> Put another way, are we spending all this time and money to fail at simply building a ship that is functionally identical to one of these ~$300m Finnish ice breakers, or are we claiming we need something more sophisticated?

It sounds like it is the former.

> If and when the ships are completed (currently 2029 for the first vessel at the earliest), they are expected to cost $1.7-1.9 billion apiece[0], roughly four to five times what a comparable ship would cost to build[1] elsewhere.

0: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2024-08/60170-Polar-Securit...

1: https://sixtydegreesnorth.substack.com/p/the-silicon-valley-...