Federal watchdog report chides Navy for submarine maintenance snafus
A scathing audit by the Government Accountability Office has found that chronic and persistent maintenance delays continue to dog the Navy’s fleet of 51 attack submarines, costing taxpayers $1.5 billion for boats that sat idle.
Released last week and piggybacking on a classified report provided to Congress on Halloween, the GAO analysis determined that between fiscal years 2008 and 2018, the Navy’s attack submarines incurred 10,363 days of idle time and maintenance delays because they can’t get into or out of repair shipyards.
The Navy spends about $9 billion to operate and sustain a fleet of 51 stealthy and silent nuclear-powered Los Angeles-, Seawolf- and Virginia-class boats that, in the event of a war, would be tasked with hunting enemy warships and submarines, collecting intelligence and surveillance, striking targets on land and inserting special operations forces.
Over the past decade, however, the Navy spent more than $1.5 billion to support attack subs that provided no operational capability, despite the increasing demands of combatant commanders worldwide for their services. GAO investigators cited 14 attack subs that combined to spend 61 months — 1,891 days — idling while waiting to enter shipyards for repairs.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/11/24/federal-watchdog-report-chides-navy-for-submarine-maintenance-snafus/