Halibut Hangar

On Saturday, May 3, 2008, 10:00am at the port in Wilmington, North Carolina, Virginia-class submarine USS North Carolina, SSN 777, will be commissioned.

Secretary of the Navy, Donald Winter, submarine sponsor Linda Bowman, and Senator Elizabeth Dole¹ will attend the ceremonies to commission the forth Virginia-class submarine. The ceremonies will be simulcast over the Internet at: http://www.csg2.navy.mil

The submarine’s $2.5 billion dollar price tag is challenging congressional appropriators, Navy submarine executive, Rear Admiral William H. Hilarides, and manufacturers General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) and Northrop Grumman Newport News (NGNN) to reverse the increasing “cost growth”²

Congress has recently authorized (Defense Authorization FY08) the Navy to enter into a multi-year submarine procurement contract hoping to shave $200 million off the $500 million dollar cost overrun, per submarine.

Senators and representatives from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Virginia (shipyard/submarine states) are pressing their congressional colleagues to accelerate the current 2012 start date for procuring the next block of Virginia-class submarines³.

Web:

• UPDATED 05/19/2008 NavNews, USS North Carolina Arrives at New Home
• Wilmington: Sub Commissioning May 3
• Schedule of Events
• Aerial Map of Port Wilmington Area

YouTube:
In addition to pressuring cost-cutters, the Virginia-class submarine's enormous price tag has pushed our normally hyper-stealthy submariners into a public promotional role.

The Navy invited Wilmington’s TV6 reporter Joe Keiley onboard the USS North Carolina (SSN 777) for some promotional video (it's a beautiful, if too pricey, submarine)⁴:

-----notes-----

1. Linda Ann Rich Bowman is the wife of retired Admiral Frank Bowman, a former director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion and major participant in the advanced reactor design used in the Virginia-class submarine.

Mary Elizabeth Hanford Dole is the senior senator from North Carolina and is a member of the influential Armed Services Committee and ranking (senior minority) member on its "Emerging Threats and Capabilities" subcommittee.

2. The original promised delivery cost for a Virginia-class submarine was $2 billion. The planned procurement of 30 Virginia-class is unlikely to significantly reduce the current $2.5 billion dollar price tag, without major restructuring of the prime contracts.

To date the overall Virginia-class submarine program is 42% overrun (original cost $57.4 billion; latest cost $81.3 billion).

The GAO (in addition to RAND) must conduct and publicly release, a life-cycle cost study for the Virginia-class submarine—it can be updated as the submarine's configuration changes.

3. Accelerating production would provide some cost savings from advance procurement of larger quantities. However, those saving assume what you’re purchasing today will not require changing tomorrow—a risky assumption when building a new submarine!

The cost for changes to procured hardware will almost always exceed any savings resulting from the advance procurement, usually by large margins.

4. Note four concerning women on Virginia-class submarines has been removed (see Virginia Class Submarine - Defense Authorization FY09 comments section).