Navy awards contracts for 14 new attack and ballistic missile submarines

The Navy on Wednesday awarded nearly $77 billion in contracts to build 14 nuclear fast-attack and ballistic missile submarines, an investment expected to boost a shipbuilding industry stalled by supply-chain issues, labor shortages and aging infrastructure.

The awards to HII Newport News Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Electric Boat include $42.1 billion for nine Virginia-class Block VI advanced fast-attack submarines and $29.5 billion for five Columbia-class Build II boats that will carry nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. The companies build all subs for the Navy.

The contracts include $5 billion for shipyard renovations connected to submarine building at General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., and HII Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.

The total package is for $76.6 billion.

“This historic investment underscores the Department’s continued commitment to undersea superiority and the recapitalization of our nuclear triad,” Vice Adm. Robert Gaucher, the Pentagon’s top submarine procurement officer, said in a statement.

Mark Rayha, president of General Dynamics Electric Boat, said in a statement that the new funding provides contractors and hundreds of subcontractors with greater certainty about the two submarine programs.

“We need to continue investing in capacity and hiring the workforce necessary to ensure we deliver these important national security assets on schedule,” Rayha said.

The USS Constitution sails past the Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine USS Massachusetts during Massachusetts’ commissioning in Boston on March 28, 2026. Massachusetts is the newest Virginia-class fast-attack submarine. (Lucas J. Hastings/U.S. Navy)

U.S. Rep. Joseph Courtney, D-Conn., whose district includes the General Dynamics shipyard, praised the contracts. They follow delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, qualified worker shortages and disagreements between the Pentagon and the builders over insurance issues.

“Together, the Block VI and Build II contracts represent the biggest shipbuilding award in modern American history,” Courtney said in a statement. “These multiyear commitments by Congress and the Navy secure work at submarine shipyards and thousands of supply chain companies well into the late 2030s.”

Courtney said the contracts also put the AUKUS pact on firmer grounding. It would eventually allow the Navy to sell three older Virginia-class submarines to the United Kingdom and Australia in a significant technology transfer.

The Virginia-class Block VI submarines are the second block to be built with the Virginia Payload Module, an 84-foot hull extension that can be used to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles and future hypersonic weapons. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are working on missiles that travel at five times the speed of sound that could be launched from the Virginia-class submarines and converted Zumwalt-class destroyers.

The Virginia Payload Module can also be used for special operations troop deployment.

The Navy now has 26 Virginia-class submarines, with another 23 in various phases of planning and construction. The Virginia class is the most numerous type of attack submarine in the fleet, surpassing the Cold War-era Los Angeles class and late 20th-century Seawolf class.

USS District of Columbia, the first boat of the new Columbia class, isn’t slated to be delivered to the Navy until 2028, with the submarine expected to deploy in 2030. The class would replace the 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines in the fleet.

Columbia-class submarines will carry 16 vertical launch tubes, each with a UGM-133 Trident II D5 nuclear missile. The missile can have multiple independently targetable nuclear warheads (MIRVs), subject to arms control agreements.

Ballistic missile submarines represent what experts say is the most survivable of the three legs of the U.S. nuclear triad. The U.S. nuclear forces also include land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from silos in the U.S., as well as manned strategic bombers.

Along with the Columbia-class submarines, the U.S. is modernizing the nuclear triad by building the B-21 Raider manned bomber. The Air Force plans on eventually retiring its current B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers, leaving the manned bomber deterrent to the B-21 and B-52 Stratofortress bombers.

The Air Force broke ground in March on a prototype silo at Promontory, Utah, which will serve as a model and test facility for the eventual 450 launch silos to be built, for the next-generation LGM-35A Sentinel. The Sentinel would replace the Cold War-era LGM-30G Minuteman III. The nearly $141 billion program is expected to finish in the second half of the 21st century.