Under a crisp, cloudless sky, the USS Cape St. George glided into Naval Base San Diego to the sound of cheers, camera shutters, and the drone of tugboats escorting her home. For the sailors lining the rails of the 567-foot cruiser, it was a moment of vindication, of long-awaited return. But beneath the ceremonial surface, this homecoming carried a weightier significance: the conclusion of one of the longest and most expensive warship modernizations in recent U.S. Navy history.
After 8.5 years in overhaul and more than $601 million spent, the Cape St. George reenters service for what will likely be its final act—a single deployment, followed by retirement in fiscal year 2027.
The ship, commissioned in 1993 and named after a pivotal World War II naval battle, is among the last of the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers. Designed to command the sea during the Cold War, its arrival in 2025—amid an evolving and more technologically competitive maritime domain—poses a difficult question: What was gained for all that time and money?
The Ticonderoga-class, with 27 ships built between the 1980s and early 1990s, was envisioned as the tip of the Navy’s air defense spear. The class introduced the Aegis Combat System, an integrated suite of sensors, processors, and weapons that allowed warships to detect and engage multiple threats simultaneously. The Cape St. George, in particular, features 122 vertical launch system (VLS) cells, capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles, SM-2 and SM-6 interceptors, and ASROC anti-submarine rockets.
It’s a ship designed not just for warfighting, but for coordinating it.
But even steel has a lifespan. By the mid-2010s, corrosion, cracking, outdated electronics, and failing mechanical systems made modernization imperative. In 2016, the Navy committed to a major overhaul of seven aging cruisers, including Cape St. George, hoping to bridge the growing gap between operational demand and the delay in fielding next-generation surface combatants.
The plan: extend each cruiser’s life by five years and preserve their unmatched firepower and command capability through the 2020s. The reality: delays, overruns, and shrinking returns.
Modernization began in December 2016 at Vigor Marine in Seattle. The initial estimate: four years and a modest budget (by Pentagon standards) of around $300 million. That proved optimistic.
The work required to make Cape St. George seaworthy again turned out to be far more invasive than planned. Decades of deferred maintenance had corroded the hull. Critical systems, once expected to need simple upgrades, were beyond saving. Parts of the electrical, mechanical, and hydraulic systems needed complete replacement.
Then came the integration headaches. The upgraded Aegis Baseline 9 software had to coexist with legacy wiring and aging processors. The new AN/SPQ-9B radar, designed to improve surface target tracking, and modernized sonar systems added complexity.
A December 2024 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report laid bare the problems. It found more than 9,000 contract changes throughout the modernization, revealing just how unprepared the Navy and its contractors were for the task. Vigor Marine struggled with workforce shortages and skills gaps, while delays cascaded as design changes rippled through every compartment and system.
Logistical complexity increased in 2021 when the Navy moved Cape St. George to San Diego for additional work, splintering coordination across coasts and complicating supply chains.
By 2025, the cost had more than doubled, reaching $601.39 million. For context, a brand-new Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer—equipped with 96 VLS cells and cutting-edge AN/SPY-6 radar—costs about $2 billion, with an expected service life of 40 years.
The Cape St. George’s modernization will yield just two.
The Navy’s Cruiser Modernization Program was originally supposed to rejuvenate seven ships. But just three—Gettysburg, Chosin, and Cape St. George—were completed. Four others, including Hué City, Anzio, Vicksburg, and Cowpens, were decommissioned after partial upgrades, consuming $1.84 billion with nothing to show operationally.
A program meant to extend capability ended up draining budget lines. The three completed cruisers will collectively deliver 10 years of service life for a cost approaching $2 billion.
That kind of return is hard to justify. Critics point to the opportunity cost: the same funds could have bought at least one and possibly two Flight III destroyers—or been invested in emerging technologies such as unmanned surface vessels, directed energy weapons, or hypersonic missile programs.
Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley described the program as “well-intentioned but deeply flawed,” adding, “We tried to turn a 1990s ship into a 2030s ship without the infrastructure or foresight to do it efficiently.”
