Sen Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he opposes potential moves by the Navy to lower Virginia-class submarine procurement from two to one boat in the fiscal year 2025 budget request.
“Attack submarines are the crown jewels of the U.S. military and critical to deterring China. Slashing production weakens American power. We cannot afford to shortchange our deterrent during this dangerous moment. I urge the administration to reverse course on this harmful decision,” Wicker said in a statement released Feb. 21.
This comes on the heels of a report from USNI News that the Navy’s upcoming budget request will seek only one Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) rather than the two per year pace the service and Congress have previously pushed.
The report said the Navy plans to counter opposition with industrial base concerns by including a second submarine’s worth of advanced procurement materials to maintain demand for the limited supply base.
While the submarine builders General Dynamics Electric Boat [GD] and HII Newport News Shipbuilding [HII] are only building 1.2 – 1.3 boats per year, the Navy is aiming for two now, with future needs to ramp up production further.
As part of the trilateral AUKUS agreement, the U.S. plans to sell three to five Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the 2030s before the country can build and operate the new SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine of its own in the 2040s.
Last November, Matthew Sermon, executive director of the Program Executive Office for Strategic Submarines, said the Navy plans to use $3 billion Australia is sending to support the submarine industrial base to increase domestic submarine production above two submarines per year (Defense Daily, Nov. 8, 2023).
“The objective is to fold it in as the 2.33 part, really getting to that additional Virginia-class capacity,” he said. That 2.33 submarines per year goal seeks to have the U.S. build up its submarine forces while making up for the Australian sales.
He said by 2028 the Navy could reach a build rate of one SSBN and two SSNs per year.
Previously, House Armed Services leaders from both parties in the full committee and Seapower subcommittee urged the Biden administration to maintain a procurement rate of two boats per year (Defense Daily. Jan. 19)
They had warned any deviation from projected procurement rates in the next budget request “would upend the faith of a steady procurement profile in the Future Years Defense Plan by our suppliers, as well as any plans for future capital investments in the supply chain.”
Wicker noted the recent Submarine Industrial Base 2025 study found submarine construction should increase in the near future to need the country’s plans and needs.
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released in October took a dim view of the Navy’s ability to build more than two SSNs annually in addition to one new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine per year given the industrial base’s issues and limitations.
CBO had said to build the plan for two SSNs per year and make up for the Australian sales the U.S. would need to build 1.9 to 2.6 SSNs per year, depending on the long-term shipbuilding plan.