“That’s not what one dwells on”

The State of US Navy's Shipbuilding

In the 1930 film “All Quiet on the Western Front,” a soldier on leave Paul Bäumer (played by Lew Ayres, whom some of us will remember as President of the Colonies who’s killed on the Battlestar Atlantia in the old Galactica series) visits his old school. His teacher, Kantorek, is giving another rousing speech to a new class of impressionable boys, encouraging them to enlist and serve the Fatherland. Kantorek asks Paul to speak about his experience at the front, expecting him to reinforce the patriotic fervor. Instead, Paul gives a sobering and emotional speech, directly challenging the glorified image of war that Kantorek had taught. Paul tells the students the brutal truth about war, how it destroys young men physically and emotionally, how there's no glory in watching friends die in the mud, and how those left alive are haunted and changed forever. His speech is met with discomfort, and Kantorek tries to silence or dismiss him, but Paul insists on telling the truth. Even the students, with no military experience, call him a coward. He’s disillusioned; the others have no concept of the actual war. Yet he returns to his unit where (spoiler alert after nearly 100 years) he’s killed while reaching out for a butterfly.

I understand Baumer when folks on TwitterX make claims to counter concerns about the state of the US Navy that “yeah but we have more carriers and more experience fighting and…and…and…”

We are in trouble. (You can check with John Konrad and Sal Mercogliano on the state of merchant shipbuilding.) If you don’t believe me, then maybe listen to Secretary of the Navy Phelan who testified before the House Armed Services Committee last week: “all of our programs are a mess…we are behind schedule and over budget…The best one is 6 months late and 57% over budget.”

That is brutal honesty and the SECNAV ought to be commended for it. This isn’t his fault. The problems have been decades in coming. Part of the problem has been the bureaucratic structure that impedes speed and cost-effectiveness. Part of the problem is cultural where we has a nation – but also near major shipyards – have stressed for decades college and grad schools and law schools over the trades. We’re seeing the impact of that now. Think about Maine, for example, which is home to two shipyards (I include Portsmouth since many of the workers there live in Maine.) Add to that housing costs on the coast have made living nearby almost cost-prohibitive. Add to that Maine has one of the highest energy costs in the nation, one of the highest tax burdens, one of the highest cost-per-pupil and one of the lowest school performance records, and it’s got the highest percentage of 65+ in the country and fewer births, etc.

You can read the SECNAV’s written testimony or just watch it if you’re inclined. Having worked three times on the Hill, I always found more value in the Q&As. Fortunately, this hearing didn’t involve the showmanship that has become regnant with some Hearing Q&As.

The SECNAV’s statement was just one of several Navy newsmakers last week that merit attention.

Item number two was about the FORD-class aircraft carrier CVN-80 to be named ENTERPRISE:

First-in-class carrier USS Gerald R. Ford has completed her first full deployment and is gearing up for another, but problems with the Ford program remain, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Ford program encountered years-long delays during the construction of the first hull. The complexities added by Ford's all-electric launch and recovery gear, as well as her electromagnetically-actuated weapons elevators, caused difficulty at the yard and long after delivery. The keel laying was held in 2009 for a 2015 delivery date, but construction cost increased by $2.8 billion and the schedule for her commissioning slipped to 2017. She was delivered incomplete, without operable weapons elevators, and did not achieve initial operational capability until December 2021.

The problem, according to GAO, is in the availability of materials and skilled labor.

Item number three was a piece by Joseph Trevithick that the Constellation frigate was now 759 metric tons overweight.

Major changes to the Constellation's base design have already caused delays and cost growth, and have prompted questions about its future. The Navy currently expects to take delivery of the first-in-class USS Constellation in 2029, three years behind schedule. The targeted displacement of these vessels, at least originally, was 7,291 tons. The new Navy frigates will also be physically longer and wider. As it stands now, there is only some 15 percent commonality in the Constellation and FREMM designs, compared to the original goal of 85 percent.

