U.S. Navy boosts ship defenses with multi-year Phalanx CIWS upgrade plan.

The U.S. Navy is organizing a new multi-year cycle to sustain, upgrade, convert, and overhaul Phalanx CIWS across the surface fleet. The plan helps keep the fleet’s last-line ship-defense layer ready amid evolving missile and drone threats.

Official Navy planning signals in early September 2025 indicated a renewed multi-year path for the MK-15 Phalanx CIWS across several fiscal years. The effort aligns production support with upgrades, conversions, and overhauls to keep mounts mission-ready through the decade. Consolidating sustainment actions stabilizes the availability of the fleet’s final protective layer on surface combatants.
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The Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer fires an MK-15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon System on the fantail during a live-fire exercise, Sept. 6, 2025.  (Picture source: US DoD)

Phalanx CIWS is the safeguard that operates after other options have been used. The compact mount, a familiar silhouette on a roof or aft deck, combines a 20 mm M61 family Gatling gun, a Ku band radar for search and tracking, and a stabilized electro optical turret for identification and fire support. The rate of fire approaches 4,500 rounds per minute and the magazine holds about 1,550 rounds, which requires disciplined employment. Crews fire short bursts, assess effects, and reengage if needed. At these ranges, ammunition management is part of fire control.

The current fleet baseline is Block 1B Baseline 2. This iteration added a surface mode and stabilized infrared imaging, useful when small craft, low, slow drones, or erratic objects blend into sea clutter. The system is designed for rapid train and elevation, to absorb vibration, and to respect ship safety arcs. Armor piercing sabot ammunition aims to degrade a missile’s aerodynamics, shear control surfaces, and fracture the airframe, gaining the meters that prevent impact. Performance depends on a clean, calibrated sensor to computer loop, because engagement windows are measured in seconds.

Within layered defense, Phalanx is the last step. Decoys and electronic warfare come first, followed by medium or long range surface to air missiles, then very short-range gun engagement if a leaker passes the outer layers. That logic has not changed. What has changed is the frequency of real targets appearing very close in across varied theaters, including congested littorals, chokepoints, and port approaches. Ships therefore need a system that functions reliably, returns to ready status quickly after a firing sequence, and can be maintained without immobilizing the platform.

The multi year planning under consideration addresses the requirement for permanence. The aim is to balance new production with recapitalization, schedule reliability kits and sensor upgrades, and align long term ammunition and spares logistics. It is not only about quantities; it is about having equipment installed and available on date, during a maintenance period, just before deployment, with trained crews. In practice, this implies work packages synchronized with shipyard and depot calendars, and multi-year visibility for the industrial base.

These systems are found across several ship classes. They equip Arleigh Burke class destroyers, mounted forward and aft depending on the flight. They remain on Ticonderoga-class cruisers still in service. They are present on Nimitz and Ford class aircraft carriers, where the mount complements missile and decoy layers. They are fitted on large amphibious ships such as LHDs and LHAs, and on some logistics vessels depending on series and refits. Some newer platforms field SeaRAM, a related system that replaces the 20 mm gun with missiles, but the Phalanx inventory remains extensive and requires a steady flow of overhauls and conversions. This distribution explains the variety of kits and interfaces, since integration on a destroyer differs from integration on a carrier.

Tactical performance rests on the sensors to firing chain. The Ku band radar searches, locks, and tracks. The stabilized electro-optical channel supports identification in heavy sea clutter and enables very short-range surface engagements under tighter rules of engagement. Fire control cycles through detection, computation, firing, and effects assessment with minimized latency. Mechanics must keep pace, with high train and elevation speeds, reliable services, and a consistent air drive for the gun. These practical aspects matter on a wet deck with crosswinds.

Over the past two years, surface ships have maintained high alert watches, at times under combined drone and cruise missile threats, with repeated alert sequences. Many allied navies operating Phalanx or analogous systems face the same conditions. The requirement is to ensure the final safety net when weather is poor, sensors are stressed, and crews need an automatic system backed by rapid human validation. It is not flashy; it is a continuity requirement that does not tolerate gaps.

This is what a new multi-year sequence around Phalanx CIWS would support. The picture is coherent: a public contract secures current work, while the Navy planning structures for the near future. The task is to keep mounts serviceable, sensors at standard, and crews trained. When a sea skimmer appears at very short range and dips behind a wave crest, the question is simple. The gun must be ready, the magazine loaded, and the sensor to computer loop responsive. Preparing another multi-year round is intended to achieve precisely that through 2029.