I saw an ad like this last week in Boston. I assumed it was for the Portsmouth shipyard in Kittery. But I really don’t know.
It should be noted that the design and construction of submarines is a highly specialized industry which is very different from building surface vessels; while a large commercial shipyard could at least build out the hull and powerplant of a conventional frigate, destroyer, or light cruiser, only Newport News and Electric Boat could built a Virginia class nuclear submarine. Not only are the processes and requirements different for a hull that has to withstand many times atmospheric pressure but there are an enormous number of features on a submarine that are classified, requiring a cleared workforce and secure facilities. I’d agree it is the work of a decade just to build up the workforce, and more to start building modern attack submarines in large quantities.
China has a large navy in quantity but it is not a ‘blue water’ navy that could operate either in the open Pacific or even sustain itself in the Indian Ocean. However, it isn’t intended to operate that far; it has enough reach and firepower to cover the East and South China Sea and provide enough targets to dilute a technically more capable naval force while throwing mass quantities of missiles and drones at opponents. Whether that strategy would ultimately be successful or not (I have my doubts) they could likely make it costly enough for the US to not want to enter into direct conflict, and the loss of an aircraft carrier or even one or two Virginia or even older Los Angeles or Seawolf attack submarines would be a substantial blow to prestige and billions of dollars of lost investment.
Agreed that it is difficult to detect a submarine out in broad ocean area; however, within the shallower depth of the East China Sea and confined space in the Taiwan Strait, US submarines may find much of the advantage from features designed for North Atlantic and Pacific blue water operations somewhat blunted, and even operations in the deeper South China sea may be more difficult as China deploys their surveillance network. With the home court advantage of having land based air cover and missile basing they can keep surface ships at bay, forcing the submarine fleet into what is essentially guided missile frigate duty with fraction of the VLS capacity at two or three times the cost of an Arleigh Burke destroyer.
I can’t see how trying to build more subs in the next couple of decades is really going to prepare the US Navy for such a conflict in the near term; certainly not before the plans for a 2027 invasion of Taiwan that Xi and his military leaders have been strongly hinting at. Maybe someone in the Department of the Navy is a nostalgic fan of that SeaQuest DSV show which predicted vast colonies of people in undersea settlements and submarine piracy.
Stranger
The Navy is apparently building a whole new class of SSBNs over the next couple of decades Columbia-class submarine - Wikipedia - that’s going to take a bunch of people
But they are doing so at very low rate production; projected delivery of the lead boat is ~2030 (expect a 3-4 year delay at minimum) and the last of 12 at 2042 (more like 2048-2050), so probably building about one boat a year. At an estimated cost of more than US$9B per hull, it is not a small program (approaching the same cost as the LGM-35 Sentinel ICBM program) but it is one shipyard, so there is a limit to how many people they can physical bring in to do the work.
Stranger
As always, you make lots of good points, @Stranger_On_A_Train.
This show came out when I was a junior officer on one of the U.S. Navy’s newest nuclear submarines, and for some public relations reason Roy Scheider went to sea with us for a day to see what it like to be on a submarine at sea, and to ostensibly see a submarine captain in action. He was accompanied by Robert Ballard. I got to talk to both of them briefly. Ballard was much more interesting than Scheider, as I recall.
I’ve never seen the show, though. From all accounts it was pretty missable.
Why DOE? The subs are built by contracts through the DOD. . . Sure reactors are managed by DOE, but the hull isn’t.
Tripler
We’re having similar hiring drives here too. . .
Subway has more franchises than anyone. Of course people are needed to build submarines. Artists encouraged to apply.
Scheider must have been shocked that the submarine didn’t have fifteen feet of overhead deck clearance with sultry mood lighting and a moon pool with a talking dolphin. But then, he was probably just glad to not have to face a shark and explain why he defamed the entire clade of Elasmobranchii just to make a quick buck. Apparently Michael Ironside took over the role after Scheider left, which I find shocking because I can’t believe the show got renewed for even a second series.
I think Ballard was a consultant on the show (at least, early on) and is generally a really smart guy. I attended a talk a number of years ago where he talked about the discovery of hydrothermal vents and climate change impacts in the ocean long before people were paying much attention to that.
