From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Submarine Fleet Maintenance Delays Description: The Navy relies on its 51 attack submarines to round out its national defense capabilities. GAO reports on maintenance delays affecting those subs. Related GAO Work: GAO-19-229: Navy Readiness: Actions Needed to Address Costly Maintenance Delays Facing the Attack Submarine Fleet Released: November 2018 [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. The Navy uses submarines for missions like gathering intelligence, inserting special forces, and attacking enemy targets. I'm with John Pendleton, a Defense Capabilities and Management director at GAO, who led a report looking into the state of the Navy's submarine fleet. John, how's it looking for our subs? [ John Pendleton: ] Thanks, Matt. I think first we need to orient just a bit. The Navy has 51 of these attack submarines and 51 may sound like a lot but it really isn't when you consider that they have to cover the whole globe. And all 51 are not available at once. They need periodic maintenance to keep them operational and honestly be safe for the crews. The main issue we found in our work that is facing the attack submarines is that the Navy hasn't been able to get maintenance done on time, and this creates a problem. When maintenance runs long, it ties up space at the shipyard which has little or no extra room and so the Navy has had submarines sitting tied to a pier waiting to get into the shipyard because there's just no space. The unfortunate poster child for this is the U.S.S. Boise which is an attack submarine that has been tied a pier for over two years. This is it--for you and me, this would be like pulling up to a shop to get our car fixed and seeing every bay full and being told then that they're not sure when they can get us in but we can't leave because our car may be unsafe to drive. We might get a rental car in that situation but the Navy doesn't have that option. [ Matt Oldham: ] So how do delays like what the Boise is experiencing affect the Navy's overall ability to conduct its missions? [ John Pendleton: ] Well, this report's an unclassified version of a more comprehensive classified report, so I can't give you a lot of detail but let's suffice to say it's a concern. Submarines are in high demand in peace time and absolutely crucial in wartime. And if maintenance runs long, it reduces the number of subs that are available and it stresses the rest of the fleet. And it also means that we have less bench strength--That is stuff that could be made available but are not currently deployed in case something bad happens. And there's a human element too. We can't forget. Sailors are assigned even when the sub is in maintenance. And imagine being stuck on a boat that's been tied to a pier or hung up in a shipyard for years. We talked to seven submarine crews in the course of our work and I can tell you that those folks signed up to be out at sea not sitting around with their boat tied to a pier. [ Matt Oldham: ] Now have you and your team found a trend with these maintenance delays? Is the situation improving or is it getting worse? [ John Pendleton: ] It's certainly not getting better and it's adding up over time. Over the past 10 years, our analysis showed that subs, cumulatively, had experienced over 10,000 days -- that's right 10,000 day of lost operational availability. Subs require some maintenance. That's not counting that. This figure is just what is above and beyond what was planned. And this lost time has costs. We did the math. When you total up the costs over the last 10 years to crew and operate and maintain those delay attacked submarines, we found the Navy had spent more than $1.5 billion, a billion and a half, to support subs that weren't available to be used should a conflict occur. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] So it sounds like heavy shipyard workloads and thousands of days of maintenance delays are threatening the operational status of the Navy's submarines. Did your team have any recommendations to fix this scenario, John? [ John Pendleton: ] We made several recommendations. Many of them classified to the Navy to tackle this, but one unclassified recommendation was to look at how the Navy's allocating maintenance workload between public and private shipyards. We visited both and found that the public yards were hugely done --had operated at or above capacity for the past several years and that's contributed to the backup. At the same time, there may be available capacity at the private yards. Now we can't say for certain how best to allocate the workload, so we recommended the Navy take a look at the costs and benefits of using private shipyards capacity. And in general, just be more strategic in how they allocate maintenance work. Fortunately the Navy agreed with us and has pledge to do just that. [ Matt Oldham: ] Well that's always good news. Lastly, John what do you believe is the bottom line of this report? [ John Pendleton: ] Matt, attack submarines allow the United States to gather intelligence and attack enemy targets undetected. They provide what the Department of Defense call asymmetric advantage. Basically it means we have capabilities that our adversaries do not or can't defend but the Navy's falling behind in maintenance and the delays are accumulating making fewer subs available and eroding our advantage. Until the Navy addresses its maintenance challenges, it's going to keep spending money on attack submarines that provide little or no operational capability because they're stuck waiting to get into or out of maintenance and back out to sea. Submarines are critical and a precious resource and one we can scarcely afford to squander. [ Matt Oldham: ] John Pendleton is a Defense Capabilities and Management director with GAO. And he was talking about a GAO report on the maintenance delays with the Navy's submarine fleet. Thank you for your time, John. [ John Pendleton: ] Thank you, Matt. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.