HII begins construction of 13th Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS John F. Lehman for US Navy.

HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division began fabrication of the future USS John F. Lehman (DDG 137) at its yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, marking the formal start of construction on the U.S. Navy’s newest Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. The vessel serves as a critical element in sustaining the Navy's large surface combatant capacity as procurement delays push the transition to the next-generation DDG(X) into the early 2030s. To circumvent skilled labor shortages and meet aggressive fleet production timelines, the shipbuilder is utilizing an expanded distributed shipbuilding model that outsources major structural unit fabrication across six regional partner yards.

The USS John F. Lehman represents the 87th Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and the seventh Flight III variant assigned to Ingalls Shipbuilding, which currently holds contracts for five active builds and seven hulls in pre-planning. Optimized for dense multi-domain threats, the Flight III architecture integrates the advanced AN/SPY-6(V)1 air and missile defense radar, an upgraded 12 MW electrical plant, and a 96-cell Mk 41 Vertical Launching System.

Related topic: US Navy accepts accelerated delivery of final Flight IIA destroyer USS Patrick Gallagher

Power generation increases from three 3 MW ship service generators on Flight IIA ships to three 4 MW generators on Flight III, providing 12 MW of electrical power and creating the margin required for the radar, Aegis Baseline 10 and future electronic loads. (Picture source: HII)

On July 1, 2026, HII announced that Ingalls Shipbuilding had begun fabrication of the next Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the future USS John F. Lehman (DDG 137), on June 30. The ship is the 87th Arleigh Burke-class destroyer ordered by the U.S. Navy, the 13th Flight III destroyer under contract, and the seventh Flight III hull assigned to Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Its fabrication start comes at a point when the Arleigh Burke program is carrying most of the Navy's large surface combatant replacement burden, because the future DDG(X) is not expected to enter procurement before the early 2030s. Ingalls already has five Flight III destroyers in construction and seven more in early pre-planning and material procurement, which means the USS John F. Lehman is part of a sequenced production queue that will keep the yard tied to Aegis destroyer work for years.

The ship also marks the expansion of HII's distributed shipbuilding model, under which major structural units are fabricated by six partner shipyards in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida before final assembly, outfitting, testing and combat system integration at Pascagoula. The five Flight III destroyers under construction at Ingalls are USS Ted Stevens (DDG-128), USS Jeremiah Denton (DDG-129), USS George M. Neal (DDG-131), USS Sam Nunn (DDG-133), and USS Thad Cochran (DDG-135). The seven additional ships in early pre-planning and material procurement are USS John F. Lehman (DDG-137), USS Telesforo Trinidad (DDG-139), USS Ernest E. Evans (DDG-141), USS Charles French (DDG-142), USS Richard J. Danzig (DDG-143), USS Intrepid (DDG-145), and USS Robert Kerrey (DDG-146).

Flight III begins with the USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125) and has replaced Flight IIA as the Navy's current destroyer baseline, while preserving the Arleigh Burke-class hull architecture that entered production in 1988. By 2026, the class has reached 75 active ships, 10 under construction, 13 on order, and a planned total approaching 99 hulls, making it the largest and longest-running surface combatant production program in U.S. Navy history. The Navy is continuing the line because it must replace retiring Ticonderoga-class cruisers, sustain carrier and amphibious group escort capacity, and avoid a production gap before DDG(X) becomes available. The Flight III destroyer keeps the 155.3 m hull length, 20 m beam, 9,700-ton full-load displacement, four General Electric LM2500 gas turbines, and 96 Mk 41 Vertical Launching System cells used by late Flight IIA ships.

Its main change is the AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar, built with 37 Radar Module Assemblies, replacing the SPY-1D(V) radar used by earlier Burkes. Power generation rises from three 3 MW ship service generators on Flight IIA to three 4 MW generators on Flight III, giving the ship 12 MW of installed electrical power for the radar, Aegis Baseline 10 and future electronic loads. The result is a destroyer optimized for denser missile and air threats, with better ballistic missile defense performance, target discrimination, track capacity and fire control support. As the ship does not gain more missile cells, its practical combat increase comes from detecting, classifying and engaging targets more effectively rather than from carrying more weapons. Its 96-cell launcher remains compatible with SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, ESSM Block 2, Tomahawk and VL-ASROC, which keeps the ship inside the Navy's existing missile logistics and training structure. 

The USS John F. Lehman also reflects the industrial problem behind current U.S. fleet planning: the Navy can authorize ships faster than the industrial base can reliably deliver them. HII's model shifts part of the steel and structural-unit workload from Pascagoula to six partner yards across the Gulf Coast region, while Ingalls retains final assembly and the higher-risk integration work. HII plans to outsource more than 2.5 million shipbuilding labor hours in 2026, a large transfer of workload for a prime surface combatant yard and a direct response to skilled labor shortages, supplier bottlenecks and production sequencing limits. This is not simply a cost measure. It is a capacity measure intended to use available welders, fitters, planners, supervisors and production floor space outside Ingalls' immediate labor market.

