Fincantieri CEO Opens Up About the Constellation Class Frigate Debacle
16th June 2026
The saga of the Constellation class frigate is emblematic of so many chronic issues with the Navy’s way of procuring warships. The vessel that was supposed to make the wrongs of the Littoral Combat Ship debacle right failed spectacularly and the timing couldn’t have been worse. Now Constellation is dead and the Trump administration is building a different frigate from a different yard. While the Navy has said why it is moving on, we wanted the other side of the story. We recently had a conversation with George Moutafis, CEO of Fincantieri Marine Group, to get exactly that.
Before we get to the questions and answers, however, here is the backstory.
The U.S. Navy needed the Constellation class frigate, badly, and the program to construct it seemed built to deliver. Rather than a clean-sheet design, the service chose the proven Franco-Italian FREMM as its parent design, betting that adapting an existing platform would be far faster and cheaper, and overall less risky than starting from scratch.
It wasn’t. Among the issues plaguing the program, constant change orders pushed the design far from its origins. Two years into construction, the first ship was barely 10% complete while its design was still being finalized. Meanwhile, costs and schedules blew well past original projections.
As a result of these issues, the Navy late last year cancelled the program. That left Fincantieri’s Wisconsin yard sidelined while a contract to replace the Constellation class frigate went to rival Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula.
In the wake of the program’s implosion, the Navy created the Vessel Construction Manager (VCM) system. It uses a hired manager to hold the prime contract and run the show, overseeing shipyard performance, controlling subcontracts, and acting as a buffer between the service and the builder to keep costs and schedules on track.
In a wide-ranging, hour-long exclusive interview, Moutafis – appointed CEO on July 1, 2025 as the wheels were already falling off this project – gave us unique insights into Fincantieri’s version of how Constellation turned into a debacle and what needs to change as a result. He also touched on an array of other topics, which we will address in future installments.