New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Electric Boat may get help for new subs
As timelines compress for General Dynamics to deliver a new ballistic missile submarine for the U.S. Navy on schedule, the Pentagon reportedly is beginning to scout alternatives to take over some of the production needed to keep the Columbia program on track.
Janes reported the development on Friday, citing Rear Adm. Scott Pappano who spoke on the topic the day before as part of an online forum on the Columbia program sponsored by the nonprofit Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center based in Washington, D.C.
General Dynamics subsidiary Electric Boat is the lead contractor on the Columbia class of missile subs, with Virginia-based Newport News Shipbuilding building large sections of the subs that will be barged to Electric Boat’s main shipyard in Groton. The Navy wants a dozen nuclear missile subs in all at a cost of $112.7 billion, at a pace of one new sub every year to replace Ohioclass boats that are hitting the end of their shelf life.
General Dynamics is the largest employer in Connecticut with some 14,000 people at its Groton shipyard and an engineering office in New London. Electric Boat operates a satellite shipyard at Quonset Point in Rhode Island that employs another 4,000-plus people.
As of Monday, Electric Boat listed just over 800 openings in Connecticut and Rhode Island amid a continuing hiring spree. More than 40 percent of those positions were for skilled tradespeople like welders, electricians and machinists.
Pappano suggested last week that other U.S. shipyards could take on similar work producing modules for Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding, according to Janes’ report on the ANWA forum. Pappano mentioned Austal USA’s Mobile, Ala. shipyard as one candidate, given an anticipated decline there on work for the Navy’s fleet of littoral combat ships.
Speaking last month on a conference call, General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic referenced “supply chain scheduling issues” in Virginia, without detailing any domino effect for the master schedule in Groton.
“We expect those to stabilize over time,” Novakovic said in late April. “Very few items in the defense budget are going to grow as reliably and as robustly as the submarine and shipbuilding accounts.”
The company said in a statement Monday Electric Boat “is working closely with the Navy to increase our manufacturing capacity, both internally and through strategic sourcing, to deliver the submarines our Navy needs.”
The Navy is now targeting October 2030 for the first Columbia patrol, according to Adm. Michael Gilday, who discussed the program last week in a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee in his role as chief of naval operations. The Navy will need that first submarine well in advance to fit it out, train sailors and undergo sea trials.
“We must deliver Columbia-class submarines on time,” Gilday told the committee. “That part of the industrial base — probably better than any other sector in the Department of Defense — is able to remain sighted on their investments in the workforce and infrastructure.”
The Navy envisions Columbia-class subs serving into the 2080s, Gilday said.
At the same hearing, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2, noted the Navy’s request for $2.4 billion in the coming fiscal year to expand workforce training at Electric Boat, Newport News and their external suppliers, saying it is by far the biggest investment he can remember on that front.
In an update on the Columbia program last month, the Congressional Research Service noted the Department of Defense has raised its cost estimate for the first submarine by $786 million over the past two years, though chipping down the cost of the second sub slightly. Electric Boat and Newport News are tasked as well with launching two new Virginia-class attack submarines annually for years to come.
“The program appears to be in a situation where many things need to go right, and few things can go wrong, between now and 2031,” Congressional Research Service analysts wrote in last month’s review of the Columbia program. “Observers have expressed concern about the industrial base’s capacity for building both Columbiaand Virginia-class boats without encountering bottlenecks or other production problems in one or both of these programs.”