Navy assures lawmakers billions were well spent in sub industrial base, despite lag in production
“Those efforts have been about workforce, hiring and retention. They have been about supply chain resiliency, modernization of the yards, strategic outsourcing [and] infrastructure issues,” Brett Seidle, the Navy’s acting acquisition executive, told lawmakers on Wednesday.
The USS Oregon (SSN 793) transits the Thames River after returning from routine operations in route to Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Conn., Oct. 14. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Wesley Towner)
WASHINGTON — A senior Navy official this week sought to re-assure lawmakers that billions of taxpayer dollars invested into the submarine industrial base are reaping positive effects, even if it doesn’t seem reflected in the service’s annual production cadence yet.
“Those efforts have been about workforce, hiring and retention. They have been about supply chain resiliency, modernization of the yards, strategic outsourcing [and] infrastructure issues,” Brett Seidle, the senior Navy civilian acting as the acquisition executive, said Wednesday of the $9 billion Congress has appropriated to submarine industrial base development since 2018.
“If you go to any to those sites where we’re working, we have seen absolute improvement in those arenas. The problem is building these ships takes a long time, and we’re not seeing it yet on the tail end of this, the ships coming off [the production line] faster,” Seidle continued.
The remarks were in response to questions from Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., who called it “disappointing” that despite the investments, the Navy’s Virginia-class production cadence remains at 1.1 submarines per year.
“When you combine that with our obligations in AUKUS, we are on a very, very bad path,” he said, referring to the trilateral security agreement between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.
The Navy’s ideal submarine production cadence is what officials call “2+1,” meaning two Virginia-class submarines as well as one Columbia-class boat each year. To fully support the commitments the United States has made to Australia under AUKUS, as well as the US Navy’s needs simultaneously, the Virginia-class program’s cadence would have to reach 2.33 boats per year, according to officials.
The service’s submarine prime contractors, General Dynamics and HII, have previously come close to achieving the 2-boat-per year cadence, but the damage the coronavirus pandemic did to the industrial base’s supply chain set progress back significantly. The Navy in 2024 announced it will reach the two-Virginia-class-submarines-per-year goal by 2028.
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Wittman also asked Seidle, who is a career Navy civilian, about the previous administration’s budget request only including one Virginia-class submarine under the “predicate that the reason we weren’t going to more than one was because we couldn’t produce more than one. … Are we going to see the same thing this year?”
Without providing specifics about the new budget request, Seidle said, not to “expect a similar pressurization” in FY26 as FY25. He said he doesn’t “see that happening.”
