The USS Constellation was supposed to be a symbol of America’s resurgence at sea.
Instead the newly designed warship risks becoming a floating monument to bureaucratic inertia, technological overreach and humiliation.
The glimmer of hope began in 2020 at a shipyard in Wisconsin, where rusted cranes and tools creaked under the weight of America’s declining shipbuilding industry.
Fincantieri Marinette Marine, an American arm of the storied Italian shipbuilder, had just won the contract to build the Navy’s next-generation frigate.
The grand designs would build a vessel that could protect against submarines, missiles, and drones with sleek European efficiency and cutting-edge American firepower.
It was supposed to be fast, reliable and proven designed to show the world that the US Navy could still dominate the waves.
Instead, the USS Constellation has become one of consternation and a cautionary tale at that.
To speed up the building program, the Navy did something unusual: it chose a design already in use by Italy’s navy, where frigates like the Carlo Bergamini class were being built in just four years.
The USS Constellation was supposed to be a symbol of America’s resurgence at sea but it is still in pieces and years behind schedule
President Donald Trump tours Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisconsin in June 2020 during his first term
Tthe Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin was awarded a $5.5 billion contract to build ships for the US Navy in June 2020 with the aim of delivering the first Constellation-class frigate by 2026. It is at least three years behind schedule
With that head start, the US plan was ambitious but reasonable – with the aim of delivering the first Constellation-class frigate by 2026.
But once the contract was secured, the Navy began constantly modifying the design, frequently changing the requirements, requesting upgrades and tweaking designs after shipbuilders have already begun construction.
The hull was lengthened by nearly 24 feet. The bow was reshaped. The sonar dome was removed. The engine rooms were redesigned.
Generators and switchboards, separated in the Italian model for survivability, were forced together in the US version, triggering spatial reshuffles and weight increases.
A new propeller was required for acoustic performance. Cooling systems needed enlarging, which in turn demanded bigger pumps – and more space. Ventilation had to be rerouted. Room layouts had to be redone.
Nearly five years after the initial contract award, and over two years into physical construction, the Constellation is just 10 percent complete.
If that pace holds, the ship won’t sail the open seas until 2029 – a nine-year timeline, double that of the Italian version it was based on.
The labor shortage is one of myriad challenges that have led to backlogs in ship production and maintenance at a time when the Navy faces expanding global threats.
Construction on the USS Constellation has barely begun. Pictured, part of the keel of USS Constellation (FFG 62) at Fincantieri Marinette Marine
The new small surface combatant will have multi-mission capability to conduct air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, electronic warfare, and information operations
To speed up the building program, the Navy chose a design already in use by Italy’s navy, where frigates like the Carlo Bergamini class were being built in just four years
Signs lists employees that have served in the US military at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine facility in Marinette, Wisconsin
The cumulative impact of American ‘improvements’ seems staggering.
The Navy chose a ship design already in use by navies in France and Italy instead of starting from scratch with the hope of keeping costs down.
The idea was that 15 percent of the vessel would be updated to meet US Navy specifications, while 85 percent would remain unchanged, reducing costs and speeding construction.
Instead, the opposite happened: The Navy redesigned 85 percent of the ship based upon its Italian predecessor, resulting in cost increases and construction delays.
Construction of the first-in-class Constellation warship, which began in August 2022, is now three years behind schedule, with delivery pushed back to 2029 – and the final design still isn’t complete.
‘Every shipbuilding delay, every maintenance backlog and every inefficiency is an opening for our adversaries to challenge our [naval] dominance,’ said John Phelan, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Navy, to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
According to Eric Labs, a longtime naval analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, Navy shipbuilding is currently in ‘a terrible state’ – the worst in a quarter century, Labs says.
‘I feel alarmed,’ he said. ‘I don’t see a fast, easy way to get out of this problem. It’s taken us a long time to get into it.’
Trump saw the USS New Jersey – a relic from World War II, bristling with massive guns and is said to have wanted a new ship to be built just like it
People wait in line to enter the Fincantieri Marinette Marine facility in Marinette, Wisconsin
The USS Constellation was to be based on Italy’s Naval Ship Carlo Bergamini, seen right, in a way of keeping costs down and speeding up building. But it has not turned out that way
Marinette Marine is under contract to build six guided-missile frigates – the Navy’s newest surface warships – with options to build four more. But it only has enough workers to produce one frigate a year, according to Labs.
That ‘strategic pause,’ as the Government Accountability Office put it, wasn’t just costly but crippling.
One set of design documents required 170 comments and revisions from Navy overseers.
‘The Navy peeled back the onion and realized how far the design was from meeting the Navy’s standards, and had to take a strategic pause to try and right the ship,’ Shelby Oakley, director at the GAO, told the Wall Street Journal.
But as time dragged on, the costs also began to mount.
Originally estimated at $1.3 billion, the cost of the Constellation has now surged past $1.9 billion – with more overruns almost certain.
