Submarine Industry Now Presses To Build Two Subs A Year

Since 05-01-04

By David Ahearn, Defense Today, 23 Apr 04

 The submarine industry, having secured a dependable construction rate of one submarine a year for the next several years, now has set its sights upon moving that up to two boats annually.

At a Submarine Industrial Base Council breakfast on Capitol Hill, the case for doubling the submarine construction pace was laid out as a multi-pronged argument.

First, the council made the point that the submarine construction program isn't limited to Connecticut and Virginia. At the breakfast, tables were labeled with signs showing which states were represented by subcontractors, with companies scattered across the nation participating.

Second, if the Navy orders more Virginia Class submarines, contractors say they can realize savings from volume production and reduce the price they charge the Navy.

Under a contract the Navy signed last year, as amended, the Navy would pay about $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion per boat, not including the cost of government-supplied items such as nuclear reactors than can add as much as $1 billion to the total cost of each vessel.

While the Navy used to buy just one sub at a time, the new contract provides for buying several subs at a pace of one per year.

The attack submarines are built jointly by two firms, with the General Dynamics Corp. unit Electric Boat producing part of each sub, and the Northrop Grumman Corp. unit Newport News shipbuilding constructing the other parts. They then are fitted together.

Frederick Harris, senior vice president-programs with Electric Boat, said enormous savings in the cost of each sub could be obtained by increasing the build rate to two a year.

Not only could the contractors order more materials at a single stroke, wresting lower unit prices from suppliers, building two boats a year could ensure a more stable workforce, instead of laying off workers in one lean year only to have to pay enough money to lure them back to the shipyards a year or two later, Harris said.

Congress is in no rush to increase the submarine construction rate beyond one per year. And President Bush, in his defense budget proposal for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2005, doesn't ask for an increase to building two subs a year until fiscal 2009.

Submarine contractors, however, would like to see the build rate increase much sooner.

"We would love to see '07," Harris said. General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman easily could shift to producing two subs a year starting in 2007, and even might be able to do that beginning in fiscal 2006, with "a little disruption," he said.

Because the two companies build modular sections of the attack subs at yards in Newport News, Va., and Groton, Conn., if work must slow on one module until new supplies are obtained, then workers can shift to finishing another module, Harris noted.

After all, Harris said, much of the gear fitted into submarines is not something one buys at a store. On a nuclear powered ship, "you can't go buy this equipment in a day's time," he said.

He stressed that "it must be the highest quality equipment or you will have an accident," not a welcome thought on a vessel with a nuclear reactor that can prowl the oceans at depths with immense water pressures.

Ramping up to building two subs a year would "give our country a very efficient program," he said. At the same time, with Congress seeking places to cut defense spending amidst soaring budget deficits and mounting domestic spending needs, Harris conceded, "I'm not sure that's in the cards."

Harris said gaining congressional approval for building two submarines annually is "our No. 1 priority."

The two companies are working on ways to cut costs further on the boats, such as increasing worker and shipyard productivity.

General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman also are learning expense-cutting maneuvers from other firms-and from each other, Harris said.

Submarines And Carriers

Another mutual-help program is surprising: General Dynamics is providing aid to Northrop Grumman on its aircraft carrier program.

General Dynamics doesn't build nuclear aircraft carriers, a field where Northrop Grumman Newport News holds a monopoly in supplying the Navy. But General Dynamics does have vast experience in constructing vessels with shipboard nuclear propulsion plants.

Harris said General Dynamics personnel have worked with Northrop personnel on designing propulsion plant space for the next-generation nuclear-powered carrier, CVN 21.

General Dynamics also has provided input on designing non-propulsion parts of the huge carrier.

CVN 21 will be a radical departure from the old Nimitz Class aircraft carriers, with the new floating airfield having many tasks performed with electricity instead of steam. It also will have a redesigned deck and superstructure, rapid refueling and munitions reloading for aircraft, and enough electrical power to provide for futuristic weapons not foreseen today.

As cooperation has grown between Electric Boat and Newport News workers, they have shared company strategies on shipbuilding processes and techniques, Harris said.

There even are shuttle flights each day, one heading south from Groton to Newport News, and another flight from Newport News heading north.

"The relationship with Newport News has been so much better than anyone could have imagined," Harris said. That cooperation materialized because the highest-ranking leaders in General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman willed it, he said.

Harris contrasted the close bonds between the companies today with the atmosphere several years ago. Then, whenever an employee from one company visited facilities of the other one, there was deep suspicion.

He recalled one time when he visited Northrop facilities. He was taken there in a van with no windows, and was escorted into a building by Northrop personnel. They kept him from seeing any Northrop operations by keeping him behind a curtain. After he had taken care of his work there in total isolation, he recalled he was escorted out to the windowless van and whisked off the property.

Harris marveled at how much that atmosphere has changed.