Navy Hunts For New Subs

Thanks to the recent announcement that the Pentagon is officially on board — for now — with the general strategy to buy replacement submarines for the Ohio-class strategic boats, it is time to hunt for the next fleet of boomers.

This is no small Pentagon program by any measure. For fiscal 2012, the Navy estimates it will spend about $1 billion for research and development alone for the replacement program, according to sub-builder General Dynamics Electric Boat Division. It will likely cost up to $40 billion just to buy the subs, and overall program costs could reach $100 billion or more. Even for the Defense Department, that is real money — especially in these days of growing financial austerity within the Pentagon — and there is certain to be pressure on the Navy to keep a lid on costs for the new boomers.

One of the hints on just how the Navy might do that was dropped in a statement about granting earlier this month of the Pentagon’s Milestone A authority. The service says, “The Ohio replacement will leverage the successful Virginia-class acquisition program.” That particular line, analysts surmise, could well mean the Navy would entertain and perhaps even embrace a multiyear submarine construction contract proposal similar to the deal now being used for the Virginia attack boats. Indeed, the Navy and Pentagon might also be open to a teaming agreement similar to the one employed for the Virginia-class subs, where Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman’s Newport News, Va., shipyards both build and assemble the Virginias.

That might not be such welcome news to Electric Boat, which designed and built the Ohio-class boomers and assumed it would be the favorite to get the replacement work. Still, another teaming agreement would be a pre-emptive strike on any protest should the Northrop Grumman team want the work and the Navy be forced to select one of the contractors.

The Navy also could do more than just leverage the Virginia-class teaming and multiyear agreements for its Ohio-class replacement subs. There are no subs in the world’s oceans that operate more quietly than the Virginias, except for the costlier Sea Wolf-class attack boats. And when it comes to boomers, there are few priorities more important operationally than being quiet. These subs are meant to sit and wait, undetected, until the moment comes to fire their missiles.

Virginia-class attack boats are designed and built for other missions, but the subs can be designed to accommodate strategic Ohio-class replacement needs. And a modified Virginia-class vessel could be easier for the Pentagon and Congress to swallow for more multiyear construction agreements.