A recent RAND Corporation tabletop exercise highlighted significant structural challenges regarding the U.S. Navy’s ability to repair battle-damaged ships during a potential conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Martin et al., 2026). The August 2025 wargame, which focused on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers defending Taiwan, found that U.S. maintenance facilities would likely be overwhelmed and lack sufficient spare parts to repair ships in theater (Military Times, 2026).
Structural Industrial Constraints
The U.S. Navy is currently experiencing a persistent maintenance backlog, with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reporting that ships are consistently taking years longer to build and maintain than planned (Oakley, 2025). The Congressional Budget Office projects that DDG-51 class destroyers will spend an average of nine years—more than a quarter of their planned service life—out of the fleet for maintenance, which is more than twice as long as estimated in their 2012 class maintenance plans (Congressional Budget Office, 2025).
Furthermore, data rights issues have forced the Navy to cannibalize parts from grounded aircraft and submarines, including Virginia-class submarines, to maintain operational readiness (Ceder, 2025). This practice of scavenging for spare parts from existing materiel underscores supply chain fragility within the naval industrial base.
Comparative Capabilities
The U.S. Navy’s current fleet size of approximately 290 ships is contrasted by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), which is currently the world’s largest navy with over 330 ships (Cronin & Glick, 2026). In addition to fleet size, the PRC maintains a substantial advantage in shipbuilding capacity. China possesses approximately 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States (CSIS, 2024). According to the RAND report, China also has significantly better industrial repair capability and benefits from operating closer to home bases and repair facilities during a Pacific conflict scenario (Military Times, 2026).
Allied Coordination Challenges
The RAND wargame revealed that the U.S. Navy cannot automatically assume its Pacific allies have adequate shipyard capacity or political willingness to repair damaged U.S. vessels during an escalating conflict (Martin et al., 2026). The study noted knowledge gaps among U.S. participants regarding host nations’ port locations, capabilities, and access requirements. While Japan, South Korea, and Australia are committed in principle to supporting U.S. repairs, the risk of Chinese retaliation could affect their willingness to host lengthy repairs or handle ordnance once threat levels escalate (Military Times, 2026). The study also found that existing command-and-control arrangements for repair operations were ambiguous, with in-theater logistics teams at times taking actions that theater operational commanders had already rejected (Martin et al., 2026).
RAND Recommendations
The RAND study issued several recommendations, including that the U.S. Navy institutionalize command-and-control authority for repair work, expand organic mobile repair capabilities such as deployable repair teams and Expeditionary Mobile Repair Facilities, negotiate detailed support agreements with regional partners, and reconstitute critical parts inventories and a skilled workforce (Martin et al., 2026). Allies and partners were separately urged to negotiate pre-event legal and policy frameworks, maintain updated bilateral capabilities assessments, and advance multinational pre-positioning of repair packages.
References
Ceder, R. (2025, October 8). Navy cannibalizing materiel for spare parts, watchdog says. Navy Times. Navy cannibalizing materiel for spare parts, watchdog says
Congressional Budget Office. (2025, December 10). Maintenance delays for conventional Navy ships. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61507
Cronin, P. M., & Glick, D. (2026, March 9). The United States can’t deter China without allied shipyards. Center for International Maritime Security. The United States Can’t Deter China Without Allied Shipyards | Center for International Maritime Security
CSIS. (2024, June 5). Unpacking China’s naval buildup. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Unpacking China’s Naval Buildup
Martin, B., Shlapak, D. A., Yun, A., Carter, G., Trauger, K. A., & Hoard, T. (2026). Battle damage repair for Arleigh Burke–class destroyers: Tabletop exercise results. RAND Corporation. https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA470-9
Military Times. (2026, June 22). US couldn’t repair battle-damaged ships in war with China, study finds. Military Times. US couldn’t repair battle-damaged ships in war with China, study finds
Oakley, S. S. (2025, March 28). US shipbuilding in a ‘perpetual state of triage,’ watchdog says. Military Times. US shipbuilding in a ‘perpetual state of triage,’ watchdog says
AI generated