HII [HII] delivered the stern of the first new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) to prime contractor General Dynamics
Electric Boat [GD], the company’s chief executive told reporters Monday.
HII CEO Chris Kastner said the company’s work on Columbia-class is progressing under a “pressurized schedule. I always prefer top-level programatics to them, but we’re delivering modules and we delivered the stern this week,” he said ahead of the annual Surface Navy Association symposium.
This was the stern module of the first-in-class future USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826).
HII and GD work together to build both the attack submarines and SSBNs. HII is under contract to build and deliver six module sections for each Columbia-class SSBN including the bow, stern, auxiliary machinery room, superstructure and weapons modules.
The company delivered the stern to Electric Boat’s facility in Quonset Point, R.I., where they will next be combined with Electric Boat-built sections for final assembly.
Separately, Kastner also expressed confidence HII will keep building LPD-type amphibious ships for the Navy, continuing with LPD-33 in 2024.
The Navy has put San Antonio-class Flight II LPD amphibious transport dock ships on pause for the past year as the Office of Secretary of Defense pushed the Navy to conduct a new amphibious ship study, seeking cost savings.
However, the Marine Corps requested the next ship of its type, LPD-33, in its annual unfunded requirements list because the Navy budget planned to retire three older amphibious ships without firm plans for more LPD-type ships over the next five years (Defense Daily, March 29, 2023).
Congress approved of LPD-33 in the passed fiscal year 2024 defense authorization bill, but the 2024 appropriations bill has not passed to match that with funding yet.
“I think there’s broad agreement that there’s 31 amphibs required. So that makes it LPD-33 and beyond at a very similar design within the LPD class,” Kastner said,
He said he is not sure what will happen past the Flight II San Antonio-class, but “I’m sure that we will participate in it because we’re really the only builders of amphib ships for the Navy.”
Kastner said he has not been briefed on the Navy’s amphibious ship study and is awaiting details expected to be revealed in the fiscal year 2025 budget materials.
He added the company is always interested in working with the Navy on the best way to buy ships and strategies to bundle ships to reduce costs.
(Image: Huntington Ingalls Industries)
Last year, Kari Wilkinson, executive vice president at HII and president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, said the company was preparing for possible LPD design changes geared at saving more money and advocated for block buys of the ship (Defense Daily, April 11, 2023).
Kastner admitted there are also some internal studies that look at bundling two LPDs and one LHA because it makes sense financially.
Congress previously allowed the Navy to procure several LPDs and one America-class LHA in one buy to save money, but the service never took the opportunity before ultimately moving to the latest amphibious ship study.
The FY ‘21 defense authorization act had a provision allowing the Navy to buy three San Antonio-class LPD-17 amphibious transport dock ships and one America-class amphibious assault ship at once (Defense Daily, June 11, 2020)
Then, during a 2021 Senate panel hearing, then-Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition Jay Stefany said while the Navy and HII had a “handshake agreement” on what such a four-ship buy would look like, there were already indications the Pentagon was not interested in that before additional force structure reviews (Defense Daily, June 9, 2021).
“Strategies around bundling amphibs are always being evaluated and cost studies being worked on with the Navy to reduce the cost of ships,” Kastner continued.
The studies about bunding LPDs and an LHA “always happen because it just makes sense if we bundle those orders, but there’s no formal ask of that.”