Summary
The Navy’s proposed FY2013 budget requests $564.9 million for continued research and
development work on the Ohio replacement program (ORP), a program to design and build a new
class of 12 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) to replace the Navy’s current force of 14 Ohioclass
SSBNs. The Ohio replacement program is also known as the SSBN(X) program.
Under the Navy’s FY2012 budget, the first Ohio replacement boat was scheduled to be procured
in FY2019, and Ohio replacement boats were to enter service on a schedule that would maintain
the Navy’s SSBN force at 12 boats. The Navy’s proposed FY2013 budget defers the procurement
of the first Ohio replacement boat by two years, to FY2021. As a result of this deferment, the
Navy’s SSBN force will drop to 11 or 10 boats for the period FY2029-FY2041.
The Navy in 2011 estimated the average procurement cost of boats 2 through 12 in the Ohio
replacement program at $5.6 billion each in FY2010 dollars, and is working to reduce that figure
to a target of $4.9 billion each in FY2010 dollars. Even with this cost-reduction effort, observers
are concerned about the impact the Ohio replacement program will have on the Navy’s ability to
procure other types of ships at desired rates in the 2020s and early 2030s.
Potential oversight issues for Congress for the Ohio replacement program include the following:
• the reasons for deferring the start of SSBN(X) procurement by two years, to
FY2021, the cost and operational impact of this decision, and whether it would
be feasible and cost effective to restore the start of procurement to FY2019, as
planned under the FY2012 budget;
• the plan to design the SSBN(X) with 16 SLBM tubes rather than 20;
• the likelihood that the Navy will be able to reduce the average procurement cost
of boats 2-12 in the program to the target figure of $4.9 billion each in FY2010
dollars;
• the accuracy of the Navy’s estimate of the procurement cost of each SSBN(X);
• the prospective affordability of the Ohio replacement program and its potential
impact on funding available for other Navy shipbuilding programs; and
• the question of which shipyard or shipyards will build SSBN(X)s.
This report focuses on the Ohio replacement program as a Navy shipbuilding program. CRS
Report RL33640, U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues, by Amy
F. Woolf, discusses the SSBN(X) as an element of future U.S. strategic nuclear forces in the
context of strategic nuclear arms control agreements.
