Posted on December 3, 2025
Key Points and Summary: The U.S. Navy has canceled the Constellation-class frigate program at a Wisconsin shipyard due to excessive design modifications and delays, opting for faster-to-build alternatives.
-The Failure: Initially based on a proven Italian design, constant government-mandated changes pushed the launch from 2026 to 2029, costing $2 billion without a single ship in the water.
An artist rendering of the U.S. Navy guided-missile frigate FFG(X). The new small surface combatant will have multi-mission capability to conduct air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, electronic warfare, and information operations. The design is based on the FREMM multipurpose frigate. A contract for ten ships was awarded to Marinette Marine Corporation, Wisconsin (USA), on 30 April 2020.
-The Gap: While the U.S. struggles, China’s PLAN has become the world’s largest navy (370+ hulls), with shipbuilding capacity estimated at 200 times that of the United States.
-The Threat: Beijing’s rapid expansion of amphibious and utility vessels signals a growing capability to blockade or invade Taiwan, while U.S. industrial capacity continues to erode.
China’s Shipyards Have a Message for the U.S. Navy: ‘We Will Outnumber You’
The US Navy announced this past week that it would cancel a plan to build four Constellation-class frigates in a Wisconsin shipyard and instead attempt to build other, faster-to-construction designs in their place. The cancellation was reportedly necessitated by a long-running set of design modifications to these ships ordered by the US Government customer.
The design changes, according to stories published by the Wall Street Journal, would have delayed construction of the ships for several years, making the program impractical. This cancellation will mean the end of the Constellation-class frigate program that the Navy first ordered from the Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri in 2020.
Navy officials stated that the contractor will continue work on two of the ships already under construction. But plans for the other four hulls will be shelved to make space in the shipyards for vessels that can be designed and assembled on a shorter timetable.
Constellation-Class Frigate U.S. Navy. Image Credit: Industry Handout.
“A key factor in this decision is the need to grow the fleet faster to meet tomorrow’s threats,” Navy Secretary John Phelan said. “This framework puts the Navy on a path to more rapidly construct new classes of ships and deliver the capability our warfighters need in greater numbers and on a more urgent timeline.”
Unable to Keep Pace
The progress – or lack thereof – on the Constellation-class vessels has shed light on the issue of the US Navy lagging behind most other countries’ shipbuilding capacity.
Fincantieri was initially contracted to build an American version of a proven model already serving at sea with other navies when the Italian firm won the contract, which, in theory, should have been easy to deliver on.
But, as the contractor’s criticism reads, the US Government kept modifying the design to meet evolving requirements. This delayed the construction timetable for these ships, and costs began to spiral out of control.
The first ship in the class, which is to be called the USS Constellation, was initially scheduled to launch in 2026 but will now put to sea only in late 2029.
A senior US Navy official said last week that the service had so far spent about $2 billion on the program.
According to shipbuilding specialists, naval vessels built in US shipyards almost always take longer and cost more than those built in almost all other industrialized nations.
A survey by the WSJ of 20 different frigates in 10 different countries that were built recently or are nearing completion shows that all but one of these ships will be built in less time than has been required for the USS Constellation.
The assessment of more than one former naval official that National Security Journal spoke with is that this state of affairs in US shipbuilding threatens to erode the historical US worldwide naval superiority that has held since the Second World War.
The Rising Tide From The East
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) fast-working shipyards continue to rapidly expand the capabilities of its People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). This force is now the world’s largest navy by hull count, with a force level of more than 370 warships and submarines.
Among these vessels are landing dock ships, helicopter carriers, and specialized landing barges. It is precisely the mix of utility-type ships that naval analysts say would be the spearhead of a cross-strait assault by Beijing to invade the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan.
Beijing has long claimed the island as its own territory and regularly threatens to force the ROC into unification with the mainland. The PLAN and PLAAF have also continued to ratchet up pressure on the island with high-power, large-scale military drills.
China Aircraft Carriers In Focus. Image Credit: X Screenshot.
Some of these are exercises in which the PRC launches air sorties across the Taiwan Strait’s median line that will often circle the island. This is proving another threat from the mainland – that Secretary General Xi Jinping’s Communist Party regime can blockade the ROC by air if necessary to cause it to submit to communist rule.
China has also dramatically increased its investments in shipbuilding. To provide a sense of perspective, more than 60 per cent of the world’s shipbuilding orders this year have been filled by Chinese shipyards. The PRC is building more ships than any other country, simply because it can do so faster than anyone else.
“The scale is extraordinary… in many ways eye-watering,” says Nick Childs, a maritime expert with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) who spoke to the BBC on this issue back in August. “The Chinese shipbuilding capacity is something like 200 times overall that of the United States.”
“The message is,” said a former US Naval Intelligence official, “that Beijing is going to be able to simply outnumber and overpower the American Navy. They can build ships at scale and at speed. Something we used to do better than anyone else, but apparently have forgotten how.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the US Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
