The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) this week said the government is trying to get the defense industrial base in a position where it can increase production to reach the current goal of two attack submarines (SSNs) per year plus additional vessels in the future to support Australian sales as part of the AUKUS agreement.
CNO Adm. Mike Gilday said the Defense Department and Congress are putting “significant investment” to support the industrial base, namely adding $650 million to the budget in fiscal year 2023 and another proposed $750 million for FY ‘24, totaling about $3.4 billion over the next five years.
“So a significant investment across a number of different areas, workforce development, shipyard infrastructure, strategic outsourcing to smaller companies to take some of the pressure off the two shipyards; supply chain development,” Gilday said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on June 26.
Gilday said the purpose is to put the industrial base “in a position where they can increase their productivity, the priority still being the Columbia-class [nuclear ballistic missile] submarine at one a year, and then two SSNs. So we’re aspirational at this point with respect to reaching the goal of two SSNs a year.”
“But all the indicators we have right now is that we are gaining momentum in terms of closing on that. I can’t give you a specific date when we expect to close on two but we’re headed in the right direction,” he continued.
Virginia-class attack submarines are built by General Dynamics Electric Boat [GD] and HII Newport News Shipbuilder [HII].
Gilday said the point of the American investment to increase submarine production capacity is to put industry in a better place for when the administration and Congress decide to sell Virginia-class submarines to Australia.
As recently as January, Gilday said the industrial base was only producing about 1.2 SSNs per year, far below the two vessel ordering rate (Defense Daily, Jan. 11, 2023).
He noted the Navy is working closely with Congress, presenting legislation they need to pass to enable sales of submarines to Australia and to train Australian crews and submarine workforces so they can ultimately build their own nuclear-powered attack submarines, called SSN-AUKUS.
Gilday underscored that “we do not underestimate the difficulties that lie ahead” but there is a level of “foundational trust” between the U.S.- U.K. and Australian governments he expects will move this forward.
Even within the 30-plus year effort, the CNO said he hopes the close military to military relationships between the countries “provide some sort of a shock absorber, where you can always count on those relationships as being foundational to execution.”
Gilday said it was still too early to tell precisely where the three to five Virginia-class submarines sold to Australia will come from: new vessels, sales of used American boats or a combination of both.
The CNO said the government is also trying to invest in other areas, like additive manufacturing, to help reduce manufacturing costs and for application to the submarine program.
In March, the U.S., U.K. and Australian governments announced the “optimal pathway” to help Australia build and field its own nuclear-powered attack submarines under the AUKUS agreement. The effort aims to replace the aging Collins-class diesel-electric boats (Defense Daily, March 13).
Last month, the Defense Department submitted three legislative proposals to allow the government to transfer two submarines to Australia, accept Australian funds to improve the submarine industrial base, and allow private sector Australian workers to be trained by the U.S. Navy and U.S. contractors (Defense Daily, May 18).
Then, earlier this month, three House Democrats introduced legislation along those lines to enable the next steps for AUKUS (Defense Daily, June 9).