The first in a series of Navy
attack submarines with a newly redesigned bow is nearing completion at Groton's
Electric Boat, which says it is on track to beat production deadlines with the
boat that will become the USS North Dakota
The military contractor, which
got a boost this week when Congress agreed to not delay the purchase of a
Virginia-class sub, is hoping that its record of delivering submarines under
budget and ahead of schedule will help protect it from cuts in Washington.
"There's no question we're
in a very constrained fiscal environment," said Robert Hamilton, a company spokesman. "Any program that is
over-running on costs and schedule is going to get a second look."
The last major piece of the new
submarine, the 113-foot-long bow section, arrived at the Groton
shipyard a week ago from the company's partner contractor in the Virginia-class
submarine project, Newport News Shipbuilding. The Navy contract calls for the
completed sub to be delivered in August 2014.
The new design introduces
larger, more versatile weapons tubes in the bow. Despite the changes, the
submarine is expected to be ready for delivery ahead of schedule, partly
because the design reduced the number of parts in the bow and made construction
more manageable, said Chris Cameron, a construction program manager at Electric
Boat.
The U.S.
is building two Virginia-class submarines a year, at a cost of about $2.6
billion each. The cost-savings for the Navy that come with the redesign of the
bow will add up to about $800 million over 20 submarines, Hamilton
said.
A budget proposal from
President Barack Obama had called for the Navy to purchase only one submarine
in 2014, but the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives agreed this week to
include money for a second sub that year in the National Defense Authorization
Act.
Bob Ross the director of the
state's Office of Military Affairs noted the Virginia-class program has been
praised for efficiency by the defense secretary.
"It's really great from
our position to be able to articulate that this is the premier, major
acquisition program in the country right now," Ross said. "It puts us
on very solid ground when we argue don't disrupt that production
schedule."
Like other defense contractors
around the state and the nation, Electric Boat is still keeping a wary eye on
developments in Washington, where
talks are under way to reach a deal that would avoid the double hit of tax
hikes and automatic spending reductions dubbed the "fiscal cliff."
Even if those automatic cuts do
not take effect, Ross said Connecticut
is expected to see a 10 percent reduction in its defense spending over the next
six years. He said the automatic cuts could raise that figure as high as 18
percent, but officials have no way to know which programs would be hit.
"The sooner we deal with
this issue and remove the uncertainty, the better it is for all of defense
contractors in the state," Ross said.
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