Navy extending service lives of 12 Flight I Arleigh Burke destroyers
USNI News
By Mallory Shelbourne
31 October 2024
Guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60) patrols the Persian Gulf on March 25, 2020. US Army Photo
Twelve Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers will remain in the fleet past their initial service lives, the Navy announced on Thursday.
The life extensions for the Flight I destroyers range from one to five years, depending on the ship, according to a list of the chosen destroyers reviewed by USNI News.
“The decision, based upon a hull-by-hull evaluation of ship material condition, combat capability, technical feasibility and lifecycle maintenance requirements, will result in an additional 48 ship-years of cumulative ship service life in the 2028 to 2035 timeframe,” reads a Thursday news release from the service. “The Navy has proposed DDG service life extension funding in the FY26 budget request, and will update the shipbuilding plan accordingly.”
USS Barry (DDG-52) USS The Sullivans (DDG-68) will each get extended three years.
USS Gonzalez (DDG-66), USS Cole (DDG-67), USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53), USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60), USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG-54), USS Laboon (DDG-58), USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) and USS Stout (DDG-55) will each get extended for five years.
USS Carney (DDG-64) and USS Stethem (DDG-63) will receive one-year extensions.
“We expect a total cost estimate of $1.3 billion across the FY26 FYDP and $6 billion over 15-years,” a spokesperson for Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told USNI News. “On average, it will cost about $139.6 million per ship [per] year.”
Del Toro ordered the service to assess all Flight I destroyers this year, resulting in the 12 service life extensions. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are initially slated for 35 years in the the fleet.
“The Navy is actively pulling the right levers to maintain and grow its Battle Force Inventory to support the United States’s global interests in peace and to win decisively in conflict,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said in a statement.
Thursday’s announcement comes after the Navy in August 2023 said it would extend the lives of four Flight I destroyers. The service opted to extend USS Milius (DDG-69) and USS Mitscher (DDG-57) each by four years, while it extended USS Benfold (DDG-65) and USS Ramage (DDG-61) each by five years, according to an announcement at the time.
One of the Flight I destroyers the Navy has not opted to extend the service life of is USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62), which was involved in a deadly collision with a container ship in 2017 off the coast of Japan that killed seven U.S. sailors.
The service life extensions come as the Navy grapples with mounting bills for new programs – a next-generation destroyer, a next-generation attack submarine and a next-generation fighter – that it must balance in the budget.
Nearly two years ago, former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said the service would have to prioritize the Next Generation Air Dominance program, also known as NGAD, ahead of DDG(X), the destroyer class that will follow the Arleigh Burke Flight IIIs.
It’s unclear if the Navy will still follow this plan. As of January 2024, the service planned to start construction on DDG(X) in Fiscal Year 2032 and wanted a three-year overlap between the future destroyers and the Flight III Arleigh Burkes to keep the shipbuilding industrial base humming.
A 2022 Congressional Budget Office report projected that the DDG(X) hulls could cost as much as $3.4 billion a piece.