NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The program manager for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines said Tuesday while the boats have almost no margin for delays, he believes the submarines will be ready in time and that additional inspections of suppliers will continue.
At the top of his presentation here at the Navy league’s annual Sea Air Space Expo, Capt. John Rucker, program manager for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, said bluntly “we really have no margin for the lead ship, as well as every other ship” in the class.
While he admitted they have some margin in each step of the program, like most program schedules, “where we have no margin is that very, very end” because the Navy is already extending the current Ohio-class SSBNs to 42 years per submarine.
The Navy is transitioning from 14 Ohio-class SSBNS to 12 Columbia-class boats. The Navy plans to start building the first Columbia by Oct. 1, 2020. The prime contractor in General Dynamics Electric Boat [GD] (GDEB), while Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding also builds significant parts of the vessel.
“We need those [Ohio] boats to hang around, but after that we don’t have the margin or the ability to extend them any further,” Rucker said.
One Ohio per year is set to start retiring in the 2026-27 timeframe while the first Columbia vessel is planned to start patrolling in FY 2031, just as the Navy will reach 10 SSBNs total. Thereafter, one Ohio continues retiring per year while one Columbia starts patrols per year.
Those 10 SSBNs will be maintained through the transition to the new class, but the Navy said this incurs “moderate risk” without dealing with major delays.
Rucker said they plan to have the first Columbia “out on patrol no later than Oct. 1 of 2030, so FY ’31. And telling you today, we’re planning to beat that.”
