Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding is the midst of making improvements to its yard to support work on the Ford-class aircraft carrier and the Virginia-class and Ohio replacement submarines, but if the Navy continues procuring attack submarines at a two-per-year pace, the company will need to make additional investments, executives said in April.
The Navy’s current program of record would slow Virginia-class submarine construction to one per year during years when an Ohio replacement sub also is procured, but the service is considering maintaining the two-per-year pace to mitigate an attack submarine shortfall.
Newport News is expanding its yard to accommodate construction of the first Ohio replacement submarine as well as additional Virginia-class deliveries specified in the service’s recent Submarine Unified Build Strategy, said Jim Hughes, the company’s vice president of submarines and fleet support. The centerpiece of that effort—the 500,000-square foot Joint Manufacturing and Assembly Facility—would provide additional capacity for submarine and aircraft carrier production.
But if the Navy requires two Virginia class subs in 2021 as well as a new ballistic missile submarine, Newport News will need to pour even more money into the yard.
“The secretary [of defense] supports it and the Navy would like it,” Hughes said of the potential changes to the program of record. “We would have to do some additional investments to support that, but we are positioned to do that if and when that occurs.”
Newport News would also need to hire additional personnel on top of what it expects it will need when Ohio replacement construction starts, but Hughes said he does not expect any difficulties associated with expanding its workforce.
“We’ve certainly supported much larger increases and decreases in recent times without an issue,” he said, adding that the company is still analyzing how many workers it would need to hire if the program of record changes.
