Ex-Vicksburg, the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser that once carried hull number CG-69, is headed for the breakers. She left the Philadelphia Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility under tow on Sept. 30, 2026, bound for Brownsville, Texas, for dismantling.
The ship spent the last eight years of her Navy career in the cruiser modernization program and never returned to the fleet. USNI News put the cost of that work at $754.1 million.
Baird Maritime reported the departure in an Oct. 5, 2026 article by Will Xavier, saying the cruiser “left the Philadelphia Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility under tow on Wednesday, September 30” and is “headed for Brownsville, Texas, for dismantling.” Baird said Vicksburg “entered the navy’s cruiser modernisation programme on July 1, 2016,” and described the result as “an eight-year modernisation effort that did not return the ship to operational service.”
The dollar figure comes from USNI News. In a Dec. 17, 2024 report by Sam LaGrone on a Government Accountability Office review of the cruiser program, USNI News said the Navy had spent “$754.1 million on Vicksburg” before decommissioning the ship in 2024.
32 years under 17 commanding officers
Vicksburg was an Ingalls Shipbuilding product. The Navy’s Surface Force Atlantic announced her decommissioning at Naval Station Norfolk on June 28, 2024, noting that the ship “was built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss.” and had been commissioned there on Nov. 14, 1992. Former commanding officer Capt. Chip Swicker, USN (Ret.), said at the ceremony:
“These Sailors brought Vicksburg to life for 32 years under 17 commanding officers.”
The same release said the cruiser would be towed to the Navy’s inactive ship facility in Philadelphia and hold “Logistical Support Asset status.” Baird Maritime reported that Vicksburg completed numerous deployments between 1994 and 2015 before entering the modernization program.
What GAO found aboard in 2023
The most detailed public record of the ship’s last years is GAO’s December 2024 report, GAO-25-106749, titled “Navy Ship Modernization: Poor Cruiser Outcomes Demonstrate Need for Better Planning and Quality Oversight in Future Efforts.” GAO found that since 2015 the Navy had spent “about $3.7 billion modernizing seven of the Ticonderoga class guided-missile cruisers,” and that “only three of the seven ships will complete modernization.” In GAO’s own words: “The Navy wasted $1.84 billion modernizing four cruisers that have now been divested prior to deploying.” Vicksburg is one of those four.
The full GAO report describes what auditors saw on a September 2023 tour. A photograph of the ship’s combat information center shows “consoles wrapped and disconnected and, therefore, unusable.” GAO said the contractor “performed poor quality work on USS Vicksburg’s sonar dome” and called the dome “nonfunctional.” Crew members told GAO that “improper sequencing of work led to delays for the contractors installing equipment,” leaving “22 tons of electronic equipment sitting idle.” Fleet officials told GAO that “USS Vicksburg has since been cannibalized for parts for USS Gettysburg and other cruisers.”
The report also recorded what finishing the job might have cost. Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center officials estimated the Navy could have completed Vicksburg with “an additional $100 million by fiscal year 2025,” an estimate that excluded dry docking. Program office officials put the figure at about $120 million, and a senior fleet forces official told GAO the ship was “years away” from completion. GAO made six recommendations, and the Navy told USNI News that it “concurred with the GAO’s recommendations in the report.”
A different path for Gettysburg, Chosin and Cape St. George
Not every ship in the program ended the same way. Baird Maritime reported that Gettysburg, Chosin and Cape St. George were selected for service-life extensions. Vicksburg, divested with what GAO described as “significant work remaining to complete the modernization,” followed a different path out of Philadelphia.
Thirty-two years after her commissioning at Pascagoula, the Navy decommissioned her at Norfolk on June 28, 2024. The tow that left Philadelphia on Sept. 30, 2026, is taking the hull to Brownsville, where Baird Maritime reports she will be dismantled.
Top image: The guided-missile cruiser USS Vicksburg (CG 69) in the Atlantic Ocean on June 24, 2007. Image Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Oscar Espinoza — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.