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GROTON: General Dynamics Electric Boat today delivered the Hawaii (SSN-776), the nation's newest and most advanced nuclear-powered attack submarine, to the U.S. Navy ahead of schedule. Electric Boat is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics.
At a brief shipyard ceremony, Electric Boat President John Casey said Hawaii's early delivery has important implications for the future of the Virginia-class program.
“We are improving our cost performance in this program significantly. Hawaii has been built for about 2 million hours less than Virginia, the last submarine of this class delivered from this shipyard,” he said. “The more efficiently we produce submarines such as Hawaii, the better we can support the Navy's goal of building two ships per year. Attaining that objective will benefit our company, our employees and the Navy, and help ensure our nation's undersea superiority.”
Hawaii is the third ship of the Virginia Class, the Navy's first major class of combatant ships designed with the post-Cold War security environment in mind. Approved nearly four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Virginia-class submarines embody warfighting and operational capabilities required to dominate the littorals while maintaining undersea dominance in the open ocean.
“Like its sister ships, Hawaii has been designed specifically to incorporate emergent technologies that will provide new capabilities to meet new threats,” Casey said. “This enables Virginia-class submarines to make unique and significant contributions to national security well into the decades ahead,” he said.
Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman Newport News have received contracts to build the first 10 submarines of a planned 30-ship Virginia Class under a teaming agreement that splits the construction workload between the two shipyards.
General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., employs approximately 81,100 people worldwide and expects 2006 revenue of approximately $24 billion. The company is a market leader in mission-critical information systems and technologies; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and business aviation.
Virginia-class characteristics
Displacement: 7,835 tons
Length: 377 feet
Beam: 34 feet
Payload: 40 weapons; special operations forces; unmanned undersea vehicles; Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS)
Weapons Launch: Four 21-inch torpedo tubes; 12 vertical launch system tubes
Weapons: Tomahawk land-attack missiles; Mark 48 advanced capability torpedoes
Crew: 134 officers and enlisted men
Ships of the class
* USS Virginia (SSN-774) — delivered by General Dynamics Electric Boat
* USS Texas (SSN-775) — delivered by Northrop Grumman Newport News
To be delivered by Electric Boat:
* New Hampshire (SSN-778)
To be delivered by Northrop Grumman Newport News:
* North Carolina (SSN-777)
* New Mexico (SSN-779)
The four other ships under contract have not yet been named.
