IIRC there's a very definite difference between rust on the hull and rust in the hull. One can be cleaned down to bare metal, primed with a zinc primer, painted and will last another couple of years. Whereas the rust in the hull means there isn't enough metal left to clean, prime and paint.
The offending section or sections will have to be removed and replaced with new steel and when you start removing hull components it becomes akin to a surgeon conducting a cancer operation. If the patient is young, and healthy there's a good chance the cancer hasn't spread and they can get it all. But, if the patient's old, out of shape and has numerous other issues the chances of the cancer spreading are exponentially greater. So, given the Iroquois is a 42 year old warship with a long ton of miles on her which of those scenarios do you think is the most plausible?
Besides, I'm pretty sure they'll have already started to inspect the rest of the hull for issues and if it was confined to one small area they'd fix it, especially considering it's a C&C platform were talking about here.
These ships have long since passed their shelf lives and it's really beginning to show which is to bad because they're the only warships left that have tiles in Burma Road a criteria I used when choosing where I'd prefer to be posted to.