These are not just anecdotal stories. Plenty of people – outside the system – have written about the problems. I was going to link to the late Raymond Pritchett’s site, Information Dissemination, but it appears to be gone. If it is truly gone, then it’s a loss to history as his insights ought to be known to future naval historians about this period and what a master analyst he really was.

Let’s turn to three indisputable sources. The Congressional Research Service (CRS), Government Accountability Office (GAO), and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) are three of the most influential and respected nonpartisan analytical organizations supporting the U.S. Congress, each with distinct roles but often collaborating indirectly by informing oversight, legislation, and budgeting.

Here are just a few on the COLUMBIA-class submarine program:

GAO: “Columbia Class Submarine: Overcoming Persistent Challenges Requires Yet Undemonstrated Performance and Better‑Informed Supplier Investments” (GAO-24-107732), released on September 30, 2024. This report highlights that the lead sub is now expected 12 to 16 months late (now October 2028–February 2029) and at risk of significant cost overruns—potentially “hundreds of millions of dollars more” than planned. GAO critiques the Navy’s and Electric Boat’s estimates as overly optimistic and recommends improved risk analysis, variance reporting, supplier-base monitoring, and quality assurance oversight

CRS: Navy Columbia (SSBN‑826) Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Program: Background and Issues for Congress” (updated March 28, 2025). This report outlines that procurement began in FY2021 and FY2024 under multi-year funding approaches, with production planned at one boat per year from FY2026 to FY2035 . CRS provides cost data—first hull ~$15.2 B, second ~$9.3 B—as well as discussion of contracting methods (CPIF, with options for block buys) and industrial-base impacts.

CBO: Featured in its February 2024 shipbuilding-plan testimony (CBO report #61240). CBO estimated the lead submarine at $18.1 B (about $2 B over the Navy’s estimate) and placed average cost per ship at $9.4 B—about 16% higher than Pentagon projections . It also assigned probabilities of cost-growth (“68% chance” for the first hull) and cautions that unit‐cost per ton assumptions may be underestimated cbo.gov.

How about the surface ship program?

GAO:

· GAO‑25‑106286 ("Shipbuilding and Repair: Navy Needs a Strategic Approach…"), released February 27, 2025, finds the private shipbuilding industrial base has not delivered ships to Navy goals, suffering cost overruns and delays, despite several billion dollars in DOD investments. It warns of weak coordination between Navy and OSD investments, lacks clear metrics, and recommends a cohesive base-wide strategy

· GAO‑25‑108136 ("Navy Shipbuilding: a Generational Imperative for Systemic Change"), from March 11, 2025, concludes that even with nearly doubled budgets over 20 years, the Navy has failed to grow its fleet, and many programs (e.g., destroyers, amphibious ships) regularly face delays, higher costs, or degraded capabilities. It urges adoption of commercial design practices and a holistic acquisition overhaul gao.gov.

CBO

· "An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2022 Shipbuilding Plan" (2022) highlights the Navy’s intent to cut large surface combatant numbers (e.g., DDGs/cruisers) and boost small surface combatants (e.g., LCS, frigates). It analyzes alternative build and retirement scenarios showing potential fleet size fluctuations based on build-rate decisions

· 2023 update (“An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2023 Shipbuilding Plan”) compares costs per ton across ship classes, noting examples like DDG‑51 reuse of CG‑47 systems and assessing FFG‑62 (Constellation) estimates—echoing CRS and CBO concerns that costs may exceed Navy projections

CRS

· flagged potential cost overruns in new frigate classes (FFG‑62), sourcing CBO estimates that first ten hulls could cost 10–20% above Navy forecasts.

Their testimony from March before the HASC includes “lessons learned” on shipbuilding based on historical analysis is also worth revisiting.