The Navy claims its changes enhance ‘lethality, survivability, and fleet commonality.’
But critics see a Navy driven by committees, and hamstrung by outdated practices.
‘American ships are fearsome weapons of war… but they are expensive to build and also expensive to run,’ former Vice Admiral Jeremy Kyd, who commanded U.S. ships in joint exercises with Britain’s Royal Navy, told WSJ.
Such vast expense is also seeing international buyers giving a wide berth.
Italian frigates like the Carlo Bergamini, above, are being builtin just four years
While the F-35 fighter jet and Patriot missile systems are top global sellers, American-built ships rarely win foreign bids, consistently losing to their sleeker, cheaper European and South Korean rivals.
And while the US Navy fumbles through design reviews and paperwork, China has taken to the seas like a duck to water.
Combined with shifting defense priorities, the last-minute design changes and cost overruns, it has put the US way behind China in the number of ships at its disposal – and the gap is widening.
From 2014 to 2023, China launched 157 warships. By comparison, the US has launched only 67. It means China’s fleet is now the largest in the world.
‘The U.S. is the global laggard in warship construction,’ the Journal reported bluntly.
The numbers tell the story. US attack submarines that once took six years now take nine. Aircraft carriers now need eleven years – up from eight. Frigates are slower here than anywhere except Canada.
The Pentagon is scrambling and President Trump has floated the idea of an Office of Shipbuilding, along with an executive order aimed at reviving the industry and breaking China’s dominance.
But steel tariffs, labor shortages, and archaic equipment – some of it pre-World War II – make that a tall order.
A recent McKinsey report found that many US shipyards operate with tools that are so old, spare parts must be fabricated from scratch.
China’s second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, was officially launched in 2020. It is the country’s first domestically-built carrier
Chinese navy sailors march in formation during a parade to celebrate the Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China at Tiananmen Square in October 2019
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson docks at a naval base in the southeastern port city of Busan, South Korea, earlier this month
A lack of skilled workers makes things worse. A third of Fincantieri’s US workforce is over 50.
One of the industry’s chief problems is the struggle to hire and retain laborers for the challenging work of building new ships as graying veterans retire, taking decades of experience with them.
There simply aren’t enough trained welders, engineers, and systems specialists to build ships quickly – or reliably.
Shipyards across the country have created training academies and partnered with technical colleges to provide workers with the skills they need to construct high-tech warships.
Submarine builders and the Navy formed an alliance to promote manufacturing careers, and shipyards are offering perks to retain workers once they’re hired.
The Navy is trying to help shipyards ensure that once new workers are trained and hired, they stick around in a tight labor market.
The shipyard, which employs more than 2,000 workers, is providing bonuses of up to $10,000 to keep workers, said spokesperson Eric Dent. ‘The workforce shortage is definitely a problem and it’s a problem across the board for all shipyards,’ he said.
Retention is a concern even for shipyards that have met their goals, including Huntington Ingalls Industries, which makes destroyers and amphibious warships in Mississippi and aircraft carriers and submarines in Virginia.
Complicating matters further is something out of the Navy’s control: the changing nature of global threats.
The Chinese military has made major progress in ship building, the development of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as integrated air defense systems
China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, prepares to set out for maiden sea trials from Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard in eastern China’s Shanghai, in May of last year
A US warship takes part in multinational exercises. The Navy has roughly 280 warships
A Chinese warship is seen taking part in exercises in the Arabian Sea. The China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy now has approximately 340 ships
Throughout its history, the Navy has had to adapt to varying perils, whether it be the Cold War of past decades or current threats including war in the Middle East, growing competition from Chinese and Russian navies, piracy off the coast of Somalia and persistent attacks on commercial ships by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
And that’s not all. The consolidation of shipyards and funding uncertainties have disrupted the cadence of ship construction and stymied long-term investments and planning, says Matthew Paxton of the Shipbuilders Council of America, a national trade association.
‘We’ve been dealing with inconsistent shipbuilding plans for years,’ Paxton said. ‘When we finally start ramping up, the Navy is shocked that we lost members of our workforce.’
Frustration over America’s shipbuilding woes has even reached the Oval Office.
In a now-infamous 2017 meeting, President Trump was shown photographs of modern naval ships – sleek destroyers, stealthy frigates. He tossed them aside.
Then he saw the USS New Jersey – a relic from World War II, bristling with massive guns.
While the White House later disputed the account, the symbolism is stark.
In Trump’s eyes, and in the eyes of many defense watchers, modern U.S. warships may be powerful, but they’ve lost their swagger. Worse, they’re arriving years behind schedule.
The Navy’s plans are ambitious with a fleet of 390 combat ships by 2054, up from 295 today.
Hitting that target would require doubling the current production rate – something that is likely impossible without massive reform.
As for the USS Constellation, a ship named after one of the first vessels in the original US Navy – it remains in pieces.
