Scott, on June 20, 2025, provided the excellent comments below :
"Thanks Pete. As an engineer I have zero confidence in the USA turning this [the USN's SSN shortage] around, whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge. Biden never once increased the USN budgeted number of Virginias in the three budgets he delivered after AUKUS [in 2022, 2023 and 2024). Trump may not either.
Yet this problem extends beyond budgets. In many sectors if the government workforce is inadequate they can hire workers from the private sector. Not shipbuilding. [Firstly] The USA has declined as a shipbuilding power to the point it makes virtually no ships except for government (mostly naval) contracts. There are no private sector workers with the high level welding skills needed for sub hulls to hire in. [Major submarine builders] GDEB and HII must either hire and train more young workers, or they will not expand production.
This leads to the second problem - lack of attraction to young workers. Despite the high prices they charge the USN, US shipyards are low payers. This is especially problematic for sub builders, who need the highest skills. Why would a top welder join a shipyard when the pay for those skills is far higher in the oil and gas industry?
[See John Grady's USNI March
11, 2025 article "Increasing wages for shipyard workers is the top
challenge when attracting and retaining everyone from pipefitters to naval
architects, a naval analyst told the House Armed Services Committee on
Tuesday" at https://news.usni.org/2025/03/11/pay-number-one-issue-in-growing-u-s-shipbuilding-workforce-panel-tells-hasc ]
The final problem is that internal engineering skills have declined within USN,
ever since they cut back the old internal design bureau, BuShips. In making
structural savings, the USN kept the bean counters but cut the engineers and
scientists. So now they know they have a technical problem, but not how to fix
it.
More money won't fix this problem, whether from Australian or US taxpayers. When supply is fixed and demand goes up, the price goes up. That is what is happening - inflation of USN SSN costs, but no increase in output."
2 comments:
Thanks for running this article Pete, which expands on my concerns well.
With apologies for the negativity the other leg of AUKUS (UK SSNs) also has fundamental problems in both industry capacity and also the reliability of the resulting submarines.
This article mentions that the [UK RN] has one Astute class SSN able to go to sea (out of five). AUKUS potentially combines a navy with a poor track record in sub maintenance (RAN) with a supplier with a poor track record in SSN reliability.
I am increasingly of the view that our money would be better spent elsewhere.
https://www.navylookout.com/royal-navy-submarine-hms-astute-first-a-class-boat-to-undergo-mid-life-refit/
Thanks Anonymous at 7/06/2025 4:36 PM
You'll notice I altered your "This article mentions that the RAN has one Astute class SSN able to go to sea (out of five)."
to "This article mentions that the [UK RN] has one Astute class SSN able to go to sea (out of five)."
I couldn't find "one Astute class SSN able to go to sea (out of five)." in https://www.navylookout.com/royal-navy-submarine-hms-astute-first-a-class-boat-to-undergo-mid-life-refit/
Ex RAN submarine commander and continuing expert Peter Briggs at https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/aukus-solution-risky-uk-gambit of Feb 20, 2024 reports:
"This force [the UK RN] could normally be expected to deploy one SSBN and one to two SSNs. But times have not been good for the Royal Navy; one of the SSBNs has spent 7 years in dock refuelling the reactor to rectify a defect. The remaining three have been hard pressed to maintain continuous deterrent patrols.
The Astute-class SSNs have been delivered late, over budget and are proving difficult to maintain – there have been periods when none of the six has been at sea."
Regards Pete
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