Stearman was a member of the National Security Council Staff from 1971 to 1976 and again from 1981 to 1993.