![]() The plan takes into account a certain learning curve for new hires, but he said “until we do it, we won’t know” for sure. “There is still the mountain to climb: when we go to one Columbia a year, starting in 2026 for 10 straight years, there’s hiring that’s required” to build so many submarine modules, he said, adding that there’s a plan to bring about 6,000 more employees to General Dynamics Electric Boat and to grow the base of suppliers. The Navy bought its first SSBN in fiscal 2021, will buy the second in FY24 and will buy the remaining 10 at a one-a-year pace from FY26 through FY35. Stefany made clear there are no Columbia delays now and said he is confident the first boat will be ready for its fall 2030 patrol, but his confidence in on-time delivery wanes as he looks farther out in the program. The Ohio-class has already gone through life-extension work to bring the hulls to 42 years of operations, but last fall, program officials revealed they may look at each hull to see which are likely to be able to serve for a couple extra years, as a buffer to any future delays the Columbia program may face. So instead of two organizations, one organization, cradle-to-grave strategic missile submarines.” “Looked around in the organization and saw Ohio was somewhere else under a different flag officer, so let’s put Ohio with Columbia so that there’s one PEO, one flag officer, that needs to do whatever he needs to do to keep Ohio going and keep reducing the risk on Columbia so we never get below the STRATCOM requirement. “What we are most concerned about is how do we overall provide capability to STRATCOM?” Stefany said. As the Ohio-class SSBNs reach the end of their 42-year service life, the Navy needs to ensure the new Columbia boats are ready to come online heel-to-toe and replace the Ohios, keeping that 10-boat requirement. Strategic Command at least 10 SSBNs available to conduct patrols, lurking in the depths of the ocean with nuclear weapons onboard as the most survivable leg of the U.S. The Navy has long said the Columbia SSBN program is its top acquisition priority. It also addresses potential problems that could arise later in the decade, giving the Navy tools to ward them off if there are early indicators of challenges arising, and it simplifies the submarine acquisition and sustainment community’s interactions with industry, the fleet and the Navy logistics community by putting just one flag officer in charge in several areas where before there were multiple stakeholders and problems could fall through the cracks. ![]() Jay Stefany, the acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told Defense News the reorganization balances out the workload among the three portfolios, whereas previously the PEO Subs organization was overburdened. Similarly, all attack submarine work - building and sustaining the Virginia class, seeing the Los Angeles class through its remaining life, early phases of research and design for the next-generation SSN(X) and SSN-specific mission systems - will fall under a new PEO Attack Submarines (SSN).Īnd a new PEO Undersea Warfare Systems will oversee submarine combat systems and weapons, undersea communications systems, training and safety programs and more - and will serve as the undersea domain lead for Project Overmatch, which seeks to net together manned and unmanned Navy assets in all domains. ![]()
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