New Drydock

It is a rare occasion when ComNavOps gets to sincerely recognize and praise a US Navy accomplishment but such is the case with the recent delivery of a new dry dock intended to support Columbia class ballistic missile submarines.
 

The new dry dock, designated “Atlas” was announced as received by General Dynamics Electric Boat’s primary shipyard in Groton, Connecticut … [1]
 
Atlas was constructed by Bollinger Shipyards in Louisiana and completed the ~2,100 mile (3,380km) journey to Groton on January 3rd. …
 
As detailed by GD Electric Boat, the dry dock stands at 618 feet long, 90 feet tall, and maintains a width of 140 feet.[1]

Dry Dock Atlas

As a reminder, the first Columbia class submarine began construction in May 2019 and will be delivered sometime around 2030.  This is a discouragingly poor construction performance but at least the dry dock is ready.  As a point of comparison, the first modern, tear-drop shaped submarine, the USS Albacore, a truly revolutionary vessel, was laid down in Mar 1952, launched in Aug 1953, and commissioned Dec 1953.  Adding nuclear power to the modern submarine, in the form of the USS Skipjack, SSN-585, resulted in the vessel being laid down in May 1956 and launched in May 1958 with commissioning in Apr 1959.  Clearly, over a decade to build the Columbia class is disappointing compared to what we used to do routinely.
 
Submarine construction woes aside, the delivery of the dry dock is a rare moment of accomplishment that deserves recognition.  Good job, Bollinger.
 
 
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[1]Naval News website, “Electric Boat receives new floating dry dock to support Columbia-class submarines”, Ethan Gossrow, 7-Jan-2026,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/01/electric-boat-receives-new-floating-dry-dock-to-support-columbia-class-submarines/

New Dry Dock Construction

It is not often that I can offer good news about the Navy so I relish the opportunities when they come along.  One such bit of good news is the announcement that Austal is beginning construction of a $128M[2] Auxiliary Floating Dry Dock Medium (AFDM) for the Navy. 

It has a 18,000 LT lifting capacity and a clear deck working area of 90,800 square feet. The craft has an overall length of 694 feet, overall pontoon breadth of 157 feet, and a height of 65 feet from baseline to wing deck.[1]

 

Dry Dock AFDM-5 Resourceful
Built 1943, sunk in Subic Bay 2018

Now, build another ten or fifteen of these and the Navy will have taken a legitimate step forward in ship maintenance and repair!
 
 
 
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[1]Naval News website, “Austal USA Starts Construction On Navy Dry Dock”, Staff, 12-Jun-2023,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/06/austal-usa-starts-construction-on-navy-dry-dock/
 
[2]Naval Technology website, “Austal to build US Navy’s auxiliary floating dry dock medium”, 21-Jun-2022,
https://www.naval-technology.com/news/austal-to-build-us-navys-auxiliary-floating-dry-dock-medium/

Carrier Dry Docks – Ours and Theirs

The US Navy is embarked on the Ford class carrier construction program.  Setting aside any misgivings about the value of the Ford class, another issue is that the Navy lacks dry docks capable of supporting the carrier.  Only one dry dock is even theoretically capable of handling the Ford class and even that’s not actually possible without future modifications.

 

Only one of the Navy’s 18 dry docks used for maintaining the nuclear-powered carrier fleet can support a Ford-class carrier, Navy officials told USNI News.

 

Dry Dock 8 at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard can handle a Ford-class carrier, but only after a temporary cooling water systems is set up. A permanent cooling water system and other upgrades to Dry Dock 8 are scheduled to occur before USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) enters its first planned dry dock availability, Anna Taylor, a Naval Sea Systems Command spokeswoman, told USNI News in an email.

 

The Navy also plans to upgrade a West Coast dry dock to handle the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), Taylor added.[1]

 

Dry dock 8, by the way, opened in 1942.

 

Perusing the various dry dock related contracts, it appears that 2026 is the earliest date that dry dock 8 would be Ford-capable and schedules always slip.

 

In contrast, China has built a brand new carrier dry dock complex at the Sanya naval base in Hainan.  The dry dock is sized to accommodate the upcoming Type 003, Nimitz/Ford type carriers.  They’ve built the dry dock before they built the carrier.  Amazing!  An astounding example of basic common sense that eludes the US Navy.

 

Sanya Dry Dock

China appears to be correctly and wisely addressing its support needs as it builds its navy.  The US, on the other hand, is depending on hundred year old dry docks although the recently begun 20 year renovation program offers some relief if the program is continued from one budget year to the next for 20 years – a dubious proposition, to say the least.

