The enormous bow section of the nation’s first Columbia class ballistic missile submarine has been delivered to General Dynamics Electric Boat, marking a key production milestone as the Groton shipyard gears up to complete the first ship in a class the Pentagon calls the nation’s top defense priority.
The bow section of the District of Columbia, built by Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia and shipped by barge, was the last of two critical components built elsewhere to be delivered to Electric Boat, the U.S. Navy’s prime contractor on the Columbia program. The second, a turbine power generator built in California by Northrop Grumman, arrived previously.
Delivery of both components had been delayed by supply chain and workforce bottlenecks that have appeared across the industry as the Pentagon tries to jump start long-neglected military shipbuilding. The late deliveries caused Electric Boat slow construction on the District of Columbia for part of this year.
Delivery of the two major components will enable the shipyard to renew its efforts to meet production milestones on both the Columbia and Virginia class attack submarine programs the shipyard is building for the Navy, EB CEO Phebe Novakovic told analysts on an earnings call last month.
“The first Columbia is about 60 percent complete,” she said. “By the end of the year, we’ll have all major modules in Groton ready for assembly and test. We’re working very hard to move that ship to the left, along with our customer and along with the supply chain.”
“We’ve seen some improvements again,” she said. “This next year will be pivotal.”
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2, and Ranking Member of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, called delivery of the Columbia bow a “breakthrough milestone for the Columbia program.”
“It is all in the building now,” said Courtney, an influential voice in military shipbuilding whose district includes Groton. “Everybody is watching closely. Having it all in one place I think is really going to help with efficiencies there.”
Both Electric Boat and the Navy are taking unprecedented steps to rapidly replace the nation’s aging nuclear-powered submarine fleet as the country seeks to balance China’s rapid naval expansion and its increasingly aggressive activity in the Indo-Pacific.
The Navy wants 12 Columbias, at a combined cost of about $126 billion, to replace its dated fleet of 1980s-era Trident ballistic missile subs, also built in Groton. At the same time the Navy has contracted with EB for 60 smaller and less expensive Virginia class subs, to replace its aging 688 or Los Angeles class fleet that EB built beginning in the 1970s.
In addition, EB is expected to build 3 to 5 five more Virginia class subs for delivery to Australia beginning in 2032 under the tripartite AUKUS security agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom.
To meet production goals, EB has been hiring at a rate of about 5,000 a year and investing hundreds of million of dollars in plant and facilities. The Pentagon has contributed millions to an effort at all levels of government to invigorate the national industrial base.
Courtney said the milestone marked by the arrival of the Columbia bow section “is a culmination of work by an industrial base of over 2,500 suppliers, spanning all 50 states.”
“It is also the result of the over $10 billion investment by Congress into the U.S. submarine industrial base over the last seven years,” he said.
To assemble the Columbia, EB built a 200,000 square foot structure that sits over the Thames River on more than 500 massive concrete pilings driven into the granite riverbed. Just yards away is another new structure where the modular ship command and control centers are to be tested before installation.
Last month, EB disclosed that it has purchased the Crystal Mall in nearby Waterford, including the former Macy’s and Sears anchor stores. The shipyard said it will use the more than half a million square feet of space to expand its engineering, training and software development work in support of both the Columbia- and Virginia-class programs, the company said.
Between 4,000 to 5,000 Electric Boat employees are expected to work at the Waterford location after the properties are refurbished.
The latest revised delivery schedule calls for EB to deliver the District of Columbia to the Navy in 2029. The shipyard also has begun work on the second and third ships in the class, the Wisconsin and the Groton.
The Pentagon has for years listed the Columbia class subs as its top priority. The subs are designed as submerged missile platforms. They are 560 feet long, displace nearly 21,000 tons and launch Trident II missiles. Because of their mobility and ability to conceal themselves in the ocean depths, the submarines are considered the most survivable leg of the nation’s nuclear triad of land, air and sea-based missiles.
Last month, the Navy gave EB another $2.3 billion for advance procurement and advance construction work on five Columbia’s, including the Groton.
The Columbia and Virginia boats are considered to be the most sophisticated weapons platforms ever designed. Both classes have highly evolved quieting technology that makes them all but invisible to enemy sonar, allowing them to approach targets or launch points without detection. Nuclear plants give them unlimited range and ability to remain submerged.
A senior engineer on EB’s Columbia program called the submarines more technologically complex than NASA’s space shuttle.