, who was plucked from Naval Reactors to lead the service as it geared up for its
y the replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, is leaving his post with the cracks beginning to show in the U.S. submarine industrial base.
At the height of the Cold War,
and Newport News were producing, on average, 4.2 submarines per year between the Ohio-class boomers and the Los Angeles-class attack boats. And those submarines were built from parts from 17,000 suppliers, according to 2017 testimony from former General Dynamics executive John Casey.
Between 1997 and 2016, production of submarines dropped by 80 percent, and there were several years where the Navy purchased no new subs at all. The result was a more than 80 percent drop in the number of suppliers in what’s known as the submarine industrial base, according to Casey’s testimony, and the skilled workforce saw a similar contraction.
Now, as the shipyards struggle to adjust to two Virginia-class submarines per year, the Navy is preparing to and start integrating an 84-foot section into new hulls called the Virginia Payload Module, that will triple the current loadout of Tomahawk missiles to 40 per ship. The service is also eyeing expanding to three Virginias in certain years. And, above all, in 2021 the Navy plans to buy its first Columbia-class submarine, a boat more than double the size of a Virginia-class.
The mounting pressure on both a diminished supplier base and a green workforce being trained and expanded in real-time as the Navy increases the workload has caused delays to creep into the Virginia-class program, once renowned for delivering boats early and under budget. And welding problems on new missile tubes have already eaten into the schedule buffer the Navy built in for Columbia, which the Navy needs on patrol in 2031 to avoid dropping below the 10 subs it says it needs to maintain a constant strategic deterrent.
In a Monday interview with Defense News, outgoing Chief of Naval Operations acknowledged the tremendous pressure facing sub builders and suppliers, and said workforce turnover in the yards has undoubtedly played a role in the delays creeping into schedules.
“We’re asking a lot of the submarine industrial base right now to continue with Virginia, two-to-three per year including that payload module, and deliver Columbia, Richardson said. “That’s an industrial base that has a lot on their plate right now. And their workforce is going through a transformation.
“The people who built and delivered the Virginia program, the Los Angeles program and Seawolf – those folks are retiring. We used to have this two-hump camel in terms of the demographics of the shipyard: You had the Cold Warriors and you had the post-9/11 folks. And that Cold War hump is gone. And I think that although it’s going through some friction right now, it’s really inculcating, indoctrinating and educating a brand-new workforce.”
The problems, such as the sub-par welding on the missile tubes from sub-contractor BWXT, is one the Navy thinks it can get after with better oversight of the contractors as they get over the learning curve, Richardson said.
“You can’t take a lot of the skillsets for granted.,” he said. “We’ve had some welding issues. We’ve got to be on that. [It’s] a lot closer oversight as we educate this new team. It’s not just the welders and other skills its ‘Well, who were the managers of that. What should they be looking out for?’”
On the whole, however, Richardson said he’s optimistic that the workforce issues will be resolved as the new employees gain experience.
“As I zoom out, it’s a super exciting time for the nation because a lot of people are coming into this workforce and they’re getting terrific jobs: they’re getting educated to do really high end work both for themselves and for the country,” Richardson said. “But there is a learning curve associated with that. But if you think about it, I’d rather be doing that learning now than later.”
‘There is Going to Be Something’
The workforce issues are threatening to mar the Columbia program before it really gets off the starting blocks next year.
The program, that the Navy has said for most of this decade is their number-one shipbuilding priority, is likely to see its $115 billion price tag fall short of what’s required, according to a Government Accountability Office report in April, because the Navy has inadequately accounted for the labor hours necessary to complete the boat.
And if the boats fall behind because of parts shortages, which top Navy officials have said they are starting to feel acutely from its diminished supplier base, or from a green workforce taking more time than a more experienced workforce to complete the same work, the ultimate risk is the country not having enough boats to execute its continuous strategic deterrent regime.
And the delays already eaten into the wiggle-room the Navy has to work with, Richardson said.
“I think that the Columbia program is on track but there is so little margin in that program” he said. “And I know, just because I’ve done this enough, that you’ve got to build that margin in. And we did: we built that margin in, but a lot of it has been eaten up by one unexpected thing or another. So, we’re still on track, but a lot the margin is gone.
Getting the Columbia on a better path means the Navy, Electric Boat, and their partner shipbuilding Huntington Ingalls Newport News, need to deliver pieces of the program faster.
“We’ve got to build that margin back, and we’ve got a plan – we’ve set some pretty aggressive goals for that,” he said. “We’re going to build the lead ship of that class in the same time we built the lead ship of Virginia. And it’s two-and-a-half times the size. But we’ve learned a lot about shipbuilding, so the design will be a lot more complete than Virginia was at the start. There is a tremendous amount of oversight where we think the risks are, the known knowns.
“But I will tell you I just know there is going to be something in testing, it’s a super complex system. So, we just need to be driving hard to build margin. We said in the [Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority 2.0]: Hey, deliver it as fast as you can. Whatever IOC we set for ourselves, let’s not take any comfort in that. Let’s just keep retiring risk as fast as we can: Get that thing out to sea as fast as we can. Because if we get into that risk retirement mindset, that’s what will happen.”
