Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) and Babcock International Group have agreed to a contract expanding a partnership to support construction of Virginia-class submarines through HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division.
The HII press release on Tuesday said this is the first Virginia-class outsourced contract to Babcock for submarine work with NNS. However, the two entered a strategic agreement in July 2023 to collaborate on construction opportunities in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as opportunities in naval and civil nuclear decommissioning.
The latest agreement authorizes Babcock to build complex submarine assemblies at its Rosyth, Scotland facility for Virginia-class Block VI boats. The company noted this will increase the number of suppliers that can perform “large structure work with requisite quality.”
This is not the first instance of HII expanding its industrial base, as it also added Westley Group to its supplier base in November. Companies like HII, as well as Austal and General Dynamics Electric Boat, have been outsourcing shipyards and submarine module producers to produce submarines at a rate closer to the mandated two boats per year level. The Navy also announced in September 2024 it was partnering with private industry to construct additional submarine manufacturing facilities in Mobile, Ala.
“This is a significant next step in delivering on our joint commitment to enhance both organizations’ capabilities, for the benefit of U.S. and U.K. programs,” Chris Kastner, HII president and CEO, said in the release. “Leveraging Babcock’s reach and expertise in the U.K. will reinforce our supplier base, strengthen submarine production in the U.S., and support the trilateral AUKUS partnership.”
The Virginia-class submarine is planned to deploy the nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile and include a variant of the W80-4 warhead, something the National Nuclear Security Administration is already working on. The trilateral AUKUS agreement between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia will include the future sale of the Virginia-class attack submarines to Australia. The agreement also just passed a Pentagon review that said it could move “full steam ahead.”