A life-extension package is not automatically a saving. It spends funds, dockyard capacity, and engineering attention on the old hull while leaving less available for its successor. Delaying the new class also changes the future period for which it must be designed, inviting revised assumptions and repeated returns to the drawing board. Some delay is justified when the proposed successor is badly conceived, but every extension should be judged against the cost of correcting or replacing that design. The useful test is whole-life cost, remaining hull life, and time out of service for dockyard work, not simply whether an upgrade can be installed.
Chapter · 46:31-49:48
Service-life extension can postpone the real decision
Keeping old ships in service can preserve numbers, but it can also absorb the money, dockyard time, and design attention needed for their successors.