{"id":1841,"date":"2025-08-16T07:46:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T05:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=1841"},"modified":"2025-06-08T09:50:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T07:50:17","slug":"gao-zumwalt-lcs-and-constellation-exemplify-us-navy-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=1841","title":{"rendered":"GAO: Zumwalt, LCS, and Constellation exemplify US Navy failures"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reiterated that the US Navy could improve its ship design and shipbuilding processes through the adoption of modern techniques, pointing to failures in the development of the Littoral Combat Ships,\u00a0Zumwalt<\/em>-class destroyers, and new\u00a0Constellation<\/em>-class frigates.<\/p>\n

Publishing its Navy Shipbuilding: Enduring Challenges Call for Systemic Change report on 25 March, the GAO said the US Navy had not increased the number of ships in its fleet over the past 20 years, despite a near doubling its shipbuilding budget.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Citing the\u00a0Constellation<\/em>\u00a0class programme, the GAO pointed to construction having begun before the design was completed, and that in spite of the class being theoretically heavily derived from the\u00a0European FREMM frigates. Instead, the US Navy insisted on vast amounts of changes to the design.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

As it stands, the\u00a0Constellation<\/em>\u00a0class is\u00a0running three years behind schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs adversary threats grow, the [US] Navy needs to take a new approach to increase its fleet size. To start, it could apply leading ship design practices used by commercial shipbuilders and address other recommendations we\u2019ve made over the last decade,\u201d the GAO reported.<\/p>\n

In addition, the Littoral Combat Ship programme and\u00a0Zumwalt<\/em>-class guided missile destroyers were also cited as examples hampered by \u201cweak business cases\u201d that \u201cover-promised\u201d the capability that the US Navy could deliver.<\/p>\n

\u201cTogether, these two ship classes consumed tens of billions of dollars more to acquire than initially budgeted and ultimately delivered far less capability and capacity to fleet users than the Navy had promised,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Design of the Constellation-class frigate is not yet complete, despite construction of Ship One having begun. Credit: Fincantieri Marine Group<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among ways to solve the ongoing shipbuilding dilemma, the GAO said the US Navy \u201ccannot expect to look within its own playbook for answers\u201d and should look towards ship design practices and product development approaches from \u201cindustry-leading companies\u201d worldwide.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The] GAO has previously identified leading ship design practices used by commercial ship buyers and builders that the Navy can use to achieve more timely, predictable outcomes for its shipbuilding programmes.<\/p>\n

Since 2015, the GAO has made 90 recommendations to the US Navy to improve its shipbuilding acquisition practices and outcomes.<\/p>\n

While it had \u201cagreed with many of them\u201d, the US Navy had only fully or partly addressed 30; 60 remained unaddressed, the GAP report revealed.<\/p>\n

An earlier 11 March report also highlighted the lack of fleet size increase, despite budget increases, citing the\u00a0Columbia<\/em>-class ballistic missile submarine programme\u00a0that has a minimum one-year delay to delivery and \u201chundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in additional cost.<\/p>\n

US Navy falling far behind the PLAN<\/h2>\n

While qualitatively capable in a ship-to-ship context, the quantitative gap between the US Navy and China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is widening, as Beijing seeks to cement its position as the pre-eminent military power in the Western Pacific.<\/p>\n

According\u00a0to a 2024 report\u00a0by the US Office for Naval Intelligence, the PLAN at the time was maintaining a fleet of at least 153 major naval surface combatants, which included\u00a0aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers,\u00a0frigates, and corvettes, from a total of well over 370 vessels in service.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the US Navy has maintained a fleet of less than 300 vessels for several years, despite calls to increase the number of hulls to more than 350 in service.<\/p>\n

With China building a new frigate or naval surface combatant every four months, and with the years long delay to the US Navy\u2019s latest warship adventure, the numerical gap could increase further still.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reiterated that the US Navy could improve its ship design and shipbuilding processes through the adoption of modern techniques, pointing to failures in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[373,370,372,71,371],"class_list":["post-1841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-naval","tag-constellation","tag-gao","tag-lcs","tag-us-navy","tag-zumwalt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Zumwalt-LCS-and-Constellation.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1841"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1862,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1841\/revisions\/1862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}