Tag Archives: Groton

Submarine Design Effort Gets $2B Boost

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 A U.S. Navy concept for the Ohio-Replacement Program submarine.

 A U.S. Navy concept for the Ohio-Replacement Program submarine. (Naval Sea Systems Command)

The effort to design and develop the U.S. Navy’s next ballistic missile submarine got a major boost Friday with the announcement of a nearly $2 billion contract award to General Dynamics.

The contract was awarded by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to GD’s Electric Boat division in Groton, Conn., the only shipbuilder deemed capable of designing the Ohio-Class Replacement Program (ORP) submarine.

NAVSEA, in a statement accompanying the contract announcement noted that “special incentives” are included in the cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to compensate for the lack of competition.

“The Navy established a structured series of incentives to motivate General Dynamics Electric Boat and the government to further innovation to lower non-recurring engineering costs, construction costs, and operation and support costs,” Capt. William Brougham, NAVSEA’s Ohio Replacement program manager, said in the statement. “This contract employs financial incentives designed to align the government’s requirement for cost savings with our industrial partners’ innovation and ability to earn profit.”

Bob Hamilton, a spokesman for Electric Boat, acknowledged that cost-control is a top priority for the ORP program.

“The Navy has made clear that development of the next-generation strategic deterrent is its highest priority, and that affordability is key,” Hamilton said Dec. 21 in an e-mail to Defense News. “The Navy has stated that it expects this contract will provide it with the best quality product at the lowest cost, and we agree.

“EB has developed a Design for Affordability (DFA) program that we successfully used on the Virginia [SSN 774 attack submarine] program to redesign the bow while reducing the cost $40 million per ship, as well as reducing life-cycle costs. EB, along with our subcontractors and vendors, will continue to utilize the DFA program, and working with the Navy, we expect to meet the cost reduction targets in the contract,” Hamilton wrote.

“This contract will provide stability to our engineering and design workforce as well as the supplier base, as well assure that the schedule for the nation’s strategic deterrent submarine is maintained.”

The ORP is expected to produce 12 new submarines to replace 14 existing Ohio-class submarines.

The latest contract, according to NAVSEA, also covers work on a Common Missile Compartment with Britain’s Royal Navy, which is developing a new ballistic submarine to replace its Vanguard-class submarines. Both new designs will use the same Trident D5 missiles now in service.

In addition to ORP design work and continuing design and development of the missile compartment, the new contract award will, according to NAVSEA, provide for “shipbuilder and vendor component and technology development, engineering integration, concept design studies, cost reduction initiatives using a design for affordability process, and full scale prototype manufacturing and assembly.”

Rear Adm. Dave Johnson, NAVSEA’s program executive officer for submarines, noted that the Navy’s approach covers the life of the program and its ships.

“This contract moves the Ohio Replacement forward in setting the program’s technical foundation — ship specifications, system descriptions, and design products,” Johnson said in NAVSEA’s statement.

“We are setting the tone for the whole program. By emphasizing cost control across the platform through its entire life, we will ensure that every dollar is spent wisely while designing a submarine class that will be in service through 2083.”

Detail design work on the new submarine is expected to begin in fiscal 2017, with construction set to start in 2012.

After a seven-year construction period, the first ship is expected to makes its first deterrent patrol in 2031.

Source – Defense News

Submarine with new design nears completion

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Submarine with new design nears completion

The military contractor, which got a boost this week when Congress agreed to not delay the purchase of a Virginia-class sub, is hoping that its record of delivering submarines under budget and ahead of schedule will help protect it from cuts in Washington.”There’s no question we’re in a very constrained fiscal environment,” said Robert Hamilton, a company spokesman. “Any program that is over-running on costs and schedule is going to get a second look.”

The last major piece of the new submarine, the 113-foot-long bow section, arrived at the Groton shipyard a week ago from the company’s partner contractor in the Virginia-class submarine project, Newport News Shipbuilding. The Navy contract calls for the completed sub to be delivered in August 2014.

The new design introduces larger, more versatile weapons tubes in the bow. Despite the changes, the submarine is expected to be ready for delivery ahead of schedule, partly because the design reduced the number of parts in the bow and made construction more manageable, said Chris Cameron, a construction program manager at Electric Boat.

The U.S. is building two Virginia-class submarines a year, at a cost of about $2.6 billion each. The cost-savings for the Navy that come with the redesign of the bow will add up to about $800 million over 20 submarines, Hamilton said.

A budget proposal from President Barack Obama had called for the Navy to purchase only one submarine in 2014, but the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives agreed this week to include money for a second sub that year in the National Defense Authorization Act.

Bob Ross, the director of the state’s Office of Military Affairs, noted the Virginia-class program has been praised for efficiency by the defense secretary.

“It’s really great from our position to be able to articulate that this is the premier, major acquisition program in the country right now,” Ross said. “It puts us on very solid ground when we argue don’t disrupt that production schedule.”

Like other defense contractors around the state and the nation, Electric Boat is still keeping a wary eye on developments in Washington, where talks are under way to reach a deal that would avoid the double hit of tax hikes and automatic spending reductions dubbed the “fiscal cliff.”

Even if those automatic cuts do not take effect, Ross said Connecticut is expected to see a 10 percent reduction in its defense spending over the next six years. He said the automatic cuts could raise that figure as high as 18 percent, but officials have no way to know which programs would be hit.

“The sooner we deal with this issue and remove the uncertainty, the better it is for all of defense contractors in the state,” Ross said.

Source – Hampton Roads