I'm also wondering how incentives / leadership structure were setup to make this "scope creep" possible.
It’s partly a function of use it or lose it funding. If the Navy gets budget, it’s incentivised to start spending it aggressively. Planning only burns so much cash, so there is a built-in incentive to jumpstart production alongside design and then patch everything with costly retrofits.
[0] - https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Com...