Virginia Submarine Production Shortfall Risks Ceding US Submarine Supremacy to China

Commentary

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, has just revealed that the Virginia-class submarine program is projected to run $17 billion over its budget by 2030 and is at least two to three years behind schedule.

Further, according to a Bloomberg report, the Navy has known this fact for at least 18 months but did not inform Congress until early September.

This is particularly bad news as submarines are arguably our most important Navy vessel when it comes to taking on peer competitors like China and Russia. In response to this bad news, Calvert’s office made this alarming statement:

“Secretary Del Toro, your 45-day shipbuilding review found a litany of problems related to design maturity, first-of-class transitions, production, design workforce, acquisition and contract strategy, supply chain, skilled workforce, and government workforce. Frankly, the only reason we’re not discussing Nunn-McCurdy breaches is because the Navy’s system of keeping metrics and reporting facts is murky and flawed at best—misleading at worst. It’s not clear to me that anyone has accurate information about the trajectory of any shipbuilding program.”

The update reveals the Virginia-class submarine is two to three years behind schedule and, according to Calvert, “experiencing extraordinary cost growth” that will increase the program cost from $184 billion to $201 billion. Calvert also stated that, along with Virginia, several other Navy programs are “in crisis.”

The Virginia program is not only in crisis but is also generating a crisis because even the newest of our Los Angeles-class submarines are nearing retirement age. Even if the Navy can squeeze three or four more years of service out of some of them, more attack submarines will be retiring than are being built and commissioned.

To provide some context, the June 2023 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report found that under the Navy’s FY2024 30-year (FY2024–FY2053) shipbuilding plan, the SSN force would continue to decline to a minimum of 46 boats in FY2030 and then begin to grow again to a minimum of 60 attack submarines in FY 2053. However, this 2023 CRS report does not factor in the recently revealed information on the poor state of the Virginia program. Consequently, we may see the number of attack subs dip below 46 by 2030.

In the meantime, according to the Asia Times reports, by 2025, China will have 65 attack submarines, and by 2035, 80 attack submarines, including many highly capable, very stealthy diesel-electric attack submarines. This means China will have plenty of lethal submarines and ship killers to defend its regional interests while being able to deploy its nuclear submarines anywhere in the world.

Adding insult to injury, the same CRS report noted that only 63 percent of our attack submarines were available for deployment, and the trend was to see even fewer deployable submarines. This means we do not have enough submarines to meet our needs, especially if things heat up with China or Russia.

But when you are supposed to deliver two submarines per year to replace the 688i attack subs that are being retired but are only building 1.2 to 1.4 submarines per year, you are going to see this kind of decline.

Additionally, according to an article in Navy Proceedings, we have lost a net total of 13 shipyards since the 1960s. As a result, just seven shipyards, owned by four prime contractors, build large Navy warships. Further, there are only two shipyards building nuclear carriers and submarines.

By comparison, China’s 20-plus shipyards not only support its naval ship expansion but also do commercial shipbuilding. This provides them with a broader base of revenue that supports additional shipyard infrastructure and a larger, more resilient workforce that reduces overhead costs for naval construction. Hence, China has dozens of shipyards that dwarf the United States’ largest shipyard. This all adds up to China having 232 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States.

What’s more, not only is our shipbuilding capacity inadequate to meet demand, but this lack of capacity—combined with a lack of competition and a Congress that has failed to hold defense contractors accountable—has led to major price increases in the price of our nuclear attack subs.

The Virginia’s predecessor, the 688 Los Angeles attack submarine, cost $1.83 billion in 2023, whereas the Block V Virginia attack submarine is now $4.8 billion per boat. Even that may be underestimating its current cost, as the Navy is now asking for a total of $11.35 billion to procure two Virginia-class subs, one of which is modified to support special operations forces.

Yes, the Block V Virginia-class submarine is 40 percent larger than the 688. Still, it does not provide two to three times the combat power and presence of the Los Angeles class, and Virginia’s complexity is part of the reason it falls behind in production.

While the Navy has recently undertaken some steps to build up our submarine industrial base that could help improve production rates—including building out a 355-acre Alabama shipyard outside of Mobile, Alabama, to support submarine production—it has yet to properly address the fact that it hid just how bad the Virginia program was from Congress for a year and a half. And most importantly, as it stands, it appears the Navy plans to let China surpass the United States in terms of submarine power.

Given the shortage of naval shipyards that can build our ridiculously expensive nuclear submarines, perhaps the Navy could build far less expensive and easier-to-build diesel-electric submarines to maximize American submarine power.

However, adding conventional submarines to the mix would not solve the underlying problems that see taxpayers getting less bang for their buck each year. To truly ensure that the U.S. Navy does not continue to lose ground to China’s navy, Congress needs to pursue serious culture-changing defense reform coupled with major initiatives to reconstitute the United States’ civilian and military shipbuilding capacity to levels appropriate to a country calling itself a maritime superpower.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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