By: Megan Eckstein
September 17, 2019 1:08 PM

September 17 (USNI News) — GROTON, Conn. – General Dynamics Electric Boat broke ground on a Columbia-class submarine assembly facility at its Groton yard on Friday, kicking off one of the final facilities improvement projects the company needs ahead of a massive increase in submarine construction work in the coming decades.

Electric Boat and fellow shipbuilder Newport News Shipbuilding together will see a 250-percent increase in submarine tonnage that they will deliver to the Navy between 2017 and 2036 compared to the 20-year span before that. The increase is due to the Navy buying more Virginia-class attack boats, adding into the SSN design an 85-foot Virginia Payload Module (VPM) that contains 28 missile tubes, and building the Columbia-class of ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).

Read more here: https://news.usni.org/2019/09/17/electric-boat-preparing-for-columbia-class-but-supply-base-remains-a-challenge