Navy Secretary John Phelan on Thursday hinted the Navy’s fiscal year 2027 budget request will more than double the 17 ships funded in the fiscal 2026 defense appropriations law, with a specific focus on auxiliary and support vessels.
“So I can’t talk a lot about the ‘27 budget. What I’ll say is if you look at the ‘26 budget, it’s 17 or 19 ships in there,” Phelan said in a morning keynote of the WEST 2026 conference, sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) and the U.S. Naval Institute. “You should expect at least more than double, I would hope, from the new budget is what we’re basically looking at.”
The final fiscal 2026 defense spending bill included $27.2 billion to build 17 ships, including one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and two Virginia-class attack submarines.
Phelan said the fiscal 2027 ship procurement request numbers will include a “pretty big contingent of auxiliary and support ships.” The focus on the auxiliary ships is a combination of being a way to help rebuild the maritime industrial base because these are “easier ships to build than our combat ships with their very complicated radar systems or nuclear propulsion systems” as well as “an area that we are in grave need of upgrading,” he said.
Phelan’s remarks were in reply to a question from industry about the plan to enhance logistics support for combatant ships and ground forces across the Pacific region.
“I don’t want to get in front of [the budget], but I think you’ll be pleased when we get that out,” Phelan added.
Last July, Hanwha Philly Shipyard CEO David Kim said that his organization is looking to ultimately bid for the U.S. Navy auxiliary support vessels after the South Korean conglomerate works to improve the yard’s production rates.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily first published a version of this story.