I attended Submarine Supplier Days 2023 in Washington, D.C. March 7 and 8. It is an opportunity for companies contributing to building the latest attack and ballistic missile submarines to get together. The two big programs are for the Columbia Class fleet ballistic missile submarine and the Virginia Class attack submarines. Australia will be buying four of th e latter. I attended the meeting to introduce people to the potential of PFRC as a power plant for future submarines. The first day was a series of presentations on the latest submarines.
On the next day we visited the offices of our N.J. U.S. Representatives and Senators to gain their support for the submarine programs. Here is the inside of the Senate office building with its Calder sculpture.
It was fun to meet people building the submarines. One company in New Jersey has a sole source contract to weld components of the submarines. Each weld is signed by a welder so it can be traced back should a problem arise.
I learned that there are major problems with materials supply and with finding workers to build the submarines. Lead times on some materials can be 80 months. The issues of on-again/off-again production were also discussed. We all agreed, as did the Congressional and Senate staffers, that continuing resolutions were bad.
You can get our submarine brochure here.
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