The Navy’s Shipbuilding Challenge
The United States Navy faces a generational shipbuilding challenge. With an aging fleet, rising great power competition, and constrained budgets, the service must simultaneously maintain current readiness while building the force needed for potential future conflicts. At the center of this effort are the destroyers—the workhorses of naval warfare.
The Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have served as the backbone of the surface fleet since 1991, with over 70 ships commissioned. But these vessels are aging, and the Navy needs new platforms to maintain its edge through mid-century. Here’s what’s coming off the shipyard ways in the years ahead.
DDG-51 Flight III: The Evolved Arleigh Burke
Rather than immediately jumping to an entirely new destroyer design, the Navy chose to evolve the proven Arleigh Burke platform. The Flight III variant represents a significant capability upgrade over earlier versions while maintaining the logistics and training benefits of fleet commonality.
The most significant change is the AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar, which replaces the AN/SPY-1 that has served since the class’s introduction. This new radar offers dramatically improved sensitivity and tracking capability, essential for detecting and engaging advanced threats including hypersonic weapons and low-observable cruise missiles.
Flight III ships also feature enhanced electrical generation capacity, improved computing infrastructure, and upgrades to accommodate future weapons systems. USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125), commissioned in 2023, was the first of the class, with additional ships following at a steady pace from both Huntington Ingalls Industries in Mississippi and Bath Iron Works in Maine.
Flight III Capabilities
- Displacement: Approximately 9,700 tons full load
- Length: 509 feet
- Missile capacity: 96 vertical launch system cells
- Primary radar: AN/SPY-6(V)1 AMDR
- Propulsion: Four General Electric LM2500 gas turbines
DDG(X): The Next-Generation Destroyer
While Flight III Arleigh Burkes continue to join the fleet, the Navy is simultaneously developing its replacement: the DDG(X). This next-generation destroyer program aims to deliver a significantly more capable platform that can serve through the 2080s.
DDG(X) will be larger than current destroyers, with a full load displacement exceeding 13,000 tons. This additional size accommodates greater electrical generation capacity—essential for future directed energy weapons—along with increased missile loadout and improved crew habitability.
The ship will feature an Integrated Power System that provides the electrical capacity needed for laser weapons and other high-energy systems. While the Navy hasn’t publicly committed to specific directed energy weapons, the platform is being designed to accommodate them as the technology matures.
DDG(X) Design Goals
Key requirements for the next-generation destroyer include:
- Enhanced survivability against modern anti-ship missiles and torpedoes
- Increased magazine depth with 128 or more VLS cells
- Directed energy capacity for laser-based point defense
- Reduced crew size through automation and improved system design
- Hypersonic weapons integration from the outset
The program remains in early development, with construction of the first ship not expected until the late 2020s. Full-rate production would follow in the 2030s, with Flight III Arleigh Burkes continuing to be built until DDG(X) production ramps up.
The Zumwalt Class: Lessons Learned
The Navy’s last attempt at a clean-sheet destroyer design, the Zumwalt-class, offers cautionary lessons for DDG(X). Originally planned as a 32-ship class, Zumwalt was cut to just three vessels as costs spiraled and the strategic environment shifted.
The three Zumwalt-class destroyers—USS Zumwalt, USS Michael Monsoor, and USS Lyndon B. Johnson—feature revolutionary tumblehome hull forms, integrated electric propulsion, and advanced stealth characteristics. They were designed primarily for land attack missions, with their 155mm Advanced Gun Systems intended to provide precision fire support.
However, the cancellation of the specialized Long Range Land Attack Projectile left the ships’ main guns without ammunition, leading the Navy to remove them and repurpose the class for other missions. The Zumwalts are now being fitted with hypersonic missiles, giving them a new strike capability that leverages their large size and stealth characteristics.
DDG(X) designers are incorporating Zumwalt lessons, including some propulsion technology, while avoiding the risks associated with too many simultaneous innovations.
Frigate Gap and the Constellation Class
While not technically destroyers, the new Constellation-class frigates will work alongside destroyers in the future fleet. These ships, based on the Italian FREMM design, will provide air defense, anti-submarine, and surface warfare capabilities at lower cost than destroyers.
The lead ship, USS Constellation, is under construction at Marinette Marine in Wisconsin. The class will eventually number 20 ships, providing distributed lethality across the fleet and freeing destroyers for higher-end missions.
The frigates mount 32 VLS cells and the AN/SPY-6(V)3 radar, giving them meaningful air defense capability while optimized for anti-submarine warfare with advanced sonar systems and embarked helicopters.
Industrial Base Challenges
Building the future destroyer force requires a healthy shipbuilding industrial base, and here the Navy faces significant challenges. Only two shipyards build large surface combatants, and both struggle with workforce shortages, supply chain issues, and capacity constraints.
Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works in Maine have experienced delivery delays on recent Arleigh Burke orders. The Navy is investing in workforce development and shipyard modernization, but expanding capacity takes years.
The submarine industrial base faces similar challenges, and many suppliers serve both programs. Competition for skilled workers, specialized materials, and manufacturing capacity will shape how quickly the Navy can build its future fleet.
What This Means for the Fleet
The Navy’s long-range shipbuilding plan envisions a mixed force of Flight III Arleigh Burkes, DDG(X) destroyers, and Constellation-class frigates working together. Each platform brings different capabilities and cost points, allowing commanders to match forces to missions.
For the maritime industry, these programs represent decades of work. The destroyers of the 2030s and 2040s are being designed today, with decisions on propulsion, combat systems, and hull forms that will shape American sea power for the rest of the century.
Whether the Navy can execute this ambitious plan depends on sustained funding, industrial base health, and avoiding the cost growth that has plagued previous programs. The destroyers entering service this decade will determine whether the United States maintains its position as the world’s preeminent naval power.
