Yard switching and dry-dock bottlenecks

The Zumwalt-to-Arleigh Burke transition illustrates how changing a shipbuilding plan also means paying to reconfigure yards and production systems. Money spent preparing for Zumwalts was followed by the expense of switching back to Burkes, with yard-conversion costs described as equivalent to complete ships. Maintenance planning creates a parallel risk when dock capacity assumes an ideal rotation. In the six-ship example, the rule of three appears to require only two dry docks. Extending a deployment or pulling a ship out of maintenance early disrupts that schedule. Accumulated delays can then require more than two docks to restore normal operations.