Disheartening when you see that. Yeah, progress and all that, but still if you think of the billions of dollars building and maintaining that and the sweat of many a seaman, only to be used as an artificial reef, then you find that they're going to spend billions more to replace it. What a pity...
After the years of stress of being underway at sea, even the best of steel begins to wear out. Constant paint removal and replacement, in and out of drydock, all of it wears the hull down. I'm somewhat surprised that the Enterprise is still steaming, she's been around a long time! Then, sometimes it becomes cheaper, in the long run, to build new, instead of "modernizing" the old. The destroyer I first served in was twenty years in service, she was approaching fifty when she was towed out, and made into a bomb target. There wasn't much left in her when they towed her out, now she's a safe place for smaller fish. A more fitting end than, say, disposable razor blades!
It is a sobering thought that the wooden hulled "U.S.S.Constitution", is still in commission, while most of the steel hulled warships, since, are gone.
