As the U.S. Navy waits for more of its Flight III Arleigh Burke class destroyers to join the fleet, existing Flight IIA DDGs will increasingly be taking on the air defense commander role in a carrier strike group (CSG) that has long been served by the aging Ticonderoga class cruiser fleet.
The Navy has four variants in its workhorse guided-missile destroyer fleet: Flight I, Flight II, Flight IIA and Flight III. Flight IIIs will one day take over the air defense commander mission as they were designed specifically to accommodate it, but to date, just one, the USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125), has been commissioned into service. As a result, the Flight IIAs will increasingly be handling a CSG’s air defense command mission as the Navy’s cruiser fleet retires. Unlike destroyers taking on traditional missions that are often skippered by O-5 rank commanders, air defense DDGs will be helmed by O-6 rank captains, as cruisers are, reflecting the heightened importance of that mission.

A warship serving as a CSG air defense commander is responsible for tracking any and all objects in the sky for the CSG, and coordinating actions across the CSG to investigate and, if need be, neutralize those threats. They are the nerve center of the air warfare fight and have the ability to use all the air defense assets in the CSG to achieve their objectives.
The cruisers traditionally undertaking such missions have a larger Combat Information Center (CIC) with more watch standers, as well as expanded hardware. Advances in destroyer hardware and the ever-evolving Aegis Combat System mean that the Flight IIAs are up to taking over the task as the Navy intends, even if some compromises are made, and taking on more crew, resulting in closer quarters. Check out TWZ’s past reporting on how these CICs have been tested like never before in the Red Sea.

“As we get the Flight IIIs online, we will gradually transition to that,” the head of Naval Surface Force Atlantic, Rear Adm. Joseph Cahill, told TWZ and other reporters by phone during a roundtable conversation at the Surface Navy Association’s conference last week. “But we had a gap in there that we needed to fill and [using Flight IIAs for air defense commander is] how we filled it. We think that’s going pretty well from an execution standpoint, but we do need to keep our eye close on that and keep really managing that talent.”
This year will feature Flight IIAs increasingly serving in that air defense commander role, with each of the Navy’s 11 CSGs eventually having their own DDG undertaking that mission. Surface fleet brass say they’ve been encouraged by the DDGs that conducted that mission for two carrier strike groups last year as well.

The USS Frank E. Peterson Jr. (DDG-121) deployed with the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) Carrier Strike Group (CSG) last year, serving as air defense commander. Meanwhile, fellow Flight IIA destroyer USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-118) handled the air defense commander role for the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) CSG last year as well. Daniel Inouye trained for that role before deployment and then took on the mission after the strike group’s cruiser dropped out for “material reasons,” according to Vice Adm. Brendan McLane, the head of Naval Surface Forces.
While McLane didn’t identify the Theodore Roosevelt CSG cruiser by name, online reports indicate that USS Lake Erie (CG-70) was the cruiser that could not make the deployment. Still, McLane said, Daniel Inouye performed the role well after the cruiser’s air defense team was moved over to the destroyer.
“So that team was around the commanding officer, enabled to do it,” he said. “And what I can tell you is both turned out really well. I was happy, and the feedback that we got from the strike group commander on Frank E. Peterson was that, really, you couldn’t tell the difference. And with Daniel Inouye, even though it was a short-notice change, it was the same. They did very, very well.”
Both warships trained for that contingency before deployment commenced, he said.
The aging cruiser fleet has suffered readiness issues and what outside analysts have called a botched modernization effort that resulted in billions spent for very little extended cruiser service life. Go here to read more TWZ coverage of those issues.
While details remain scant, a deployed cruiser, USS Gettysburg (CG-64), was at the center of a friendly fire incident last month when the cruiser shot down a F/A-18 Super Hornet jet while deployed with the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) in the Red Sea. That ship, while just a handful of years before the end of its service life, had been recently upgraded and is the most advanced of its kind at sea today.

For the interim time between the last of the cruisers retiring and the Flight III DDGs coming online, the Navy plans to have one Flight IIA destroyer serving as air defense commander in each of its 11 carrier strike groups. The USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81) will deploy this summer with the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) Carrier Strike Group, Cahill said, and the USS Mason (DDG-87) is preparing to take on that role as well. Navy leadership have not identified the other vessels slated to take on air defense commander.
“The warships that we’ve selected that are Flight II Alphas have all been modernized and have the latest threat-based capability out there, so that’s another important piece on this,” Cahill said. “These integrated air and missile defense commanders have incredibly potent and lethal combat systems.”
Meanwhile, other Flight IIAs are undergoing other modernization efforts to upgrade their capability and extend their service life, a development that TWZ has covered extensively in the past.
Such Flight IIAs are up to the air defense command ship task, but the decision raises questions about long-term feasibility, according to a retired warship captain who requested anonymity to share his frank thoughts on the matter with TWZ.

Equipment-wise, a DDG can accommodate extra staff required to take on the air defense mission, which involves a handful of additional watch stations in the warship’s CIC.
“You’ve got extra people and need to put them somewhere, so that could be a hassle, but you’ve got room,” the retired captain said.
Still, tasking a Flight IIA destroyer with the air defense commander mission means the CSG has one less warship available for other missions, he said. Flight IIA manning documents also don’t include the required extra people so that could portend long-term alterations to the ship’s manning.
“It adds another layer and brings up the ops tempo a bit for everybody on the ship,” he said, adding that every other CSG warfare commander is stationed on the aircraft carrier, and there’s been debate in the community for a long time about whether the air defense commander mission should be run from a flattop as well.
“From a capability standpoint, with a few tweaks, the Flight II Alphas can do the job,” he said.
This mission shift for the Flight IIAs is being driven by the fact that the Navy is waiting on its Flight III destroyers to come online en masse. Navy officials have not responded to TWZ questions about the status of that effort or when more of those new DDGs will be joining the fleet, but analyses and other reporting indicate that the Flight IIIs are suffering cost increases and delivery delays.
The Navy currently has 74 destroyers in the Arleigh Burke class. Two Flight IIAs and 18 Flight IIIs are already either under construction or their purchase has already been authorized by Congress. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessment released earlier this month also found that, overall, the 23 Flight IIIs laid out in the Navy’s most recent 30-year shipbuilding plan will end up costing $2.7 billion on average, up from prior estimates of $2.1 billion per ship.
“The Navy stated in a briefing to CBO and [the Congressional Research Service] that the increase in its estimates of the cost of the DDG-51 Flight IIIs was attributable to shipbuilding inflation’s outpacing economywide inflation as well as declining shipyard performance,” the CBO report states.
The report added that the destroyers currently under construction “have experienced substantial delays.” To date, just one Flight III destroyer, the USS Jack Lucas (DDG-125) has been commissioned, and the keel was laid for the second Flight III, the future USS Louis H. Wilson Jr. (DDG-126) in 2023. The future USS Ted Stevens (DDG-128) was also launched in 2023. Inside Defense reported in June that other Flight III vessels could see six-to-25-month delivery delays.
TWZ reported on various aspects of that CBO assessment, which questioned cost and fleet size estimates by the Navy for the coming decades.
While Navy leaders have expressed confidence that Flight IIA destroyers can handle the air defense mission as the sea service waits for Flight IIIs, the stopgap solution nonetheless reflects longstanding issues that the sea service and the American shipbuilding industry face when it comes to purchasing and delivering warships on time. And while legislative and other efforts are underway to potentially fix these shortfalls, it remains to be seen whether U.S. shipbuilding can be put on a better course.
Email the author: geoff@twz.com