Perhaps cost increases and delays in shipbuilding are predictable. In 1998, James Calpin wrote an unpublished paper for The Institute of Public Policy at George Mason University titled “A Simplified Estimating Relationship for the Production Costs of US Military Aircraft.” I learned of it a year later when I first met him. I got a copy of the paper years later.

Calpin proposed a new cost estimating relationship based on the time interval between the fielding of predecessor and successor military aircraft. Using regression analysis, he found a strong correlation (R² = 0.992) between the time gap in years and the cost ratio of successor to predecessor aircraft. His model showed that longer intervals between aircraft programs lead to significantly higher increases in unit cost, likely due to increased technological complexity and reduced institutional knowledge. This relatively simple model, using a cubic regression function, appeared to outperform more complex CERs traditionally used in defense procurement planning. The past 27 years have mostly validated his initial thesis.

The study also highlighted critical issues with existing cost data sources, noting inconsistencies and poor recordkeeping among DoD, Congress, and industry. Calpin stressed that although the model is statistically robust, the small dataset (11 aircraft pairs) and lack of complete source data (e.g., proprietary TASC Handbook) limited its reliability as a definitive budgeting tool. Nevertheless, he demonstrates the model’s utility by applying it to projected costs for the Joint Strike Fighter, showing that official estimates would significantly understate actual costs. The paper suggested that unless genuine procurement reform like “Cost As an Independent Variable” (CAIV) is enforced, cost growth trends are likely to persist.

For the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding program, this CER has conceptual relevance. Like aircraft, warships are long-lead, high-tech platforms whose cost can escalate sharply when development cycles are protracted. The study implies that extended intervals between ship classes, especially when combined with technological leaps, may predict substantial cost growth. As the Navy plans for next-generation platforms like the DDG(X) or new amphibious ships, applying a similar interval-based cost forecasting approach might improve early-stage estimates, highlight the need for continuous design evolution, and reinforce the importance of preserving institutional design and engineering knowledge to mitigate cost overruns.

In his testimony last week, SECNAV also mentioned we need to change the way we budget, contract and procure. He wants to open new shipyards, not use huge bureaucracies to get things done, and move with speed. Those to not point to improvements in the current programs; they do, however, favor new or non-traditional yards with non-traditional platforms.

Maybe I suffer from traditionalism. Having taught naval history, technologies changed, but the ships remained as the primary platforms of security and forward presence. Having served on a cruiser on the other side of the world, I understand their role and that of every sailor on a ship. But with all the issues above, I have come to believe that we need to focus on the non-traditional.

Large unmanned platforms would best meet not only the SECNAV’s goals in how to increase the size of the Navy quickly. That’s why we should pay attention to this tomorrow:

On 17 June 2025, The Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC), Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office (PMS 406) will host an Industry Day to brief the Future Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV). The Future USV program will be an open ocean, 25+ knot, high endurance, non-exquisite, autonomous vessel. The vessel will be built to commercial standards and will provide the interfaces, payload deck area, and support for two forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU) containerized payloads, each weighing 80,000 lbs. (see also: Navy to brief industry on plans for new robotic ship program | DefenseScoop

Unmanned (or now uncrewed) vessels have many advantages to shipbuilding, not the least of which would be decreased construction times and expanding the shipbuilding sites.

To that point, there are two other major events that occurred in the past month that may necessitate a fundamental change in the calculus for a navy (not I did not say “the navy’s calculus.) Collectively, the bold Ukrainian drone attacks thousands of miles from the battlefront and Israel’s drone attacks from within Iran ought to be a warning to our industrial base. Let’s just imagine a US shipyard with four or five modern destroyers under construction that within a few years will replace ships three decades old. Now imagine China has been operating black-market marijuana facilities throughout that same state. If it can grow marijuana, for years undetected or worse undeterred, does the US need to be concerned that it might also manufacture something more harmful to shipyards? Distributing shipyard capacity makes sense.

It’ll be fine, I’m sure. Excuse me, I see a butterfly…