Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
10/24/2014
Citing a high level of complexity, Naval Reactors chief Adm. John Richardson cast doubt on the future of the $100 billion Ohio-class nuclear submarine replacement project this week, suggesting the program has “ingredients for failure,” according to published reports. During an Oct. 22 presentation at the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium, Richardson said that while the program is on track, it remains on shaky ground. “I’m worried we have oversimplified the problem,” Richardson was quoted as saying by InsideDefense. “The time is now to get skin in the game.” Intended to last 40 years—double the service life of current Ohio class submarines—the Ohio replacement will house the most energetic submarine reactor core ever built. “It is the key to saving $40 billion over the life of the program,” Richardson said. “We no longer do a midlife refueling; therefore, we can build fewer ships to achieve the same at-sea availability.”
The Navy plans to test the electric drive for the Ohio replacement at a facility in Philadelphia, instead of at sea. “If we in this room don’t have butterflies in our stomach each day … we come to work on this program, I think we’re kidding ourselves,” Richardson said. “The stakes on this program are far too high.” The Senate version of the Fiscal Year 2015 defense authorization bill would authorize setting aside $100 million in a separate fund for the Navy’s leg of the nuclear triad. A report that accompanied the Senate version of the FY 2015 Defense Authorization Act suggest the separate fund for building the Ohio-class replacement submarines gives the program “appropriate visibility.”