Nuc and propulsion is DoE; sonar, comms, and launch systems (among other things) are covered by DoD. Generally, security clearances are reciprocal between departments but there can be program-specific clearances that require additional investigation.
Stranger
The question of submarines is ongoing.
The projected costs of the AUKUS deal is so mind numbingly huge that it becomes difficult to grasp.
That said it isn’t a matter of not annoying the UK, we haven’t cared about that in a very long time. Australia had already entered into a contract to build a French designed conventionally powered submarine, but that ended badly, and needed a lot of diplomacy to heal the rift. We do have close ties with the UK, but also the US. Huge contracts like a submarine are understood to be highly competitive and exceedingly complex.
The hope is that the AUKUS consortium can bring economies of scale and additional capability to a long term next generation submarine. Some of these subs will be built outside the US, with both the UK and Australia cutting steel. The Oz boats would be built not far from me here in Adelaide, by the same outfit that built the Collins class submarines.
It is a big deal, partly in that for the first time the USA are allowing their reactors to reach another country other than the UK. It wasn’t that long ago they vetoed reactors going into a Canadian sub. It is also a huge deal that Australia is quietly going with a nuclear solution. There was a time when this was political death.
The big problem for the shorter term is that Australia really needs an interim solution to bridge over from our diesel electric Collins class subs. These, whist very capable, are getting well into their lifespan. So the mooted interim is for us to get (buy/lease) three Virginia class boats. That isn’t a trivial issue and there has been a lot of discussion as to whether there is enough capacity to build them and also meet the USN’s own needs. Indeed it has made it to the point of difficult questions being asked in Congress.
So little surprise that there is a lot of effort going into increasing capacity. The sudden need for three more Virginia class boats before closing the line is a really big ask.
To expand on this, U.S. Navy nuclear reactors are the responsibility of Naval Reactors (NR), which (per Wikipedia) “has authority and reporting responsibilities within both the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and the National Nuclear Security Administration.” NAVSEA is part of DoD, and NNSA is part of DoE.
NR is run by a Navy 4-star admiral. Since the program’s inception, there have been eight Directors of Naval Reactors, starting with Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover started the tradition of personally interviewing every prospective nuclear-trained naval officer.
I interviewed with the third director (Admiral Bruce DeMars) a few months before I graduated from university and got commissioned as a Navy ensign. It was a memorable interview–I think he was channeling his inner Rickover.
I live in Euclid where a BWXT facility is, and have recently considered a position there. So BOE is stuck in my head (they build reactors and reactor components here). I imagine other locations that promote open positions through the Build Subs website would require other clerarances
I always thought that Rickover had a number of clear insights about how to manage an effective organization.
I’ve seen the ads (mainly watching streaming MLB games). Possibly they are part of the DPA Title III effort started in 2021:
The president signed on Dec. 21, 2021 three determinations permitting the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to strengthen the U.S. submarine industrial base.
Rickover was excellent at PR, too. I believe it was he who started the trend of naming submarines after states and cities (USS Texas, USS Los Angeles, etc.) instead of naming after fish species because it would win more public support. “Fish don’t vote.”
I’ve heard a little about this. A lot of people around here work for Electric Boat, or have retired from there. The retirement problem was mentioned above. It’s not unusual in many industries now but Electric Boat is well supported by defense spending and isn’t going to downsize of change direction.
You can also live in RI, and work at EB at Quonset Point.
They have been running a training center right on the RI/CT border for a few years now.
I interviewed with Kinnaird McKee. I think he was trying to be the anti-Rickover. No yelling, no ridiculous requests, no belittling.
I actually do think the world’s navies will be going more submarine based.
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Submarines are cheaper to operate than surface vessels, for the most part.
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Nuclear submarines are harder to defeat, in a lot of ways, than surface vessels.
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With the ability to now fire long range cruise and anti-ship missiles, not just torpedoes or SLBMs, submarines can now do things they couldn’t in the past.
Little bit of trivia, the Lewis Nixon mentioned was the grandfather of Captain Lewis Nixon who was written about in the book Band of Brothers. He was played by Ron Livingston in the miniseries.
It didn’t seem worth starting a separate thread for this, but check out this article (gift link) with amazing photos in today’s New York Times:
This is the same class of submarine I was on. I also went to the Arctic back in 1993. My submarine was the first one of its class to break through the pack ice just like the article describes.