The approach reduces dependence on one shipyard's workforce for every phase of construction, but it also requires tighter quality control, transport planning, dimensional accuracy and schedule synchronization, because hull sections built in different yards must arrive at Pascagoula ready for integration into a combatant with very low tolerance for rework. The namesake, John F. Lehman, links the DDG 137 to the last period in which the U.S. Navy expanded its fleet on a major scale, with the 600-ship Navy program. Lehman served as Secretary of the Navy from February 1981 to April 1987 and made fleet size, forward presence, and wartime surge capacity central to naval policy during the Reagan administration. He remained an active Naval Reserve commander and naval flight officer while serving as Secretary, which reinforced his close association with naval aviation and carrier-centered maritime strategy.

His tenure coincided with accelerated procurement of Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, Los Angeles-class attack submarines, Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruisers, Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, and the early procurement path for the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. He also supported the recommissioning of the four Iowa-class battleships, a decision that increased visible fleet size while new construction continued. Naming DDG 137 after Lehman places a current air and missile defense destroyer inside a lineage associated with numerical fleet expansion, maritime pressure against a major naval adversary, and the shift toward Aegis-equipped surface forces. The 600-ship Navy was not only a slogan but a force-structure target tied to a specific Cold War operating concept. It emerged during the 1980 presidential campaign and became naval policy after the Reagan administration entered office in 1981.

The battle force grew from about 479 ships in FY1980 to 594 ships in 1987, the closest the Navy came to the 600-ship objective and the highest level reached after the Vietnam War. The buildup used three tools at the same time: new construction, service life extensions, and reactivation of older ships. Major procurement lines included 29 Ticonderoga-class cruisers, 62 Los Angeles-class attack submarines, 18 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, 10 Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers, 51 Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, and the first Arleigh Burke destroyers, whose procurement was approved in FY1985 with an eventual requirement for more than 60 ships. The four Iowa-class battleships returned to service, while older carriers and surface combatants were kept in the fleet longer to sustain deployable numbers.

The operational purpose was to maintain simultaneous carrier presence in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, while retaining reserve capacity for a wider NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict. The Soviet collapse ended the strategic basis for the full buildup, but the shipbuilding decisions made in that period shaped U.S. fleet composition for the next two decades. The USS John F. Lehman, for its part, enters production under a fleet plan that has ambitious numerical goals but limited near-term industrial elasticity. The U.S. Navy operates 291 battle force ships, well below the 355-ship objective established by Congress in 2017. The FY2025 30-year shipbuilding plan projects the fleet rising above 300 ships by FY2032 and reaching 381 battle force ships by FY2042, with unmanned vessels forming a larger share of the future total.

That projection still depends on continued procurement of large surface combatants, because the Navy is retiring Ticonderoga-class cruisers and must eventually replace the oldest Flight I and Flight II Arleigh Burke destroyers. Flight III destroyers therefore fill several roles at once: they replace cruiser air defense capacity, escort Ford-class aircraft carriers, protect amphibious ready groups, contribute to ballistic missile defense, and keep the two destroyer yards, Ingalls Shipbuilding and Bath Iron Works, active until DDG(X) enters production. The main constraint is not only budget authority. It is now whether shipyards and suppliers can deliver combatants at a rate consistent with the fleet plan, especially when the same industrial base is also supporting submarines, aircraft carriers, amphibious ships, auxiliaries, weapons production, and maintenance backlogs. 

Compared with other destroyer programs, the DDG-51 line remains exceptional in duration and total output, but not in recent annual production speed. The Arleigh Burke program has 77 completed ships, 10 under construction, 13 on order, and a planned total approaching 99 hulls, while U.S. annual delivery capacity generally remains limited to one to two destroyers. China has produced large surface combatants faster in recent years, completing the first eight Type 055 destroyers between 2020 and 2023 while a second batch of eight is under construction or fitting out, alongside continued Type 052D production.

The United Kingdom is not building a new destroyer class; instead, it is replacing broader escort capacity with eight Type 26 frigates, while the six Type 45 destroyers remain its dedicated air defense force. Japan is moving from the Maya-class toward two Aegis System Equipped Vessels (ASEVs) of about 190 m and about 14,000 tons, with commissioning planned in the late 2020s, and serial work continues more heavily on Mogami-class frigates. India completed four Visakhapatnam-class Project 15B destroyers between 2021 and 2024 and is expected to move future large combatant development toward the Next Generation Destroyer program.

Russia has not maintained serial destroyer construction since the Soviet period and has focused on Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates. France has not built a destroyer since the Horizon-class and is now centered on FREMM and FDI frigates. The comparison shows that the U.S. Navy still has the largest continuous destroyer program, but China currently has the stronger recent construction tempo, while several European navies have effectively shifted away from destroyer production toward frigate-sized combatants.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.

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