The US Navy just pulled the destroyer USS Gridley (DDG-101) out of service until December 2028 — the second destroyer stuck in the shipyard until then, alongside USS Pinckney — with a $222.5 million overhaul as a third aircraft carrier heads toward Iran.
After almost two years of nearly back-to-back deployments, from the Middle East and the Western Pacific to a full trip around South America with USS Nimitz, the Gridley is heading into one of its biggest shipyard periods yet. The new contract is about six times larger than its last overhaul in 2023, and 93% of the money comes from the Navy’s budget for new equipment.
So what will the Navy put inside this ship? We look at the $17 billion upgrade plan for the Gridley’s sister ships: a new radar, a new electronic warfare system, a combat software upgrade and new cooling. We also look at the bigger problem. According to the Congressional Budget Office, only 4% of destroyer overhauls finish in the time the Navy originally planned, and a destroyer can spend more than nine years of its life in maintenance.
Will the Gridley really be back by 2028?
Source: The Navy Channel
