Shipbuilding industry fears cuts to submarine programs.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Undersea Warfare - Geographic overview

For a time, submarine manufacturers and their suppliers will have it good.

The mantra of building two boats per year, the minimum number advocates say is required to keep the highly specialized industry humming along, will be in place for the next few years.

However, the fiscal year 2013 budget proposal is throwing a wet blanket on these carefully laid out plans.

On the chopping block is one Virginia-class attack submarine slated for 2014. The completion of the Virginia-class submarine fleet would have dovetailed into a program to replace the Ohio-class submarines that carry the nation's ballistic missiles, and kept the workflow steady

The proposal has that program being pushed back two years, and research-and-development funding leading up to it is taking a hit.

This is causing a great deal of consternation in the submarine building industry. Only two boatyards currently construct the vessels--General Dynamics Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding. Yet, they depend on some 5,000 suppliers spread across all 50 states. And some of those suppliers, in turn, depend on them to stay in business.

While the large shipyards can better withstand the vagaries of the federal budget, these lower-tier suppliers are more vulnerable to changes to the two submarines per year plan, said Brian M. Wilson, Ohio replacement program director at GD Electric Boat.

"I think the first thing [suppliers] are seeing very early is a lack of stability--a lack of commitment--and that needs to be tempered, especially for this Ohio replacement program," he told National Defense.

The other mantra coming out of the Defense Department is that the nation must preserve its military industrial base, particularly in highly specialized areas that are critical to national security, and where the work can only be done in the United States. These niche capabilities may require engineering expertise that takes years to nurture, yet the opportunities to work on these programs are few and far between. The nation's fleet of spy satellites is one example. Submarines also fall into this category.

Wilson said the Defense Department's proposed cuts and the stated desire to preserve the industrial base sends a mixed message.

The first of the Ohio-class submarines, sometimes called "Tridents" for the missiles they carry, was commissioned in 1981 and construction continued for another 1 7 years. At one time, the United States had 96 ballistic missile carrying subs plying the seas to deter...