Pentagon Considering Early Retirement For Truman Carrier 

The Dept. of Defense is considering decommission one of its aircraft carriers decades ahead of schedule to free up funds for other priorities, reports Breaking Defense. 

Under the plan, the USS Harry S. Truman would not receive its planned refueling and complex overhaul in 2024. The ship would be retired once its nuclear reactor ran down, sometime in the mid- to late 2020s, said experts.

Refueling the carrier's nuclear reactor would give it around 20 to 25 years of additional service life. 

The proposal is part of the 2020 to 2024 budget plan due in March.

Retiring the Truman would shrink the carrier fleet from 11 to 10 and could save more than $30 billion over decades.

The decision was part of a deal to fund the construction of two new Gerald R. Ford-class carriers, said former deputy defense secretary Robert Work.

The move is likely to face significant pushback from Congress, which has established a law requiring the navy to maintain minimum of 11 carriers and called for increasing the fleet to 12. 

Some analysts say aircraft carriers are increasingly obsolete due to the short range of the fighter jets they carry. Adversaries such as China or Russia have anti-ship missiles with greater range than the aircraft in the current carrier air wing, requiring the ships to enter well within the range of such weapons to launch attacks.