For all the criticism, Cape St. George is not an obsolete relic. It remains one of the most heavily armed surface combatants in the world. With 122 missile cells, two 5-inch guns, Harpoon missiles, and close-in weapon systems, it can engage everything from ballistic missiles to enemy ships to submarines.
Its newly installed TRAM (Transferrable Reload At-sea Mechanism) system allows the ship to reload missile canisters from a supply vessel while underway—a first for the Navy, tested successfully in October 2024. This capability enhances endurance in contested waters and reduces reliance on fixed ports.
“In a real-world fight, the Cape St. George would be a powerful asset,” said Cmdr. Linda Harper, a former cruiser CO. “But we have to weigh that against how much we spent to get there—and how briefly we’ll have it.”
The ship will likely serve in the Indo-Pacific on its final deployment, a region where China’s navy now fields the Type 055 destroyer—a stealthy, modern platform that rivals the Ticonderoga-class in size and missile capacity, but at a construction time of just three years and cost of under $1 billion.
The Navy’s current predicament stems from a strategic misalignment. The Ticonderoga-class was meant to be replaced by a next-generation cruiser, dubbed CG(X). That program was canceled in 2010. The alternative, the DDG(X) destroyer, won’t be fielded until the mid-2030s.
In the meantime, the Navy has had to maintain older platforms—despite the escalating costs—just to sustain a credible force structure. Congress played a key role in this, rejecting the Navy’s attempts in 2012 and again in 2019 to retire aging cruisers early.
“The Navy’s CG retirement plans will create a VLS cell bathtub in the fleet right as we enter a period of heightened risk with China,” warned Rep. Rob Wittman in 2023.
This strategic shortfall meant that even inefficient modernization efforts became politically necessary. The risk of fleet contraction outweighed the cost, at least in the short term.
But with inflation climbing, budgets tightening, and peer competition accelerating, that calculus is becoming harder to sustain.
The U.S. isn’t alone in modernizing its navy, but it’s falling behind in efficiency. France updates its Horizon-class frigates in two to three years for around $250 million per ship. Germany’s Sachsen-class overhauls are completed in less than two years. Japan, using the same Aegis system, refreshes its Atago-class destroyers in three years for under $200 million.
China, meanwhile, is churning out new destroyers at a pace the U.S. hasn’t matched since the Cold War. Its shipyards can deliver a new Type 055 in 30–36 months.
Russia’s Admiral Nakhimov project—a decade-long, $2 billion modernization of a Cold War-era cruiser—is perhaps the only comparison that makes the Cape St. George look efficient by contrast.
The U.S. struggles with older hulls, labor shortages, and regulatory burdens. But the biggest difference may be strategic discipline. Other navies invest where returns are clearest. The U.S., by contrast, is often pulled between legacy obligations, industrial constraints, and congressional mandates.
While policy debates rage in D.C., the people closest to the Cape St. George bore the brunt of the program’s flaws. Sailors spent years in limbo, cycling through training with no firm return-to-sea date. Some transferred off before the ship ever floated again.
For shipyard workers, the job was technically demanding and often frustrating. “It was like trying to rebuild a classic car with no manual, half the parts missing, and the customer changing the specs every month,” said one Vigor Marine engineer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Still, the pride of completion runs deep. “We brought it back,” the engineer added. “That means something.”
Over three decades, the Cape St. George earned its place in Navy history—from firing Tomahawks in Iraq to delivering aid off the coast of Pakistan, to confronting Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Its last chapter, though, tells a different story.
Not of battlefield heroics, but of bureaucratic ambition, strategic gaps, and the high cost of holding onto the past.
Still, lessons have been learned. The Navy’s new DDG Modernization 2.0 program is being structured differently: more modularity, better oversight, and clearer timelines. Capt. Tim Moore, the program’s manager, acknowledged the cruiser effort’s failings during the 2024 Sea Air Space conference. “We can’t afford to repeat the same mistakes,” he said.
The Cape St. George will soon depart again, one final deployment before decommissioning. It will sail as a symbol of resilience and engineering grit—but also as a case study in the pitfalls of strategic indecision.
