After Electric Boat tour, Australia to purchase attack submarines
After touring Electric Boat facilities in Connecticut and Rhode Island last December, Australia plans to build up to five nuclear-powered attack submarines according to Reuters.
Under the AUKUS pact — signifying Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States — work would take place in all three countries. Australia’s existing submarine fleet was built at a yard that opened in 1989 in South Australia near Adelaide. The U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Australia reporting in December that Australia wants a home-based yard with capabilities to construct nuclear-powered subs.
Australia committed to three Virginia-class subs, according to Reuters sources, with the option for two more. The country has six diesel-electric subs in its current fleet.
Electric Boat’s main yard in Groton is ramping up for the construction of the new Columbia-class fleet of ballistic nuclear missile submarines that can carry missiles armed with conventional warheads as well, while on top of its existing Virginia-class submarine construction schedule. An auxiliary yard in Rhode Island builds major components for subs that are barged to Groton for final assembly.
Two weeks ago in Groton, Electric Boat’s president said the manufacturer currently has 19,000 employees and needs to add 3,000 more on a net basis over the next decade. That means far more new hires, including as many as 5,750 people this year alone, as the General Dynamics subsidiary replaces workers hitting
retirement or leaving for other career options.
Reuters reported that Electric Boat could get a short-term boost in labor as Australian workers cycle through yards to get hands-on training in sub construction.
Huntington Ingalls Industries also makes Virginia-class submarines at its Newport
News shipyard in Virginia, as well as aircraft carriers and sections of the Columbia-class subs that will be barged to Groton. The U.K. defense contractor BAE Systems builds subs at a plant on the Irish Sea north of Liverpool.