The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Ross returns from sea trials in May 2024, marking completion of an extensive overhaul of the ship. Destroyers in the class will spend on average nine years, or up to 27% of their planned service lives, in overhauls and other maintenance, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a recent report. (Danielle Lofton/U.S. Navy)
Navy destroyers will spend considerably less time projecting American sea power than planned, with chronic delays and labor overruns cutting nearly a decade off their operational lifespans, according to a new analysis.
Arleigh Burke-class destroyers will spend nine years, or up to 27% of their planned 35-year or 40-year service lives, in overhauls and other maintenance, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report released on Wednesday.
That’s more than double the Navy’s estimate of about four years, or up to 12% of service life, in its 2012 class maintenance plans, the CBO said.
Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are the workhorses of the fleet, with anti-air, anti-surface and anti-submarine capabilities. There are about 73 of them in the service, making the class the Navy’s largest.
Five are homeported at Naval Station Rota in Spain, forming the backbone of NATO’s ballistic missile defense.
At some points in recent years, only one-third of the ships were available for operations, the CBO found.
“If maintenance events often take longer than planned, the Navy has fewer ships that it can deploy — and thus, in effect, a smaller fleet,” the report said.
Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Spruance leaves Naval Base San Diego for routine operations on Nov. 21, 2025. On average, destroyers in the class will lose roughly one-fourth of their service lives to maintenance, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a recent report. ( Nettie Manfull/U.S. Navy)
Meanwhile, the service spent an average of $28 million per destroyer on maintenance in 2024, an increase of 300% since 2009, the CBO said. The report noted that the number of destroyers in the fleet had grown by about 25% since then.
That increased spending is partially due to longer durations and greater labor use in destroyer overhauls. Higher costs also were caused by the need for additional maintenance on ships, according to the report.
Overhauls that take longer than expected can disrupt training and deployment schedules not only for the ship involved but also for others, the CBO said.
The Navy has faced a steady challenge in sustaining its surface fleet, chiefly due to problems obtaining spare parts, a lack of qualified maintenance personnel and a near-constant need to defer maintenance, among other issues, the Government Accountability Office said in January.
From 2020 to 2023, nearly $25.9 billion was appropriated for the maintenance of combat surface ships, about $1 billion more than the Navy requested, according to the GAO.
The new CBO report analyzed overhauls and other maintenance events for Navy destroyers and amphibious warships from October 2010 to September 2024.
Among the findings was that maintenance time for overhauls often was 20% to 100% longer than estimated. Delays have continued to increase, especially for older ships that have longer scheduled overhauls, even though the Navy revised its estimates, the CBO found.
Aging ships, unexpected additional work, late inspections and contract awards, and waits for parts and materials were among the factors in the longer maintenance times, the report said.
A Navy approach to contracting work that seems to incentivize shipbuilders to keep costs low rather than perform tasks on time also may be to blame, the CBO said.
Some Navy officials and industry representatives said the contracting method could be behind the delays but others disagreed, according to the report.
It also said that some factors behind delays and labor overruns are temporary or outside the Navy’s control, such as supply-chain disruptions.
