The Navy awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat $1.3 billion for long lead materials for the first Block VI Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines ahead of an expected multi-year contract between the submarine yard and the service for the class.
The award to Electric Boat comes ahead of a planned multi-year contract between the Navy and the Connecticut submarine builder, USNI News understands.
“This contract modification sends a crucial demand signal, enabling our suppliers to invest in the capacity and materials needed to increase production volume,” Kevin Graney, president of General Dynamics Electric Boat said in a Monday statement following the contract announcement.
“Consistent funding for the supply base is essential to achieve the high-rate production the Navy requires of the entire submarine enterprise.”
The Block VIs will be the second set of Virginia-class attack submarines to feature the Virginia Payload Module, which will meet the Navy’s requirement for a large-scale land strike missile platform after the service decommissions four Ohio-class guided-missile submarines by the end of the decade. In the last several years, the Ohio guide-missile boats, each capable of fielding 154 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, have been a favorite of combatant commanders. USS Florida (SSGN-728) was deployed for almost two years as a hedge against threats in the Mediterranean and the Middle East and returned just last week.
The VPM inserts four Multiple All-up-round Canisters (MAC) in the middle of the submarine in addition to two in the bow. Each MAC tube can contain seven TLAM. The Navy has said it would need 20 VPM boats to make up for the strike missile loss when the Ohios retire.
The Navy and Electric Boat agreed to a multi-year contract for the initial Block V boats in 2019, and then service exercised $9.4 billion in contract options for two more option boats as part of the Fiscal Year 2024 budget request including previously awarded advanced procurement. One of the 2024 boats will be fitted with a standard VPM while the other is a specialized seabed warfare variant that could cost an estimated $5.2 billion and would eventually replace the Seawolf-class USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23).
The FY 2024 option boats are the first for the yard and the service since the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread inflation since the start of 2020. As of Tuesday, the Navy and Electric Boat have not finalized the contracts for the two FY 24 attack boats. The Senate appropriators included a $1 billion emergency line item in their Fiscal Year 2025 defense spending bill for cost-to-complete funds for the two attack boats.
The first Block VI boat is included in the Fiscal Year 2025 Pentagon budget request currently being debated in Congress. House and Senate appropriators are calling for one attack boat in the their versions of the funding bill while the House and Senate authorizers have included two of the Block VIs in their bills.
The long lead award drew praise from Rep Joe Courtney (R-Conn.) who represents the yard in Congress.
“Locking in Navy’s commitment to long lead items will provide some measure of procurement stability to supply chain vendors, which keeps the industrial base moving forward. Promoting that stability was the clear intent of Congress. The next ‘to do’ item is full award of the entire Block VI, which hopefully will happen soon,” Courtney said in a Monday statement.
