Congressional report: Replacement for US Navy cruisers and destroyers

DDG(X) Future Large Surface Combatant Programme: Background and Issues for Congress.

The Congressional Research Service report was submitted to Congress on 13 January 2021. It concerns the procurement programme for the next generation of guided missile destroyers (DDGs), which are to replace the Aegis cruisers of the TICONDEROGA (CG-47) class and the older Aegis destroyers of the ARLEIGH BURKE (DDG-51) class. The navy plans to procure the first DDG(X) in 2028. The draft budget for 2022 requests 121.8 million dollars for research and development.

All large surface combatants procured for the Navy since 1985 have been built at General Dynamics/Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine and Huntington Ingalls Industries in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are the prime contractors for the equipment.

The Navy's CG-47 and DDG-51 are commonly referred to as Aegis cruisers and destroyers because they are equipped with the system of the same name, named after the shield from Greek mythology that Zeus carried for defence. The Navy procured 27 of the CG-47s between fiscal year 1978 and fiscal year 1988, and the ships entered service between 1983 and 1994. The first five ships, built to an earlier technical standard, were deemed too expensive to modernise by the Navy and were decommissioned in 2004-2005. In 2020, the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan called for the remaining 22 CG-47s to be decommissioned between 2021 and 2038. The first DDG-51 was procured in 1985 and commissioned in 1991. The Navy's older DDG-51s, the so-called Flight I/II DDG-51s, have an expected service life of 35 years. The version of the DDG-51 that the Navy is currently procuring is known as the Flight III version. The Navy also has three ZUMWALT-class destroyers (DDG-1000), which were procured in 2007-2009 and are equipped with a combat system other than the Aegis system.

Source and location for download: US Naval Institute (USNI)

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