Columbia and Virginia Submarine Production Rises 30%, but Delays Persist

U.S. submarine yards are doing substantially more work, but the Navy is still waiting for that activity to become on-time deliveries. General Dynamics says production output and throughput across the Columbia and Virginia-class programs rose 30% from a year earlier, even as completed submarines remain years behind schedule.

General Dynamics President Danny Deep disclosed the increase during the company’s third-quarter earnings call on October 30. The company’s quarterly results also showed that major Columbia and Virginia orders drove a surge in its defense bookings. The 30% figure measures production activity across the programs, however, rather than a 30% increase in the number of submarines delivered.

That boundary is central to judging the progress. Electric Boat is building the Columbia class and sharing Virginia production with Huntington Ingalls Industries. More work moving through those yards can indicate that added workers, equipment and manufacturing space are beginning to raise capacity. It does not show by itself that late hulls have recovered their schedules or that bottlenecks farther down the production chain have cleared.

More workers are entering a difficult production system

Electric Boat has recruited approximately 6,000 new shipbuilders and expects to reach 8,000 hires by the end of 2026. Those additions support a workload that includes all 12 Virginia Block V submarines at different production stages, the first Columbia submarines and early work for later Virginia and Columbia groups.

Hiring on that scale is meaningful, but nuclear-submarine construction cannot gain output simply by placing more people on the shop floor. Welders, machinists, inspectors and other specialized workers require training and qualification, while completed work must satisfy demanding nuclear and quality-control standards. A larger workforce therefore raises potential capacity before it necessarily produces a matching rise in accepted, finished work.

The challenge extends beyond the two primary shipyards. Submarine construction depends on a narrow supplier network for specialized materials and components, with long lead times and limited alternatives. Quality problems or late parts can hold up downstream assembly even when activity at the main yard is increasing. The Navy has been building trade-training pipelines to address this broader constraint; its Submarine Industrial Base program previously estimated that the sector would need 100,000 skilled hires over a decade to meet construction demand through 2040.

The delivery record remains the harder measure

The accumulated delays establish a demanding baseline. According to the cited Government Accountability Office findings, the two Virginia-class submarines delivered in 2025 were each more than three years late. The lead Columbia-class submarine, the future USS District of Columbia, is at least 18 months behind its original contractual schedule.

Virginia production has also averaged approximately 1.1 to 1.2 submarines per year since 2022, according to the cited Congressional Research Service assessment. That remains well below the Navy’s objective of two annually. Raising activity by 30% is therefore a notable industrial gain, but the program must sustain higher throughput and convert it into completed boats before it can close that production-rate gap.

The overlap between programs makes schedule recovery harder. Columbia is intended to replace the Navy’s 14 Ohio-class submarines with 12 new boats, while Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls are simultaneously working through the Virginia backlog. Columbia’s reactor is designed to last for the submarine’s service life without refueling, but building that long-life platform still requires the same scarce industrial skills and supplier capacity needed elsewhere in the submarine enterprise.

General Dynamics now expects two closely watched deliveries by the end of 2028: the future USS District of Columbia and the first Virginia-class submarine equipped with the added Virginia Payload Module hull section. The final Virginia Block IV submarine is scheduled to arrive in the coming months, providing an earlier test of whether higher production activity is beginning to improve completion performance.

The reported increase shows that labor and infrastructure investment are generating more work across both programs. The decisive result will come at the pier: whether the yards can maintain that pace, limit rework and deliver the two major 2028 submarines without adding another round of schedule slippage.

By David Whitaker — Associate editor for AMI’s aerospace and drone systems desk, translating flight systems, aircraft programs, spaceflight, and UAV developments into accessible technical stories.