By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
There’s a battle on Capitol Hill over Virginia-class attack submarines, and the players in this fight aren’t lining up the way you would necessarily think.
The clash is raising questions about whether the US should be cutting back on submarine production at a time when China is ramping up production.
Here’s the issue: last month, the House passed the fiscal 2025 defense spending bill that called for buying just one Virginia-class sub instead of the two the bill has provided for in the past. That went against the wishes of a number of Republicans and Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, who had urging partially funding a second Virginia-class boat.
This dispute was triggered earlier this year when the Navy, in a move that shocked some observers, only asked for one of the submarines. Officials blamed a “struggling industrial base and stifled procurement funding stemming under Congressional spending caps.”
To put that in non-governmental English, the Navy is unhappy with the pace of production, and is hampered by a deal Congress struck that limits the coming year’s defense budget to rise only one percent over the current year, despite inflation.
The Pentagon’s chief financial officer, Mike McCord, pointed out that the Virginia-class submarines that were supposed to be delivered this year are, on average, about 30 months late. “So, the question was really, what can we do to get a better result other than keep doing the same thing and hoping for a different result,” he said.
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But for many experts, this is short-sighted thinking.
In an essay for the US Naval Institute last year, Mike Sweeney wrote that in case of war, the Navy would have “50 submarines for direct naval combat: 19 of the latest Virginia-class SSNs, 28 of the older Los Angeles-class boats, and three of the unique Seawolf class.”
In reality, he writes, there would only be about 16 subs on station – using the rule of thumb of one-third preparing for deployment and another third standing down from recent operations.
Meanwhile, the Navy’s budget priority is the Columbia-class SSBN, which will replace the aging Ohio-class subs. Sweeney writes that “while important to the nation’s strategic nuclear posture, these submarines will make no meaningful contribution to a conventional naval engagement in the western Pacific.”
The Virginia class, built by General Dynamics Electric Boat, was introduced a quarter-century ago. Still, experts agree it has no equal among attack submarines.
The sub can launch 12 Tomahawk cruise missiles in a single salvo, has 12 vertical launch tubes and four torpedo tubes. At this stage, the Virginia-class fleet may operate with superiority when it comes to detectability and acoustic signature, although it’s unclear how long that will last.
China and Russia have been building anti-access/area denial (A2/D2) systems, designed to keep aircraft carriers and other traditional platforms from approaching. So those who support building more Virginia-class subs argue that more of the boats are needed to keep up the US’s ability to project power.
Meanwhile, the congressional battle over the subs isn’t over. The Senate has yet to vote on its defense budget, and the Senate Armed Services Committee has called for building two of the Virginia-class boats. If the entire Senate goes along, it would be up to a handful of lawmakers from both houses to determine whether one or two of the subs would be in the final spending plan.
