The Navy is examining the option of moving up plans to increase the capacity of the Virginia-class (SSN-774) attack submarines for carrying land-attack cruise missiles, the service’s acquisition chief said Wednesday.
Sean Stackley, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower subpanel that the Navy expects to have made a determination in the next few months about whether it can shift sooner toward adding the capacity to carry an additional 28 cruise missiles. The new capacity will add a section to the ships known as the Virginia payload modules.
The first Virginia sub with the payload module is expected to get under construction in fiscal 2019, but Stackley said the Navy would like to move that up by one year and get to a production rate of two annually.
Doing so would in part depend on cost considerations as well as the ability of the shipyards to increase their workload capacity, a significant challenge compounded by the Navy’s plans to start building the next generation of ballistic missile submarines in 2021, Stackley said.
“Too early yet to call it,” Stackley told the committee.
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), the chairman of the seapower panel, told Stackley he wants the Navy to provide a determination as soon as possible–sooner that the spring timeframe Stackley suggested–so any funding requirements could be addressed.
General Dynamics [GD] Electric Boat in Groton, Conn. and Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] in Newport News, Va. share in the construction of the Virginia-class boats and are the only two U.S. submarine builders.
The two companies are already involved in the early design and development phases of the next ballistic submarine to replace the aging Ohio-class. Both have said they are studying how to absorb increased workloads associated with the continued production of Virginias along with adding the construction of the much larger ships that will constitute the Navy’s next fleet of ballistic missile subs.
The Navy wants the payload modules on the newer versions of Virginias to help offset the loss of the four SSGN subs, which were formerly Ohio-class boomers modified to carry 154 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles but are due to be retired in the near future. Their loss amounts to a significant shrinking of the Navy’s undersea land-strike capability until the Virginia payload modules come on line to gradually build it back up.
The Navy converted the four Ohio-class boats to attack submarines in the early 2000s to comply with nuclear arms reduction agreements with Russia.
The current fleet of Virginia-class subs also carry Raytheon [RTN]-built Tomahawks but in much smaller numbers than the payload modules would offer. The Navy has slowly begun winding down Tomahawk production as it starts to look at its envisioned next generation land-attack missile.