 

 

 

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[1]USNI News website, “Navy to Update 2 Dry Docks to Accommodate Ford-Class Carriers”, Ben Werner, 30-Aug-2019,

https://news.usni.org/2019/08/30/navy-to-update-2-dry-docks-to-accommodate-ford-class-carriers#:~:text=Only%20one%20of%20the%20Navy%E2%80%99s%2018%20dry%20docks,a%20temporary%20cooling%20water%20systems%20is%20set%20up.

Kings Bay Dry Dock Repair

Arguably, the Navy’s biggest shortcoming is adequate repair and maintenance facilities and capacity.  A major part of that is the system of aging and inadequate dry docks.  A few years ago, the Navy committed to a 20 year, $21B overhaul of its public shipyards and dry docks and, in a somewhat surprising development, has been following through on that commitment by issuing contracts for repair of facilities and dry docks … at least, for now.

 

I desperately like to give credit where credit is due – an all too rare occurrence regarding the Navy – and one such example is the repair work for the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay dry dock in Georgia.

 

From the Department of Defense contract award announcements website,

 

Alberici-Mortenson JV, St. Louis, Missouri, is awarded a $12,969,452 firm-fixed-price modification to previously awarded contract N69450-20-C-0016. This modification provides for the recapitalization of the dry dock at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. Work will be performed in St. Marys, Georgia, and is expected to be completed by April 2023. This modification brings the total cumulative value of the contract to $625,470,806.[2]

 

Dry Dock - Kings Bay, GA

 Here's some detail about the work.

Under an IDIQ contract, the joint venture team of Burns & McDonnell and Moffatt & Nichol have been awarded a series of task orders with Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast (NAVFAC-SE) for a $474 million repair project at the Trident Refit Facility, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia.

 

Alternately titled “Dry Dock Recapitalization,” “TRF Dry Dock Repair,” and simply “Dry Dock Repairs,” the massive effort at the East Coast home of Trident nuclear-powered submarines began with a study, moved into design, and is now in Phase A of construction. NAVFAC-SE’s scope of work encompasses repairs to the massive structure—the largest covered dry dock in the Northern hemisphere—inclusive of building structure and envelope, power, lighting, fire protection, HVAC, plumbing, and support equipment and infrastructure. All existing training and maintenance facilities will be retrofitted, and some new facilities will be constructed to support the next generation of submarines.[1]

 

Dry dock maintenance and repair is desperately needed and far too long overdue.  From a Heritage Foundation report,

 

“The Navy’s attack submarines have also evolved, but the dry docks that service them have not: 17 dry docks can service older Los Angeles-class submarines, but only 12 can accommodate their replacement, the Virginia-class submarine, and only seven can service the newest Block V Virginia-class submarine, which is 83 feet longer than earlier variants and displaces an additional 2,400 tons,” the report reads.[3]

 

The Navy should be ashamed of the state of its maintenance and dry dock facilities and many CNO’s should be recalled to active duty and subjected to courts martial over the decades long neglect but at least the Navy is belatedly beginning to address the problem.  If they’ll diligently and aggressively continue to pursue the repair program then credit is due.  Well done, Navy.  Keep it up.

 

 

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[1]https://axiasinc.com/naval-sub-base-kings-bay-dry-dock

 

[2]https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/3151585/

 

[3]https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2021/03/19/the-us-navys-shaky-plan-to-save-its-shipyards-is-getting-overhauled/

Bollinger Refurbishing Dry Docks

Here’s one of those rare posts in which I’m simply repeating news from other sources and have no value-added content to offer.

 
The Navy has awarded Bollinger Shipyards a $33M contract to refurbish components of two dry docks under the Navy’s $21B, 20 year Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) plan.[1]  These docks will be used to support submarines in Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (Kittery, Maine).
 
It is just so nice to be able to describe a positive, beneficial action by the Navy albeit one that is many years overdue and highlights the Navy’s decades long, gross incompetence and negligence.  Still, it’s a positive and welcome step that ComNavOps wholeheartedly approves of!
 
 
 
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[1]Breaking Defense, “Bollinger Shipyards wins Navy contract to finish first two SIOP dry docks”, Justin Katz, 21-Apr-2022,
https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/bollinger-shipyards-wins-navy-contract-to-finish-first-two-siop-dry-docks/

Portsmouth Shipyard Upgrade

ComNavOps constantly looks for positive news about the Navy but seldom finds any so this is a very welcome, very positive development.  The Navy is beginning to follow through on previous promises to upgrade the public shipyards (see, “Shipyard Improvement Plan”).

Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) awarded a $1.7-billion construction project Aug. 13 to expand and reconfigure a dry dock complex at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) in Kittery, Maine, to increase the shipyard's capacity to maintain, modernize, and repair the Navy's attack submarines and return them to the fleet on time. (1)

 

The seven-year project, part of the Navy’s comprehensive Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP), will construct an addition to Dry Dock 1 within the existing flood basin area, as well as new concrete floors, walls, pump systems, caissons, and other mechanical and electrical utilities, enhancing the 221-year-old shipyard’s ability to handle multiple Los Angeles-class and Virginia-class submarines. (1)

 

I don’t really have anything to add to this and I normally don’t simply repeat news items without any value-added analysis but this is just too good not to take note of and ‘celebrate’.  

