Navy Chooses Evolution Over Revolution for Shipbuilding

[Tony]

I very much agree with this. This is also how they should have done the fighter jets. (Hornet, Superhornet, xx.) Instead we made a leap to an aircraft that is considered a dud.

Vice Adm. William Galinis, Naval Sea Systems Command commander, points to the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer program as an example of how the service should acquire more ships.

“If you think about the DDG-51 class and how we have evolved that since the concept first came about back in the 1980s and where we are today … it really is kind of a model program,” he said at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference.

The evolutionary type design versus the revolutionary approach has made it combat relevant throughout its life and continues to do so, he said.

Whether it is the current goal of a 355-ship Navy or the even higher 500-plus ship fleet proposed by Mark Esper in the waning days of his tenure as defense secretary, the Navy has a lot of vessels to build over the next couple of decades.