US Navy destroyers tested in Middle East as demands mount — SkimNews
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- U.S. Naval Institute fleet tracker recorded two guided-missile destroyers in the Red Sea and 13 in the Arabian Sea as of Sept. 14, and the Arleigh Burke-class USS Stout departed Naval Station Norfolk on Monday after months of training and certification.
- USS Carney spent 235 days deployed from September 2023 to May 2024 and conducted 51 engagements against Houthi-launched weapons — then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti told the crew it was the most intense Navy combat since World War II.
- Congressional Budget Office December 2025 analysis found that Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) overhauls begun between 2011 and 2024 took an average of 26% longer than the Navy's final schedules and required 8% more labor than planned.
- CBO projected DDG-51 destroyers will spend an average of more than nine years — roughly 27% of their planned service lives — in maintenance, more than double the roughly four years envisioned in the Navy's 2012 class maintenance plans.
- Government Accountability Office January 2025 review found the Navy received nearly $25.9 billion for combat-surface-ship maintenance from fiscal 2020 through 2023 and obligated 99.7% of it, yet continued to face spare-parts shortages, insufficient qualified personnel, and maintenance that still had to be deferred.
- DDG-51 fleet age rose from an average of 10 years in 2011 to 20 years in 2024, one of several factors CBO identified — alongside postponed maintenance, late inspections, parts delays, and modernization work — for the lengthening overhaul timelines.
Why it matters: The Navy is pressing a destroyer fleet whose average age has doubled to 20 years while depot overhauls run 26% over schedule and consume 8% more labor than planned. Even with $25.9 billion nearly fully obligated over fiscal 2020–2023, GAO documented persistent spare-parts shortfalls and forced deferrals, meaning the 15 destroyers now committed to Middle East operations are being drawn from a hull pool that is structurally short of the readiness its deployment tempo would require.
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