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard

 Outstanding, Navy!

 

I love being able to say that.

 

 

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(1)Naval News website, “U.S. Navy Investing $1.7 Billion to Improve Portsmouth Naval Shipyard”, Staff, 18-Aug-2021,

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/08/u-s-navy-investing-1-7-billion-to-improve-portsmouth-naval-shipyard/

Drydocks

We’ve seen graphic evidence of the importance of shipyards in the maintenance of naval vessels.  Unfortunately, most of the evidence has been of the negative variety in the form of deferred maintenance, degraded functions on ships, early retirements due to neglected maintenance, hugely extended maintenance times when ships finally enter maintenance, and so on.  The misguided and foolish decisions by the Navy regarding reduced and deferred ship maintenance have led to a hollow fleet with widespread degraded performance that is barely operational and suffers from enormous maintenance backlogs.  Every grounding/collision report we read about lists multiple items of equipment that were non-functional or degraded.

In this post, we’ll look a bit closer at drydock maintenance.  The Navy uses both public (Navy run) shipyards and private industry shipyards.  The public yards focus their maintenance activities on nuclear powered carriers and submarines while private shipyards focus on conventionally powered ship maintenance.

The Navy operates four public shipyards, as shown in the table below with the number of drydocks each has.

Public (Navy) Shipyard Drydocks (6)
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in (Hawaii)	4
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Washington) (c)	7
Norfolk Naval Shipyard (Virginia) (b)	4
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (Maine) (a)	3
Total Drydocks	18
(a) only east coast shipyard capable of refueling Los Angeles class (b) only east coast shipyard capable of docking carriers (c) only west coast shipyard capable of docking carriers

There are 18 drydocks among the four shipyards and the age of the drydocks is stunningly concerning.  The oldest was built in 1891 (that’s not a typo!) and the newest was built in 1962.  The average age is 89 years old. (2)

As noted in the table, Norfolk Naval Shipyard is the only public shipyard on the East Coast able to repair Nimitz class aircraft carriers in drydock and Puget Sound is the only west coast Nimitz carrier-capable drydock. (4)  Currently, the Navy has no drydock capable of supporting the Ford CVN-78 class aircraft carrier.  Can you believe that?  We built a carrier that we can’t drydock and repair!  I hope nothing happens to the Fords or they’re going to wind up permanent pier-queens.

Nimitz in Drydock

Also, most SSN-capable drydocks must be repaired, rehabilitated, and upgraded in order to support the Virginia/VPM class. (6)

The Navy has also certified 21 private shipyard drydocks for US Navy maintenance work, as documented in a Navy report to Congress (6) and shown in the table below along with the number of certified drydocks each yard has.

Private Yard Drydocks (6)
Atlantic - Norfolk, VA	6
Atlantic - Mayport, FL	2
Atlantic - Charleston, SC	3
Atlantic - Pascagoula, MS	1
Atlantic - Great Lakes & Bath	2
Atlantic Total Drydocks	14
Pacific - San Diego, CA	4
Pacific - Pearl Harbor, HI	1
Pacific - Seattle (Everett), WA	1
Pacific - Portland, OR	1
Pacific Total Drydocks	7
Total Drydocks	21

As the Navy’s internal report to Congress notes, the lack of drydocks on the Pacific side of the country does not bode well for future war scenarios with China.

There are three major problems with current drydocks:

• Insufficient numbers
• Insufficient capability
• Poor material condition

The status of the Navy drydocks is succinctly summarized in a 2017 Navy draft study,

“the current capacity and capability of the shipyard’s drydocks will not support future operational needs,” the report [GAO] states. (2)

That pretty well sums it up, doesn’t it?  There’s not much more to say … although we will.

And,

Rear Adm. Jim Downey, commander of Navy Regional Maintenance Centers and deputy commander for surface warfare at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), told USNI News in a Sept. 28 interview that his biggest concern is drydock availability. (3)

RAdm. Downey’s concern is all the more troubling because his statement comes at a time of intentional reduced maintenance by the Navy and shrinking fleet numbers.  Sooner or later, the Navy will have to attempt to catch up on the maintenance and then the drydock availability shortage will become even more acute.  If the Navy actually succeeds in adding numbers of ships to the fleet, again, the drydock shortage will become even more acute.

So, there you have it.  The Navy is trying to build a 355-ship fleet but lacks the drydock (as well as general maintenance) capacity to support a fleet of that size.  This once again illustrates the Navy’s fixation on building shiny, sexy, new ships at the expense of maintenance.

