The Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan said the service plans to buy additional Virginia-class attack submarines (SSNs) to replace those to be sold to Australia under the AUKUS agreement.
“The department recognizes the significant strategic opportunity presented by the Australia, United Kingdom, and United States (AUKUS) trilateral security pact to make a positive contribution to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by enhancing deterrence. Based on the Tri-Lateral Agreement announcement of March 2023, the Navy anticipates building additional Virginia class SSNs in the 2030s as replacements for submarines sold to Australia,” the plan says
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Last month, the U.S., U.K. and Australian governments announced the decision of the AUKUS agreement for the U.S. and U.K. to share technology and help Australia build and field nuclear-powered attack submarines, dubbed the Optimal Pathway. (Defense Daily, March 13).
After initial years of U.S. and U.K. submarines visiting Australian ports more frequently and embedding Australian sailors in the submarine forces and nuclear power schools, U.S. and U.K. submarines will dedicate a new Submarine Rotational Forces (SRF) West to HMAS Stirling near Perth, Australia as soon as 2027.
Then in the 2030s, when Australia has trained enough sailors, it plans to buy at least three Virginia-class submarines, with the option to procure two more.
Then, by the late 2030s, Australia and the U.K. plan to start both building and fielding a new submarine design, dubbed SSN-AUKUS, based on the U.K.’s design for its next-generation SSN but also incorporating Virginia-class technologies.
The U.K. expects to deliver its first SSN-AUKUS in the late 2030s while Australia hopes to finish a version it builds domestically in the early 2040s once the industrial base has been built up enough.
The U.S. Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan noted the full impact of the AUKUS decision on the Navy’s shipbuilding plan could not be included in this year’s version because the final agreement concluded just as the shipbuilding plan was being finalized itself, “coupled with additional studies that will continue this summer.”
However, the report said the Navy is “committed to AUKUS and will continue to engage with Congress and industry as analysis of the Optimal Pathway refines future SSN workload.”
This year’s shipbuilding plan repeats the style from FY 2023 with three alternatives: two assuming little budget growth and constrained with 2.1 percent shipbuilding budget growth starting in five years and one with an average of $4.4 billion in “real growth” in FY 2023 constant dollars.
Alternative 2 largely differs from 1 in that it focuses more on procuring more attack submarines and unmanned vessels, buying both Virginia-class submarines and the next-generation SSN(X) after fiscal year 2028 rather than stopping procurement of the Virginia-class when SSN(X) begins.
The plan said the Navy still needs to conduct further analysis of the final AUKUS Optimal Pathway that “will refine the impacts to Alternative 2,” implying that option may have to add further submarines to its plans.
When the AUKUS plan was unveiled, a senior administration official told reporters the plan covers an addition of $4.6 billion for production and maintenance funds in the next five years, including FY 2023 U.S. submarine industrial base investments. Australia is also expected to contribute a “substantial contribution” to the U.S. industrial base in addition to paying for the Virginia-class submarines themselves.
A fact sheet released with the three countries’ joint statement said Australia is committed to a “proportionate financial investment in the U.S. submarine industrial base to accelerate delivery of Virginia-class submarines.”
Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, applauded the AUKUS mention in the shipbuilding plan.
“Today’s release of the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan makes clear that the department is taking steps to realize that shared goal. By planning to build additional Virginia Class submarines in the 2030s, the Navy is ensuring we make good on the AUKUS agreement while also sustaining our required force structure and mitigating the challenges facing the Navy and industrial base,” Courtney said.
Courtney’s district includes Virginia-class submarine prime contractor General Dynamics Electric Boat [GD], which builds the vessels at its Groton, Conn., shipyard.
HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding [HII] and Electric Boat share production duties on different parts of each submarine while they alternate producing the reactor plant along with final assembly and delivery.