After construction began in 2022—and nearly five years since the initial contract was awarded—the first of the U.S. Navy’s future Constellation-class frigates is only about 10% complete and still lacks a fully functional final design. The update was reported by U.S. defense media in late March and confirmed during the Sea Air Space 2025 event by Mark Vandroff, current Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Fincantieri Marine Group.
Quoting some of Vice President Vandroff’s official remarks: “First ship is under construction up in Marinette, Wisconsin, roughly 10 percent done. We’re working to finalize the design with the Navy. That has been progressing. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last year, and we expect to have the functional design wrapped up here in late spring, early summer.”
It is worth recalling that the original Constellation design was partly chosen to accelerate construction timelines and the subsequent delivery of ships to the U.S. Navy—plans that ultimately failed to materialize due to a series of back-and-forth decisions regarding requested modifications to the original design. In this regard, sources familiar with the program revealed that construction is already taking more than twice the time an Italian shipyard would require to build a frigate based on the original design, also adding that the vessel’s cost is significantly exceeding the original budget: from a projected $1 billion to nearly $1.4 billion currently under discussion.
These issues undoubtedly impact the broader development of the Constellation program, especially considering that, according to current estimates, the first unit of the fleet will not be completed until 2029—considerably delaying the arrival of the remaining 19 frigates the Navy plans to commission. Furthermore, regarding the aforementioned modifications requested by the U.S. Navy, there are still concerns about the long-term performance of the vessels. Specifically, the ship reportedly retains only about 15% of the original Italian design, while the goal was to maintain at least 85% commonality.
In summary, it is important to note that the construction of the future U.S. frigates is not only suffering delays and cost overruns due to the aforementioned problems, but also from difficulties in acquiring materials and hiring qualified personnel to work at the shipbuilding facilities. Quoting Vice President Vandroff once again: “I think we have the same issues as pretty much everyone else in the American shipbuilding industry. We would certainly like more workers. We would certainly like more workers in the steel trades. There’s a nationwide shortage on welders, shipfitters, and to a lesser degree, electricians.”
When taken together with other naval construction projects for the U.S. Navy facing delays and overruns, the issue only further highlights the poor state of the domestic shipbuilding industry—an industry unable to generate the same interest among foreign clients as other defense sector players. So much so that the White House has issued a new executive order titled “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance,” which acknowledges the extremely low percentage of the global market supplied by U.S. companies—something even more concerning when contrasted with the performance of their Chinese counterparts.
Reflecting some of the concerns emerging from U.S. political circles, the statements by Rob Wittman, currently serving as Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, stand out: “It started out saying we’re going to take the FREMM concept, 85 percent complete, we’ll add our 15 percent to it, and then we’ll go right to construction. We look right now, it is over cost, over budget, because that is reversed. (…) are we at a point where we either quickly recover and get back on track with this, get back to schedule, get back to budget – I don’t know that you could make up schedule – or do you say, maybe we’re too far along with this, and we go in a different direction. The Navy is going to have to ask that question now.”
Images used for illustrative purposes only.
You may also like: The development of the U.S. Navy’s new HALO hypersonic anti-ship missile has been canceled due to its high cost
“We would certainly like more workers. We would certainly like more workers in the steel trades. There’s a nationwide shortage on welders, shipfitters, and to a lesser degree, electricians.”
He could start by offering a wage that attracts tradesmen rather than barely competing with Walmart.