The United States Navy has placed contract modifications worth around $76.6 billion with the two yards that build its nuclear submarines, covering nine further Virginia-class boats, five more Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines and funding for shipyard infrastructure, HII stated.
The award covers Block VI of the Virginia programme and Build II of the Columbia programme, and is split between HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding division in Virginia and General Dynamics Electric Boat in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Newport News will act as delivery yard for six of the nine Virginias, and on the Columbia programme will construct and deliver six module sections for each boat. The two yards have handed over 26 Virginia-class submarines to date.
Kari Wilkinson, president of Newport News Shipbuilding, said in the release that the company is “committed to building the nuclear-powered submarines that protect our nation”, adding that the contracts give the American shipbuilding industrial base an opportunity to demonstrate that commitment.
The two programmes represent the largest naval construction effort under way anywhere. The Columbia class will replace the fourteen Ohio-class boats that carry the sea-based leg of the US nuclear deterrent, with twelve planned in total. Each displaces around 20,800 tonnes submerged, making them the largest submarines the United States has built, and each carries sixteen Trident II D5 missiles in a common missile compartment developed jointly with the United Kingdom, which uses the same section in its Dreadnought class. The lead boat, USS District of Columbia, has been under construction since 2020 and has run behind schedule, with the Navy and the Government Accountability Office both reporting delays measured in years.
The Virginia class is the U.S. Navy’s attack submarine, displacing roughly 7,800 tonnes and built in successive blocks with incremental changes. Block V introduced the Virginia Payload Module, an additional hull section carrying four large vertical tubes that raises the boat’s Tomahawk capacity substantially, and later blocks continue that configuration. Delivery rates have been the persistent problem: the U.S. Navy has sought two boats a year for some time, while the yards have been running closer to one and a third, a shortfall attributed to supply chain fragility, workforce attrition and the competing demand of the Columbia programme, which holds priority.
Newport News Shipbuilding is the only yard in the United States capable of building aircraft carriers and one of only two able to build nuclear submarines. The company marked 140 years of operation at the Virginia site earlier this month, and has been expanding automation across its facilities, including agreements with robotics firms announced in early August covering welding and surface finishing work.
Well your average US SSN has a service life of 33 years.. and they are building 1.3 a year.. that essentially means the present us SSN industrial capacity will give it a fleet of around 43 boats.. when it actually needs 66.
Now china has property got into the SSN grove with 20-30 slips and a likely output of 8 nuclear submarines a year.. that’s is sort of issue. Especially when you consider the 12-16 T93Bs they are knocking out now is probably closer to a LA fight 2 than anything and that’s with a dual reactor and no full deck raft and the T95 they are now building for commissioning late 2020s is a single reactor design that is going to have full deck rafting ( Thankyou Russia).. by the mid 2030s china is not going to be much behind the US SSN fleet.. but they will also have 50-60 electric AIP boats as well, so by the latter half of the 2030s those 45ish USN SSNs will be playing with maybe 30 Chineses SSNs that are not dog shite ( last generation Chineses SSNs were a bit rubbish and the generation before that utter dog) as well as maybe 50-60 AIP boats that are pretty good generally… add in the fact china has 50 ASW corvettes, will probably have 80+ ASW frigates and even its 80-100 destroyers will have tails.. the 40ish USN SSNs will have 300-350 ASW assets to contend with…. That’s a bit harsh.
Not really, that is if the US Government does not alienated its allies in the region (as the current Trump administration is vigorously embarked on doing), namely Australia (6 boats), Japan (24 boats), South Korea (22 boats) and Taiwan (4 boats – in the process of building a new fleet). Assuming these allies maintain their current submarine strength, they should have a minimum of 50 conventional powered submarines to confront the similar number of Chinese PLAN conventional boats.
I think assuming that these countries will get involved is a risky proposition..
Australia really has no skin in that game.. without China its economy falls off a cliff as China is its very best customer. It’s also a long way from the China seas and has a huge an friendly country ( friendly to both China and Australia) between it and the Chinese area of interest…
Japan.. its had to say how much the US has truly pissed off Japan.. but in reality Japan knows that if it gets stuck in war between the 2 superpowers that the US is 10,000 km away and china is a stones throw away.. Japan knows China would blow it into the stone age without mercy and the US is not only unreliable it insulted Japan.. you can see the truth of the relationship.. the Japanese PM got a bit hard line and said Taiwan was a red line.. china turned around and told its population it would rather they did not go to japan for holidays this year and they should all try Korea..that cost Japan .36% of its GDP ( 15 billion a year) and tumbled load of Japanese companies share prices.. Japan said it would not say such a thing again.
South Korea has been slowly improving ties to China, much to North Korea discontent.. and South Korea knows.. China has whole army groups it could throw at South Korea in support of the North and set the North on the South..if they supported the US..
The simple truth is Japan and Korea know they would end up smoking ruins if they went to war against China in support of a let’s be frank very flaky US… as for the rest of the South East Asian nations they would definitely tell the US to do one as would India.. Russia will probably join in with china.
Remember there is NO NATO equivalent in the western pacific.. just a lot of national interests, with zero treaty requirements for anyone to go to war for anyone else…
Would anticipate that SSN production will increase over the medium term. Invest enough $Bn in dockyard infrastructure and virtually assured some improvement in production rate will eventually result.
As the USA is led by Putin’s slave then they are an enemy, this we need to sort out the royal navy to be able to defeat the yanks and punish them when they use their nukes on us (either to steal our oil or if we defend Greenland or Canada).
You may think this far fetched but then when did you think a yank president would be telling the world he WILL Tae Greenland in the next couple of years.
At the same time Australia is validly complaining that it increasingly seems that the USA and UK can’t or won’t deliver as promised on the AUKUS pillar 1 submarine deal, despite several $bn of payments having already been made to the USA and UK. The USA will now only transfer to Australia aging Block I or II Virginia class SSN boats in the early 2030’s, rather than new build Block VI ‘s with the very latest kit. Whilst the UK’s appalling track record with the Astute’s and – although hidden in the shadow’s – almost certainly also the Dreadnought’s, gives Oz no confidence that the first of its five new SSN-A’s will actually enter service “from the early 2040s”.
That was always the plan for the US’ part of AUKUS. Deliver used virginia class, not new ones. I believe the Austrailian new build SSN is supposed to be the UK designed one.
Virginia Block V are now 10,200 tonnes due to the addition of the 4 Virginia Payload Modules and a few other additions.