A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report update lays out how the COVID-19 pandemic could impact the Navy’s shipbuilding programs and noted what action Congress has taken in the past to mitigate other events.
The report, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, was last updated March 27. It notes COVID-19 will not uniquely affect Navy shipbuilding, but it could impact shipyards that build, overhaul, repair, and maintain ships as well as their associated supplier firms and employees.
The Congressional Research Service noted shipyards and supplier firms could be affected if employees remain at home because they are ill from COVID-19, to maintain social distancing, taking care of children due to school closures, or taking care of family ill from the virus.
“Impacts on operations at shipbuilding supplier firms could affect operations at the shipyards, even if staffing at the shipyards themselves is not substantially affected, due to reduced or delayed deliveries to the shipyards of supplier-provided components and materials,” the report says.
Moreover, delays to ship construction and fabrication of their components, CRS said, “could put shipyards and supplier firms at risk of not being able to meet their contractual obligations, which in turn could affect their financial situations.”
The report pays special attention to what the Navy’s calls its highest priority program, the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN).
The Navy plans to acquire 12 nuclear-armed Columbia-class submarines to replace the current fleet of Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.
The Columbia-class has a special susceptibility due its priority, according to CRS, and “the program’s tight schedule for designing and building the lead boat in time for the boat to be ready to conduct its scheduled first strategic nuclear deterrent patrol in 2031, and the potential consequences for the nation’s strategic nuclear deterrent posture if the lead boat is not ready in time to conduct that patrol.”
In 2019, the manager for the Columbia-class program said the Navy has little margin for the new submarine since the service already extended the service life of existing Ohio-class SSBNs to 42 years.
