{"id":2648,"date":"2026-05-04T07:51:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T05:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=2648"},"modified":"2026-04-13T11:26:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T09:26:06","slug":"new-project-to-mass-produce-parts-for-us-nuclear-submarines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=2648","title":{"rendered":"New project to \u2018mass produce\u2019 parts for US nuclear submarines"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A new public-private project between the Navy and Hadrian will establish a factory to mass-produce nuclear submarine components<\/li>\n<li>The 2.2m square foot plant in Alabama will host a \u201chighly automated\u201d factory<\/li>\n<li>These sites will free up space at the few American shipyards capable of building nuclear-powered submarines<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"drop-cap\">The US Navy has partnered with Hadrian to build the first of three \u201cadvanced manufacturing\u201d sites in Alabama to mass-produce parts for submarines.<\/p>\n<p>It is hoped that this strategic move will spread out responsibility for building submarines, taking the burden off of the few overworked American shipyards \u2013 in Connecticut and Virginia \u2013 capable of building nuclear-powered submarines.<\/p>\n<p>About $900m from Navy funds will combine with $1.5bn in private capital, for a total $2.4bn to finance this public-private manufacturing project.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-slump-in-us-submarine-production\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Slump in US submarine production<\/h2>\n<p>The Navy Secretary, John C. Phelan, said the three facilities are designed to \u201caddress the most critical bottlenecks\u201d in the naval industrial base. In the last several years, experts searching for ways to rejig the US submarine sector have warned that the country\u00a0does not have decades to rebuild, alluding to the dilemma as an \u201cinescapable, urgent problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While their hull count is still ahead, for now, the production rate of US submarines has reduced to unsustainable levels compared to that of its Great Power rival, China, whose unrivalled manufacturing base is anticipated to overtake the US in the near future.<\/p>\n<p>According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, China,\u00a0for the first time, has launched more nuclear submarines in the 2021-25 period than the United States, and with a greater combined tonnage.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the actual production rate of the\u00a0<em>Virginia<\/em>-class fast attack nuclear-powered submarines has never reached 2.0 boats per year, according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/crs-product\/RL32418\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Congressional Research Service<\/a>. Since 2022, the rate has been limited to 1.1 to 1.2 boats per year.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-playing-catch-up\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Playing catch-up<\/h2>\n<p>In the past, the industry has implemented some measures to keep submarine production to a tolerable rate. For example, deploying a rotational workforce\u00a0of skilled labourers in support of Navy shipbuilding and repair projects.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, politicians \u2013 from\u00a0Biden\u2019s Navy Secretary\u00a0to incumbent US President\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2026\/01\/prioritizing-the-warfighter-in-defense-contracting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 have successively criticised primes for requesting government investment in capacity while hauling record profits.<\/p>\n<p>However, now there is a focus on expanding the construction of\u00a0<em>Virginia<\/em>-class fast attack and\u00a0<em>Columbia<\/em>-class ballistic missile submarines \u2013 both of which are nuclear powered \u2013 through \u201cadvanced manufacturing\u201d techniques according to the Navy release announcing the new site in Alabama on 20 March.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-mass-produce-parts-for-ssns-ssbns\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u2018Mass produce\u2019 parts for SSNs, SSBNs<\/h2>\n<p>Hadrian intends to provide a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hadrian.co\/blog\/series-c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">factories-as-a-service<\/a>\u00a0approach \u2013 a model, the company says, which allows defence primes and other industries to scale factories to meet existing or new Program of Record demand for parts, assemblies, or entire products.<\/p>\n<p>The Navy hopes this will take pressure off of its breathless shipyards.<\/p>\n<p>A dedicated production plant focused on certain components frees up capacity for these shipyards to focus more resources on submarine module production, the Navy stated in its release.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe call this distributed shipbuilding,\u201d said Jason Potter, performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development &amp; Acquisition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese factories of the future might be several states away from the yards where the ships are ultimately built, but by taking on this work, they reduce bottlenecks, having a profound effect on the speed of delivery,\u201d Potter intimated.<\/p>\n<p>Known as \u201cFactory 4\u201d, the project is estimated to take 18-24 months from initiation to full-rate production, including stand-up of automated production facilities, qualification of components, compliance qualifications like submarine safety program, and low-rate initial production.<\/p>\n<p>By the third year, the facilities will operate sustainably through the delivery of submarine product lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new public-private project between the Navy and Hadrian will establish a factory to mass-produce nuclear submarine components The 2.2m square foot plant in Alabama will host a \u201chighly automated\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[71,505],"class_list":["post-2648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-naval","tag-us-navy","tag-us-nuclear-submarines"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/US-nuclear-submarines.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2648"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2972,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648\/revisions\/2972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}