Delays Leave US Navy With Just 31 Ready Attack Submarines

Original article here.

Delays at naval shipyards caused by supply-chain issues and not enough workers have put nearly 40% of Navy attack submarines out of commission, according to a July 6 report from the Congressional Research Service.

The Navy prefers that only about 20% of its submarines be in depot maintenance at any time, according to the report.

Eighteen of the Navy’s 49 nuclear-powered attack submarines are classified as in depot maintenance or awaiting maintenance, which leaves the U.S. at a critical disadvantage against China’s larger fleet, according to Bloomberg. China has the largest navy in the world with approximately 340 ships and submarines, including 125 “major surface combatants,” according to a November 2022 report from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Naval analyst Ronald O’Rourke wrote the report that increased depot maintenance has “substantially reduced” the number of operational submarines, reducing the fleet’s capacity for meeting day-to-day mission demands. Excluding 2021, when the Navy similarly had only 31 operationally ready attack submarines, the service hasn’t had so few operational submarines since at least 2008, according to the report.

In a statement, the Naval Sea Systems Command blamed “planning, material availability, and shipyard execution,” according to Bloomberg. As of late June, 16 submarines, 32% of its fleet, were out of commission, according to the command.

In 2022, the Government Accountability Office said the Navy lost over 10,000 operational days from 2008 to 2018 because of delays getting into and out of shipyards.

U.S. submarines, which can fire torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles, are seen as a key advantage over China’s numerically superior navy.

“Submarines are one area where the United States retains unchallenged superiority over China,” Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, told CNN in April.

The newly-disclosed backlog is in stark contrast to the government’s current policy of projecting increasingly visible shows of force to China, Russia and North Korea. For example, repairs on the Seawolf-class USS Connecticut, which struck an underwater mountain in the South China Sea in October 2021, won’t be complete until around 2026, according to Naval News.

“The Connecticut’s repair saga underscores the Navy’s lack of repair surge capacity,” GAO Director of Defense Capabilities and Management Diana Maurer told Bloomberg in June. “That, in turn, raises questions about how the Navy would execute battle damage repairs in the event of conflict.”

Shortly after an April meeting between President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, the two leaders agreed that the U.S. would expand the “regular visibility of strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula.” In June, the U.S. deployed the nuclear-powered submarine USS Michigan to South Korea as part of the agreement between the two nations.