
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) nominee Adm. Daryl Caudle on Thursday said he was open to retiring the USS Boise (SSN-764) attack submarine early due to its long maintenance delays and also entertained the idea of adding more ship repair and even construction work outside the U.S. while domestic shipbuilding ramps up.
President Donald Trump nominated Caudle, currently commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, in June. Vice Adm. James Kilby has been acting CNO since February when Trump abruptly fired former CNO Adm. Lisa Franchetti without offering any reason. Franchetti was the first woman to serve as CNO (Defense Daily, June 18).
During a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, Sen Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) asked Caudle if it is worth it to just “pull the plug” on the Los Angeles-class attack submarine that has had maintenance delayed so long it lost its dive certification in 2017.
“It’s like a dagger to my heart as a submarine officer when you bring up Boise to me, because it’s an unacceptable story, but it’s a story of where we walked away from a private capacity, our private yards’ capacity to do in-service repair decades ago,” Caudle responded.
He continued that while the Navy has decided to finally induct a few vessels for repair with HII’s [HII] Virginia shipyard and General Dynamics’ [GD] Electric Boat in Connecticut in recent years to relieve the oversubscribed four public shipyards, the shipyards’ lack of investment in performing that kind of work without the previous demand meant that “I think both of those yards had some learning to do before they were able to get up on the step, and that learning has not been quick and it’s not been effective.”
Caudle underscored that without a clear demand signal for consistent submarine maintenance and repair work for units after Boise, “I worry that that effort won’t be applied to Boise to get her completed. So working with the Secretary of the Navy, I want to take that on if I’m confirmed, and look at that hard. The decision whether or not to actually walk away from Boise is a big one, and I want to make sure I clearly understand the trajectory trends.”
SSN-764 performed operations for 25 years following a launch in 1992, but has not been able to dive since 2017 due to a series of maintenance delays that kept it from repairs at the four public shipyards that usually do all nuclear-powered vessel maintenance and repair.
Last year, the Navy awarded HII a $1.2 billion contract to start the engineering overhaul on Boise, but even if that work proceeds on time now, it would not be ready to restart operations until September 2029 (Defense Daily, Feb. 26, 2024).
The submarine first arrived at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard in June 2018 when work was previously expected to last through 2021, but was delayed due to the company incurring cost overruns and maintenance delays on another Los Angeles-class submarine receiving maintenance first, the USS Helena (SSN-725).
The schedule had SSN-725’s spot followed by the USS Columbus (SSN-762) before moving on to the Boise.
Beyond the example of the Boise, Caudle indicated he was open to various options to perform more maintenance and even ship construction outside the U.S. until domestic shipbuilding theoretically improves enough.
When asked by Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) if he is open to working more with international partners to this effect, Caudle noted that “I think the state of our maintenance and shipbuilding and other areas of the like, is a 100 percent all hands on deck. So, I would be remiss if I didn’t consider partners that want to help me until I get my ship industrial base in the United States, along with the Department of Defense and the interagency, this is the whole-of-government approach, up on step.”
“I do agree that allies and partners can be crucial in helping us in this interim time while we’re working to get our industrial capacity in the United States to the place it needs to be.”
President Donald Trump first raised the idea of vaguely using allies to boost ship construction in January before his inauguration (Defense Daily, Jan. 7).
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) argued that while increased shipbuilding is necessary and occurring in his state, he said the country is short by 500,000 electricians so they will have to include allied shipbuilding.
Tuberville noted South Koreans shipbuilders build five keels for every one the U.S. builds.
Caudle reiterated he wants to work with Secretary of the Navy John Phelan and DoD to look “at this hard. Again, I’ve said this is an all hands on deck. I don’t know how we do what we need to do without bringing international partners into the capacity problem that we have while we build up our capacity, because we need ships today.”
“The solution space has got to open up. And I think part of that has to look at international partnerships to give us a little bit of a relief valve while we work on our own organic industrial capacity,” he added.