BATH (AP) – Bath Iron Works has quietly begun construction on what’ll be the last of the Arleigh Burke destroyers that went into service in the early 1990s.

Shipbuilders began cutting steel last month at BIW’s Brunswick facility for DDG-112, the 62nd and final ship of the Arleigh Burke class. The Navy has yet to name the ship, which will take 4½ years to build.

Vice Adm. John Morgan, the first commanding officer of the original USS Arleigh Burke, came to BIW for the ceremony marking the start of construction. A banner created for the event read, “We Saved the Best for Last.”

There have been worries among shipbuilders about a potential workload gap as the Arleigh Burke program wraps up and construction of the next-generation DDG-1000 ramps up. Construction on the first DDG-1000 is currently set to begin next summer.

To address BIW’s concerns, the Navy has tweaked the schedule to give Bath Iron Works a faster startup on construction of the DDG-1000.

But there are still unanswered questions. The Navy has committed to building only seven DDG-1000 destroyers, and it’s unclear how construction would be allocated between Bath Iron Works and Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi.

Both shipyards are scheduled to build one ship apiece before the Navy decides how to allocate the rest based on performance.

The Arleigh Burke has been the Navy’s mainstay destroyer since the first one built at BIW was delivered in 1991. The $1.2 billion destroyers, which have a crew of 300 sailors, are built to withstand chemical attacks while simlutaneously waging battle with enemy airplanes, warships and submarines.

The DDG-1000s will have smaller crews even though they’ll be much larger than the 510-foot Arleigh Burkes. They’ll have a stealthier design and bigger guns, and a much bigger price tag at more than $3 billion apiece for the first two.