Would it happen to be possible to put some meat around those flamebaits?
No-one's spelled it out since I guess to a lot of us it was internally transparent - but basically, the cruisers have all been laid up in what could well be a relatively poor state of preservation since the late 80's. They're nuclear powered, and their shore side facilities could not (apparently) provide enough power to keep the reactors reliably cooled while sitting idle so they were all shut down and require major overhauls. Presumably all their steam turbines and associated gear have been sitting doing nothing *either* and are similarly shagged.
Add to which the issues that the only yards big enough to refit them properly don't have the refuelling facilities, which means a bit of a shuffle around in mid refit. Logistically, it's a nightmare.
All of their combat systems are circa 1980's - everything - comms, missiles, counter measures, the lot. Effectively you've got a 22Kt hull in poor preservation which needs to be gutted and refitted from stem to stern. Quicker to scrap it, melt it down and build a new one.
Cheaper to take it on the chin, build a modern GT powered class of five or six modern surface combatants from scratch..it'd give useful design experience instead of throwing the money at the refit yards and you'd have a bunch of brand new hulls in the water built to much better modern habitability standards, without the burden of needing nuclear support personnel.
