Posted on February 19, 2026
DredgeWire Note: The new Marine Corps Vessel will be based on a design by Damen.
The U.S. Navy plans to hire a private company to manage the construction of new Marine Corps landing ships, marking a shift in an oversight role exclusively performed by government officials since World War II.
The move is the latest attempt by the Trump administration and Navy to speed up the often slow and overbudget shipbuilding process by adopting practices more commonly used in the commercial sector, according to Navy officials.
Typically, Navy employees based at the top shipyards provide project oversight, contract administration, IT management and other functions. Now, a vessel-construction manager will assume that role, meaning the third-party company is in control of the shipyard’s performance.
The Navy command historically responsible for that oversight has lost technical expertise as seasoned employees have retired and, more recently, through governmentwide cuts pushed through by the Department of Government Efficiency, said Bryan Clark, a naval expert with the Hudson Institute.
“[Naval Sea Systems Command is] even less capable of doing the kind of technical management of a shipbuilding project than they were in the past,” Clark said.
