Page 20: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2023)

GOVERNMENT SHIPBUILDING

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael

Gilday to Huntington Ingalls Industries

Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard in January 2023 and toured several ships, including the ? rst Flight III guided missile destroyer, Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125).

HII Ingalls Shipbuilding destroyers, littoral combat ships, mine countermeasures ships Houston also said the Navy needs to look beyond the Vir- and amphibious ships. ginia class. “It’s time to begin the research and development

Kitchener announced the establishment of Surface Readi- to deliver the next SSN, with some key attributes. We need to ness Groups in the ? eet concentration areas to provide the increase speed, provide additional payload capacity, acoustic staf? ng and support to the squadrons in order to keep ships superiority—which include both sensors and quieting, and we battle ready. The Surface Readiness Groups will be prop- need to improve operational availability.” erly resourced staffed with experts to ensure ships complete maintenance on time and are returned to fully-ready status as UPDATING GOVERNMENT SHIPYARDS quickly as possible. That includes tracking maintenance avail- While there is discussion of adding a ? fth or even sixth pub- abilities, monitoring repair progress in shipyards and tracking lic shipyard to do Navy work, the more pressing need to is to and expediting critical parts. update the four existing yards to modern standards and capa- bilities. The Navy refers to its Shipyard Infrastructure Optimi-

SUBMARINES zation Program’s (SIOP)as a “once-in-a-century investment

Speaking at the Naval Submarine League 2022 symposium, to recon? gure, modernize and optimize our four aging Naval

Commander, Submarine Forces Atlantic, Vice Adm. Bill Shipyards into new modern facilities.”

Houston commended the industry representatives in the room. The public shipyards, including the four naval ships yards “The submarines you deliver are exquisite.” in Maine, Virginia, Washington and Hawaii—which primar-

Houston acknowledged that the Navy is now building the ily perform work on nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft

Virginia class and Virginia Payload Modules, as well as the carriers, along with the Coast Guard Yard in Maryland, have 20,000-ton Columbia-class, with an industrial base that has been making improvements to modernize their facilities to actually shrunk. be better able to support newer and ever-more complex plat-

But he urged industry to help the Navy build ships faster. forms. Likewise, the commercial yards engaged in building “To improve the operational availability of our SSNs, we’re and supporting naval ships have also made signi? cant im- enhancing our new construction build rate to get to two per provements to their infrastructure.

year, and deliver improved ef? ciency in our maintenance “SIOP will construct and recapitalize dry docks, recapital- availabilities. We have to expedite those depot level avail- ize and recon? gure infrastructure, and modernize industrial abilities at our public and our private shipyards, so we can get plant equipment, in order to improve the timely return of them back into operations,” Houston said. “They are in high ships and submarines back to the ? eet following maintenance demand around the world.” and modernization” 20 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • February 2023

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