The Department of the Navy has released its shipbuilding plan for fiscal year 2027 and beyond, with Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao outlining long-term plans for what the Trump administration is calling the Navy’s “Golden Fleet.”
“The United States is at a strategic inflection point, and rebuilding American maritime dominance requires urgency, accountability, and sustained commitment,” Cao said. “This shipbuilding plan provides a roadmap for the Golden Fleet, to grow a larger, more capable fleet while revitalizing the industrial base, strengthening our workforce, and ensuring our sailors and marines have the platforms they need to defeat any adversary for decades to come.”
Golden Fleet is an homage to Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet,” 16 white-painted battleships deployed in 1907 for a 14-month circumnavigation to project American naval strength.
“Over a century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt sent our fleet of battleships and their escorts on an unprecedented voyage around the globe to demonstrate America’s interests, industrial might and resolve,” Cao wrote in the foreword to the U.S. Navy Shipbuilding Plan. “It requires a clear-eyed strategy, sustained investment, and a direct commitment to the American worker who builds the ships and the sailor and marine who sail them into the fight.”
The plan is built on three principles. First is a move from “a slow, compliance-based bureaucracy to an accountable, warfighting enterprise.” The second principle is asserting maritime dominance through “a larger, more lethal, and more balanced fleet” that will include advanced vessels, “cost-effective frigates,” and unmanned assets.” The last principle is to “ignite a renaissance in American shipbuilding” through long-term investment and expanding capacity.
“A strong industrial base is not just an economic goal,” Cao wrote. “It is a national security imperative.”
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle summarized those three principles as the foundry, the fleet, and the fight.
“We build ships to generate and execute combat power,” Caudle wrote in his foreword. “This plan delivers a fleet able to distribute, concentrate, and sustain force globally, providing combatant commanders credible options at our timing and tempo and ensuring the Navy remains ready to fight and win.”
For fiscal year 2027, the president’s budget requests $65.8 billion for Navy shipbuilding. Early in the near-60-page plan, the case is made for why the Navy requires a significant, long-term investment. While the Navy is required by law to have a fleet of 355 battle force ships, the fleet currently stands at 291.
“Over the past two decades, the shipbuilding budget has doubled, yet we have no more ships now than in 2003,” the report stated. “This is a persistent problem and one that is not just industrial. It is structural and the result of how we buy, how we plan, and how we manage risk in Navy acquisition.”
Design modifications, overly optimistic cost estimates and construction schedules, and expanded requirements during construction are all presented as reasons for ballooning budgets and the Navy’s floundering fleet.
“The Government Accountability Officer, Congressional Research Service, and our own internal reviews have identified these issues repeatedly for more than three decades,” the report stated. “Those lessons learned are the foundation of this plan.”
The plan sets a goal for 50% of Navy shipbuilding taking place at “distributed sites,” a strategy that would shift some construction away from large, legacy yards in favor of modular construction at smaller, commercial shipyards. At present, only 10% of Navy shipbuilding takes place at distributed sites.
“New hulls will prioritize modular, digital designs that enable distributed shipbuilding across multiple yards and suppliers,” the plan stated. “Modular construction expands production capacity, reduces bottlenecks, and accelerates delivery by leveraging industrial capability across the country, not just a handful of legacy shipyards.”
The modular construction approach would open opportunity to every state in the nation, the plan stated.
“This is how we move from stagnation to growth, from delay to delivery, and from a constrained industrial base to one capable of building the fleet of the future at a pace and throughput the nation requires,” the plan said.
Acquisitions from global shipyards are part of the strategy but so is providing “a clear, consistent, and long-term demand signal with complete requirements and competitive opportunities even as it requires industry to deliver its products on time and at the contracted costs,” the plan stated.
The plan highlighted Factory 4 (or F4) in Muscle Shoals, Ala., as a model for future broad-based Navy shipbuilding. The highly automated facility officially opened March 20 following a $900 million Navy investment from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and $1.5 billion in private capital. According to the Navy, Factory 4 will produce components for Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. Highlighting the Navy’s distributed shipbuilding model, Muscle Shoals is located in northern Alabama on the Tennessee River, far from the Gulf Coast and East Coast.
Besides the Navy’s construction and acquisition strategy, the plan touches on force diversity, including a range of unmanned systems “operating everywhere from the seabed to space, fully integrated with current force structure.” Unmanned vessels will offer “precision mass at lower cost,” enabling the Navy to respond to needs faster and, thus, avoid lengthy refits, the plan stated.
The Navy Shipbuilding Plan outlines delivery goals for the next 30 years across the full array of Navy vessels. With adequate funding and timely deliveries, the Navy estimates its battle force fleet could rise from 288 next year to 398 in 2056.
The full plan is available here.
