Tag Archives: Virgina Class

General Dynamics Gets Trio of Submarine Contracts

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Electric Boat, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics Corporation (GD – Analyst Report), procured three contracts worth $4.6 billion from the U.S Navy for designing and development of the next-generation strategic deterrent submarine. The contracts also included the task of construction and purchasing of materials for Virginia-class attack submarines.

Per the first contract worth $1.85 billion with a span period of five years, the company will perform research and development work for the next-generation strategic deterrent submarine under the Ohio Replacement Program. The construction for this new class of ballistic-missile submarine is expected to begin in 2021. Simultaneously, the company will continue to develop Common Missile Compartment for Ohio Replacement submarines and the UK Successor-class ballistic-missile submarine. Common Missile Compartment is jointly owned by the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy.

The company also received a contract to build two Virginia-class submarines, South Dakota (SSN-790) and Delaware (SSN-791). These two ships are the 17th and 18th ships of the class. The contract worth $2.5 billion will be performed jointly by Electric Boat and its team mate Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII).

Per the third contract worth $308 million, the company will purchase long lead-time materials for SSN-792, SSN-793 and SSN-794. Till date, these Virginia-class submarines have not been named.

Electric Boat has specialty in performing tasks for Virginia-class submarines. Of late in November 2012, Electric Boat had also received a contract modification to provide research and development and lead-yard services for Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines.

The company believes that these contracts will bring in stability to the submarine industrial base, thereby helping it to accomplish greater cost reduction through improved efficiencies. Moreover, these contracts also demonstrate the Navy’s confidence in the ability of General Dynamics.

General Dynamics is well equipped to build nuclear-powered submarines in the U.S. Also, some acquisitions make the company more capable to perform its tasks well. In December 2012, General Dynamics had acquired Applied Physical Sciences Corporation that became a part of General Dynamics Electric Boat. This acquisition will allow the company to provide more competent submarines that will help in maintaining global undersea dominance.

Based in Falls Church, Virginia, General Dynamics engages in mission-critical information systems and technologies; land and expeditionary combat vehicles, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and business aviation. General Dynamics’ revenue exposure is spread over a broad portfolio of products that allows to keep the overall growth momentum steady.

Source – Zacks

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

Delaware’s namesake submarine was a long time coming

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 Jill Biden (left), Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, Sen. Tom Carper and Lt. Gov. Matt Denn attend the announcement at the Pentagon.

Jill Biden (left), Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, Sen. Tom Carper and Lt. Gov. Matt Denn attend the announcement at the Pentagon.  /  William H. McMichael/The News Journal

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// // // On Apr. 13, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that the next five Virginia-class attack submarines would be named Illinois, Washington, Colorado, Indiana and South Dakota. He said that none of those states had had a ship named after them “for more than 49 years.” Of those five, only two, Washington and Illinois, have a significant U.S. Navy presence.

Actually, it was more than 60 years – 65, to be precise. So someone gave Mabus some bad information or wasn’t sure and was really fudging it with that phrase. According to the press release, the battleship USS Indiana was decommissioned in October 1963. It was sold for scrapping in September 1963. But it was decommissioned in September 1947 – 65 years ago.

That means Newark’s Steven Llanso had the time lapse right in his April 18 letter to The News Journal editor noting that in announcing the new submarine names, the Navy had missed an obvious candidate in Delaware – an oversight remedied Monday. Llanso’s letter, Delaware’s congressional delegation said, was the spark that initiated their lobbying campaign to get the state its own namesake sub, which will join the fleet in 2018.

Down through history, Navy ships have been named after presidents, war heroes and famous battles. Beginning in 1931, the Navy began naming submarines after fish and “denizens of the deep,” with names such as Barracuda and Skipjack. But a famous about-face took place in 1970, when a submarine was named for William H. Bates, a congressman and staunch Navy supporter on the House Armed Services Committee. The powerful Adm. Hyman Rickover, who governed the Navy sub program with an iron fist for decades, had a pithy explanation for the change: “Fish don’t vote.”

But it is the secretary of the Navy, by custom, who gets to name ships.

If the process of naming ships is something of GREAT interest to you … read the October report by the Congressional Research Service. It notes that recent Navy tradition has followed these rough guidelines:

Aircraft carriers are generally named for past U.S. presidents. Of the last 13, 10 were named for past U.S. presidents and two for Members of Congress.

Virginia (SSN-774) class attack submarines are being named for states. One exception has been made: then-Navy Secretary Donald Winter named SSN-785 after former Sen. John Warner of Virginia. Warner was himself a former Navy secretary and a powerful advocate for the service, particularly in his home state, during his years in the Senate.

Destroyers are named for deceased members of the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, including secretaries of the Navy.

Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) are being named for regionally important U.S. cities and communities.

Amphibious assault ships are being named for important battles in which U.S. Marines played a prominent part and for famous earlier U.S. Navy ships that were not named for battles.

San Antonio (LPD-17) class amphibious ships are being named for major U.S. cities and communities and cities and communities attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

Lewis and Clark (TAKE-1) class cargo and ammunition ships were named for famous American explorers, trailblazers and pioneers.

Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) ships/Afloat Forward Staging Bases (AFSBs) are being named for famous names or places of historical significance to U.S. Marines.

Source – Delaware online