The first Navy ship to be named for retired Rear Adm. James Stockdale, built in Bath, Maine, and recently fending off multiple national-security threats, is starting to show its age.
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So the USS Stockdale (DDG-106) will be undergoing a $61 million modernization in a San Diego shipyard starting this spring.
In addition to underwater-hull preservation work, the ship’s superstructure, interior fuel and ballast tanks will be reconditioned, and crew living spaces are to be refurbished.
The Stockdale was launched by Bath Iron Works in 2008, becoming a member of an elite class of warfare – the Arleigh Burke destroyers.
The vessel withstood four multi-pronged rocket attacks from Iran-backed Houthi rebels between September and December 2024 and fought off every one with no damage or injury.
The Burke class has the longest production run of any U.S. Navy surface combatant. The first in the group, USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) was launched in 1989.
The primary builders have been Bath and Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi.
The Burkes are multi-mission destroyers able to conduct anti-aircraft warfare with Aegis and surface-to-air missiles.
They can also conduct tactical land strikes with Tomahawk missiles and antisubmarine warfare with towed-array sonar and rockets.
The vessels are also equipped with helicopters and ship-to-ship missiles and guns.
Despite their overall success, the Burkes have faced significant challenges, including excessive maintenance downtime consuming 25 percent of their service life, skyrocketing repair costs and limited growth capacity for future power-hungry weapons systems.
Aging hulls, combined with intense deployment schedules, have led to reduced operational availability, with only about a third of the ships available at times in recent years.
Stockdale was launched in 2008 / Not 1989