
The head of the joint Navy-Department of Energy naval reactors program insisted construction on the first Columbia-class ballistic submarine will begin in 2021, but warned that “there will be problems,” and that the Navy will “have to work hard to get her on patrol in 2031.”“We need Columbia boats,” Adm. James Caldwell, head of naval reactors, said in a speech at the 2018 Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium and industry update in Arlington, Va. “We have deferred this investment for…