Virginia-Class Program

BACKGROUND

The VIRGINIA nuclear submarine is the latest class of advanced capability fast attack submarine to be designed and delivered to the United States Navy. VIRGINIA was conceived in the early 1990s as the less expensive successor to the SEAWOLF submarine, which was designed to counter high performance Soviet submarines at the end of the Cold War.

The need for a large number of SEAWOLF Class submarines was obviated by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. The VIRGINIA was designed after the Cold War had ended for a new threat environment – one which would predominately involve many smaller conflicts in the near shore environment known as the littorals. The VIRGINIA Class submarine helps ensure our future national security by providing theater commanders with an affordable and flexible multi-mission stealth platform that replaces the aging fleet of approximately 43 LOS ANGELES Class (SSN688 Class) attack submarines. The VIRGINIA Class has been designed with reconfigurable spaces and features that make it adaptable and responsive to the changing and evolving threat. It supports seven post Cold War missions including: covert intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); anti-submarine warfare; special forces warfare; precision strike warfare; anti-surface ship warfare; mine warfare; and support of Joint Forces.

It exploits advanced technology that reduces the cost of submarines while maintaining the requisite capability to perform the above missions against all threats in every corner of the ocean. With their firepower, stealth and endurance, VIRGINIA Class ships will ensure that the United States maintains its undersea superiority for many years to come.

SHIP DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

The VIRGINIA Class submarine was designed by Electric Boat Corporation. It was the first US Navy warship to be designed using advanced computer-aided design and visualization technology that supports integrated design and manufacturing from a single product model database. The class design is complete and the program is now in low rate production.

CURRENT STATUS

Each ship of the Class is being constructed by both General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut and Quonset Point, Rhode Island, and by Northrop Grumman Newport News in Newport News, Virginia. Construction is being accomplished under a unique co-production teaming agreement whereby the construction of the ship’s major modules has been assigned to respective yards and the delivery of each ship is alternated between each yard.

Electric Boat is the prime contractor for the entire construction program. Material is ordered and work is scheduled based on the class build plan and construction schedule. It takes approximately nine million manhours of shipyard labor to build a VIRGINIA Class submarine. Each submarine costs approximately $2.0B (FY 2005 dollars), of which an estimated 65% is for Contractor- or Government-procured material. More than 4,000 suppliers in 50 states provide material and equipment directly to the shipyards to support the construction program.

The Navy expects to build 30 VIRGINIA Class submarines and has placed orders for the first 18 ships as shown in Figure 2. The first four ships of the Class were part of Block I of the ship construction program and included the lead ship USS VIRGINIA, SSN774. The four Block I ships have all been delivered. A second Block involving six additional ships and, the third Block involving eight additional ships are being procured using a multi-year contracting approach. This approach allows the Navy and shipyards to place contracts with suppliers for multiple shipsets of equipment to realize the cost benefit of economic order quantities.

TRANSITION TO STABLE PRODUCTION

The VIRGINIA Class Submarine Program has transitioned from development to production. As demonstrated during its acceptance trials, the VIRGINIA is superbly suited to provide the advanced capability that is required by the warfighter to meet national security requirements. Based on the mature ship design, the shipyards are working to drive continued production efficiency into the build process through lessons learned, producibility improvement initiatives, capital investment, and technology insertion.

The signing of the Block III contract on 22 December, 2008 signified the culmination of several milestones. The five year multi-year procurement agreement is to build the next eight ships, one in 2009, one in 2010 and then two per year in 2011, 2012 and 2013. The transition from one ship per year to two ships per year is an important step in improving the cost performance on each ship as fixed shipbuilder costs are applied across a broader base and suppliers’ volume benefits are realized. Together, with the additional savings realized through a comprehensive design for affordability initiative by the shipbuilding teams and Navy, the Block III agreement realized the successful cost reduction beginning in 2012 for $2B (in FY 2005 dollars) a unit.

Figure 2. VIRGINIA Class Ship Construction Status