The US Navy has recently deactivated one of its aircraft carrier strike groups, CSG-7, leaving the navy with nine operational CSGs.

The navy will reassign CSG-9 from the USS Abraham Lincoln to the USS Ronald Reagan, former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead has said.

The CSGs usually comprise an aircraft carrier, 70 aircraft, and an escort fleet of cruisers, destroyers, and frigates.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is scheduled to undergo refuelling and complex overhaul from August 2012.