The company that has experienced slip-ups in delivering missile tubes to the Navy might leave the business, leaving only a single company who can do the work.

The Navy’s most expensive shipbuilding program and the key to the country’s nuclear triad is under increasing pressure to keep to its tight schedule, and hit its budget.

As the Pentagon starts pumping cash into shipyards and small weapons manufacturers, is it enough to save some ailing production lines?

CAPITOL HILL The head of the Navy’s Columbia-class nuclear submarine program says that the program, despite earlier concerns over cost, schedule, and industrial base issues, is set to meet its goal of a first deployment in 2031, putting the service’s most expensive and consequential program on track. The boats will come just in time to… Keep reading →

The 12-hull, $128 billion Columbia class program is the Navy’s cornerstone project not only for a new class of submarines, but also for the United States’ nuclear triad, which relies on a mix of air, land, and sea-launched nuclear missiles.

CAPITOL HILL: In the drama-free weeks leading up to Thursday’s overwhelming passage of the compromise $716 billion defense policy bill by the House of Representatives, lawmakers sent a pretty clear signal to the White House: we want more submarines. With concerns rising over the growing prowess of Russian and Chinese undersea capabilities, and standoff air… Keep reading →

The budget battles have begun, with Republicans and Democrats already sparring over Rep. Mac Thornberry’s call to slash DoD civilians by 20 percent.

  WASHINGTON: A massive maintenance backlog has idled 15 nuclear-powered attack submarines for a total of 177 months, and the Navy’s plan to mitigate the problem is jeopardized by budget gridlock, two House Armed Services Committee staffers told Breaking Defense. That is almost 15 submarine-years, the equivalent of taking a boat from the 2018 budget… Keep reading →

President Trump and the US Navy want a 355-ship fleet, but even if you double shipbuilding budgets compared to historic levels, it can’t be done until 2032, at least 12 years after the end of Trump’s current term of office. That’s the estimate offered today by the Congressional Budget Office. At a more sustainable but… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall just approved the Navy’s top-priority program, the Columbia-class nuclear missile submarine, to start detailed design work and engineering. Known in Pentagonese as a Milestone B decision, undersecretary Kendall’s okay lets the Navy spend the $773 million Congress voted for the program in last month’s Continuing Resolution. [CORRECTED:] The projected procurement… Keep reading →