The scarcity of drydocks makes them particularly susceptible to physical vulnerabilities such as floods and earthquakes.  As a Navy Matters blog commenter noted,

Also, another concern I would have, is what would happen if we had a large earthquake here ? As you know, the Seattle area is prone to some rather large ones here. We are waiting for the big one, anything over an 8.0 on the Richter scale. (1)

What’s the Navy’s solution to a lack of drydock availability?  According to Downey,

“We’re looking very hard, where we have sufficient class size – say DDGs, LCSs, cruisers –where we could solicit those ships together and allow industry to propose how they would double-dock those ships, or sequence their docking so they could get more of our requirements done in a schedule that would benefit them and us.” (3)

Is that mind-boggling or what?  All the rest of us would say that the solution is to build more drydocks but, no, not the Navy.  They want to somehow, magically, try to cram more ships into the available docks.  Typical idiotic Navy approach to a simple problem.

On a more positive, though, at the moment, largely speculative note, the Navy’s NavSea has initiated a $21B Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) plan to repair and upgrade all Navy shipyards.  Included in the funding is $4B for drydock repair and upgrades.  Whether the plan comes to fruition or falls by the funding wayside, as so many plans do, remains to be seen.  Will the Navy sacrifice new ship construction funding to support shipyard facilities renovation?  History suggests not but we’ll see.

It’s also unclear whether there is any funding for new drydocks.  I cannot find any evidence of such, only repair and upgrade funding.  Repairs and upgrades will help, most assuredly, but it’s clear from the various reports that we need more drydocks.  For example, we discussed in previous posts how vulnerable our fleet support infrastructure is to sabotage and Pearl Harbor type attacks.  If the Chinese wanted to seriously hurt our ability to repair carriers during war, all they’d have to do is sabotage the only two carrier-capable drydocks we have!

On a closely related repair note, the Shannon & Wilson engineering firm has an interesting short article on their website about settlement cracks and repairs for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Dry Dock 6. (7)  It’s well worth the short read.

Puget Sound Drydock #6

On an interesting and related side note, Russia’s giant drydock, PD-50, sank in Oct 2018 with the carrier Kuznetsov inside. (5)  This appears to have left Russia with no very large scale drydock capability although I am nowhere near certain about that.  Certainly, it illustrates the vulnerability that the failure to procure adequate maintenance facilities can lead to and which the US Navy finds itself mired in now.

Naval fleets are built and operated with a vast and absolutely essential support infrastructure which includes repair shipyards, drydocks, etc.  The Navy’s myopic focus on new construction has placed the Navy in a dire maintenance shortage and resulted in a hollow force and unsupportable state that will only worsen as new ship classes come on line that have little or no drydock support availability or capability.  The Navy needs to recognize that viable fleets are not just a collection of brand new ships but are a function of support.  The Navy desperately needs to stop focusing on new ships and, instead, turn its attention to supporting the ships it already has or has committed to acquiring.  We are one major accident away from seeing a Ford class carrier laid up indefinitely for lack of a drydock!  Given the recent spate of groundings and collisions, this seems all too plausible a scenario.

Maintenance and drydocks, in particular, are the foundation upon which a viable naval fleet is built.  Our foundation is too old, ill-maintained, degraded, and too few in number.  We need to turn away from the shiny, sexy new construction and start building up the fleet support infrastructure.

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(1)Navy Matters blog, “Open Post, H. R. Calhoun, April 2, 2019 at 6:40 AM,

https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2019/03/open-post.html?showComment=1554212416346#c5095327064473039416

(2)The Virginian Pilot website, Robert McCabe, 12-Sep-2017,

https://pilotonline.com/business/defense-shipyards/article_3c5e4e79-73c1-56cf-a993-fe12b3398f7c.html

(3)USNI News website, “Navy Facing Drydock Capacity Issue in Surface Ship Repair; Testing Out New Maintenance Contract to Address Shortfall, Create Efficiency”, Megan Eckstein, 12-Oct-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/10/12/navy-facing-drydock-capacity-issue-surface-ship-repair-testing-new-maintenance-contract-address-shortfall-create-efficiency

(4)http://www.virginiaplaces.org/military/norfolknavalshipyard.html

(5)https://warisboring.com/russias-giant-dry-dock-sank-with-an-aircraft-carrier-inside/

(6)Naval Sea Systems Command, “Report to Congress on the Long-Range Plan for Maintenance and Modernization of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2020”

https://www.secnav.navy.mil/fmc/fmb/Documents/20pres/FY20%20Long%20Range%20Maintenance+Modernization%20Plan.pdf

(7)Shannon & Wilson website, retrieved 12-Jul-2019,

https://www.shannonwilson.com/puget-sound-naval.html