Sounding alarms: shipbuilders forecast exodus of submarine designers.

• Author: Jean, Grace
• Position: SHIPBUILDING

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Builders of Navy submarines for years have tried to convince admirals and members of Congress that trouble lies ahead.

They contend that unless the Navy increases submarine production and begins to design the next generation boats, the shipyards will lose irreplaceable skilled workers. Once that happens, the Navy would have to pay a huge premium to reconstitute the workforce if and when it chooses to start over.

The problem comes down to simple economics. As submarines have become more expensive and time consuming to build, the Navy has been able to afford fewer of them. The upshot has been growing costs for the shipyards, mostly attributed to having to keep a skilled workforce in place even in the absence of contracts, industry experts say.

The debate has now resurfaced in the context of the Virginia-class fast attack submarine. As the design work winds down and the boats continue in production, shipbuilders are warning the Navy that without a new submarine on the drawing board within the next several years, experienced scientists and designers will retire or leave the industry.

The result would be higher costs and delays in production once a new program is launched, shipbuilders caution.

Though the next submarine program is not slated to start until 2019, design efforts typically commence several years in advance because the entire process often takes 15 to 17 years.

Historically, as one submarine class is completed and put into the water, designers and engineers on the program will roll right into the design process for its successor. But there is no new design underway for the first time since the Nautilus, the Navy's first nuclear submarine, was commissioned in 1954.

In the United Kingdom, shipbuilders faced a six-year gap between the end of the Vanguard submarine program in the late 1980s and the beginning of the Astute program in the early 1990s. During that hiatus, the technical skills eroded so much that when construction began on the Astute, there were design problems, tremendous cost growth and schedule delays.

Engineering teams from Connecticut-based General Dynamics Electric Boat were dispatched to help bail them out. By 2005, the acquisition program was behind schedule by three years and over budget by $2 billion.

Concerned about its own industrial base, the U.S. Navy in 2005 asked Rand Corp. to assess the health of nuclear submarine design resources and the potential steps necessary to retain these skills.

"The Navy is committed to maintaining a nuclear submarine design capability," wrote a spokesman for the Navy's "Team Submarine" in response to questions from National Defense. "The Navy and program executive office submarines understand that a certain number of designers are critical because the skills needed for submarine design are unique and highly perishable."

At the start of the study, the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan showed that the next submarine class, the follow-on to the Ohio SSBN class, would begin in 2022. To design a submarine takes an average of 15 years, including the time from concept studies to delivery of the lead ship. For the...