Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro on Jan. 11 directed a new comprehensive analysis on Navy shipbuilding amid reports the new frigate is running behind schedule.
The secretary directed the newly installed Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development & Acquisition (ASN RD&A) Nickolas Guertin and Commander of Naval Sea Systems Command Vice Adm. James Downey to jointly conduct this analysis, with an interim progress review due on his desk within 45 days.
The Navy said the review seeks to assess both the national and local causes of shipbuilding challenges, with recommended actions for a healthier industrial base that provides combat capabilities “on a schedule that is relevant.”
This order came the same day media reports said the new Constellation-class guided-missile frigate program will deliver the first ship late due to workforce shortages.
USNI News first reported a legislative source said the USS Constellation (FFG-62) may deliver a year late, in 2027.
Fincantieri Marinette Marine started construction on the first frigate, the future USS Constellation (FFG-62), in August 2022. It was originally planned to be delivered in 2026 (Defense Daily, Aug. 31, 2022).
“I remain concerned with the lingering effects of post-pandemic conditions on our shipbuilders and their suppliers that continue to affect our shipbuilding programs, particularly our Columbia-class Ballistic Missile Submarines and Constellation-Class Frigate,” Del Toro said in a statement.
Del Toro linked the review to his maritime statecraft initiative to rebuild America’s maritime power.
“We will continue to work with industry and all other stakeholders to strengthen our national shipbuilding capacity, both naval and commercial,” he continued.
During a Thursday briefing at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium, frigate deputy program manager Andy Bosak admitted shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin is a “few hundred [workers] short of where we need to be.”
He said like much of the rest of industry “we are working on increasing the ship workforce, both the blue-collar and white collar workforce.”
Bosak also confirmed that “we do have a challenge in the schedule. We are working that. Fincantieri has communicated to us challenges within the schedule. We are doing our analysis, as the Navy does, doing deep dives on causes and effects and various different levers of which we can pull within that shipyard.”
However, Bosak did not disclose estimates on how late FFG-62 may be completed.
“We need to, as a program, work with our leadership, kind of figure out what we want to do. And from that, we will make that assessment as to what the actual schedule impact is of where we are. And that effort is ongoing,” he added.
Bosak noted how the Navy is helping Fincantieri bolster its surface combatant industrial base via $50 million Congress allocated for fiscal year 2023.
He said that is not a lot of money “so we’re trying to use it very wisely” via a retention bonus if workers stay there all of 2024, another bonus when the ship is launched, as well as additional training and quality assurance for the current workforce.
Bosak also said Fincantieri expects to be able to add more space and workforce to the frigate program once it finishes its remaining Littoral Combat Ship work and the Multi Mission Surface Combatant program for Saudi Arabia.
Last year, Del Toro told a Senate panel the Navy expected to have the frigate technical data package (TDP) finished by the end of 2023, then the service would review the possibility of competing a second shipyard to build the ships faster (Defense Daily, April 19. 2023).
The Navy currently plans a sawtooth-style procurement plan, alternating buying one then two frigates per year before ultimately buying two per year.
Then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said during the same hearing that he thought it was important to move that pace to two to three destroyers, if a second shipyard could be added.