The US Navy needs to find more ships it can load up with missiles amid shipbuilding delays, Congress says with eyes on China

• Congress ordered the US Navy to look into new ships and weapons platforms amid shipbuilding delays.
• The requested study is in direct response to the delays of a new frigate class.
• Lawmakers are concerned the US Navy is at risk of being unable to China in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Congress has requested that the US Navy conduct a study looking into other ships it can arm with missiles given the pressing need to maintain US naval power amid ongoing shipbuilding delays.

The potential short-term solutions, it said, are key to keeping up US strength in the Indo-Pacific region, especially as China continues building up its naval forces.

In a report accompanying a new draft of the annual defense policy bill for the 2025 fiscal year, the US Senate Armed Services Committee wrote that it was "concerned with the number of Navy battle force ships" and vertical launch platforms for missiles over the next two years.

"Given the ongoing naval buildup by the People's Republic of China, the committee believes these projected declines increase risk to US forces in the US Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility," lawmakers wrote.

The committee report added that it doesn't believe the Navy is adequately preparing to meet requirements for those capabilities in the near-term.

The request comes in response to delays on the first new Constellation-class guided missile frigate, which won't be delivered until at least 2029, three years behind schedule, per a Navy report earlier this year. The second ship in the class is also delayed.

Congress' push for short-term naval combat solutions is also linked to the slow procurement of new large, unmanned surface vessels, which is not expected to begin until 2027.

With this in mind, "the committee believes the US Navy needs to focus more on supplementary options for increasing ship numbers and missile-launching capacity in the nearer term."

By April 2025, Congress expects the Navy to pursue a number of solutions, including a crewed version of the LUSV, more missile-launching capacity, "foreign, commercial, or US government ship designs" that could be adapted for the Navy, and existing Navy platforms "that could be quickly modified into missile-firing ships through the addition of VLS (vertical launch system), bolt-on, or containers missile launchers."

In its report, the committee acknowledged its concerns that these near-term solutions are needed to keep the US Navy in fighting shape should conflict in the Indo-Pacific region arise, especially considering the massive naval buildup seen in China.

Back in April, a 45-day review showed major delays for most of the Navy's big shipbuilding projects, including its Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program, a top priority for the Department of Defense. Due to plans to retire previous ships, the delay will likely keep the Navy from meeting its obligation of having 10 ballistic missile submarines ready to deploy at all times. But this isn't the only problem.

Other ships, like the Navy's next Ford-class carrier, are also notably delayed. At the time of the review, Navy officials attributed the issues to the lingering effects of COVID-19 on the workforce and supply chain, though some issues have long been around.

Beyond the Navy's shipbuilding woes, other US military deficiencies have prompted lawmakers and other national leaders to raise concerns about how the Pentagon is prioritizing its military capacity in the Pacific in order to counter and deter China. In May, 13 members of Congress wrote to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro about the glaring vulnerabilities of US Pacific air bases and aircraft in the face of a missile barrage from China, for example.

With China's current missile strike capabilities," the lawmakers wrote in their letter, "China can attack all US bases in the region, targeting US service members from Okinawa to those on US territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands."