Do the earliest Arleigh Burke-class destroyers still have legs? The US Navy thinks so. January 13 Destroyers Mahan and Laboon underway in the Virginia Capes. The Navy is backing away from a plan to upgrade all its destroyers. (MC2 Jonathan Trejo/U.S. Navy) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy has a problem: The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer program was too successful. Between 1991, when the Navy commissioned the USS Arleigh Burke, and 1998, when it commissioned the USS Mahan, the service built the class at a pace of three per year. Now, as those ships are bearing down on their 35-year expected hull life, the Navy wants to grow its fleet, but it lacks the budget and capacity to modernize those first 21 ships to the latest configurations.