US Navy Looking to Accelerate Virginia Payload Module Schedule

The Navy is looking into the feasibility of accelerating design and development work on the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) in case the service decides to begin production earlier than the 2019 planned start, Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley said Wednesday at a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) hearing.

The VPM will add 28 missile tubes to Block V Virginia-class attack submarines (SSN-774), to provide more strike capability from undersea as the fleet prepares to lose the Ohio-class SSGN guided missile submarine fleet in the mid-2020s. The Navy planned to start VPM construction in conjunction with the next Virginia-class multiyear contract in 2019, but Stackley said that the SSGNs represent a 600-missile capacity and that sooner is better when it comes to rebuilding that strike capacity.

Stackley told the HASC seapower and projection forces subcommittee that he had spoken to the Program Executive Office for Submarines and to the submarine industrial base “to take a look at, can we in fact complete those design and development activities earlier than the 2019 timeframe to give the Navy and the nation the option to determine whether or not we want to advance Virginia Payload Modules earlier than the submarine build cycle.”

“We’re looking at first, can we pull [design and development] to the left a year, and the other aspect is what would be our ability to increase the rate of production of VPMs beyond one per year, which is in our current long-range plan.,” Stackley later elaborated. “Affordability comes into play, industrial base capacity comes into play.”

He said the discussions were ongoing and he would know by March or April what the options were in terms of accelerating VPM progress, though subcommittee chairman Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) pressed for the information sooner to help inform ongoing budget discussions in Congress.

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