USS Cole

Cited as another case where the repair cost exceeded new-build cost, for strategic-signaling reasons — the US didn't want to concede the loss of a capital ship.

It's sort of like the USS Cole. They repaired the USS Cole at a cost greater than building a new destroyer, because they didn't want — whoever bombed the Cole — to think they had destroyed a capital ship of the USA. So they spent more money to repair it. That was sort of the Seawolf too, but with blue jelly suits. They don't use blue jelly suits anymore. The reason they had to in this case is that they could get all the up-to-two-inch-thick plate they wanted from the steel mill, but they couldn't get the four-inch plate for more than a year, for various reasons — capacity of the steel mills. So they had to reuse the really heavy steel plate, and that's what they were welding in the blue jelly suits.