The White House’s pick to lead naval operations wants shipbuilders to double their production capacity to honor the trilateral agreement with Australia and the U.K.
“We need a transformational improvement and the ability to deliver twice the capacity that we’re currently delivering,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, who leads U.S. Fleet Forces Command and is nominated to be the chief of naval operations, told senators Thursday during his confirmation hearing. “The delivery pace is not where it needs to be to make good on the [pillar] one of the AUKUS agreement, which is currently under review by our Defense Department…I think rightly so. We do have to understand whether or not the industrial base can produce the submarines required so that we can make good on the actual pact that we’ve made with the U.K. and Australia, which is around 2.2 to 2.3 Virginia class submarines per year. That’s going to require a transformational improvement, not a 10 percent improvement, not a 20 percent—a 100 percent improvement.”
Caudle called on the nation’s largest naval shipbuilders to get creative to bring employee attrition rates down.
“We need to transformationally improve the output of the two yards that are producing our Virginia-class submarines. There needs to be some creativity, some ingenuity, some outsourcing improvements; stop the attrition levels that are currently there today, at those two yards…we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to this, to get to the 2.3 submarines per year,” he said.
The Navy’s nuclear submarine programs have been over budget and behind schedule, fueled by supply chain challenges and a dwindling workforce. Those problems affect building new ships and repairing and maintaining older ones.
The USS Boise, a Los Angeles-class attack submarine, has been out of service for nearly a decade awaiting repairs. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., raised the question of whether it was time to decommission the ship.
“It’s about time we start talking about how we fix the existing stuff we’ve got out there,” Rounds said. “Since 2017, I’ve asked about the USS Boise, as an example… It’s now been out of service, not even able to dive…almost 10 years now…sitting in dock waiting for its half-life to be completed. Is it time we just simply pull the plug on that one and start looking at other stuff?”
Caudle called Boise’s story “unacceptable” and said he would look “hard” at the problem.
“The decision whether or not to actually walk away from Boise is a big one, and I want to make sure I clearly understand the trajectory and trends, but I hear you loud and clear” the admiral said.
“We walked away from our private yards’ capacity to do in-service repair decades ago. And as a relief valve to an oversubscribed public yard, we decided to induct three ships into Huntington Ingles. And a couple, in the last several years, into Electric Boat. Because of their, the lack of investment in those areas—because we did walk away from that—I think both of those yards had some learning to do before they were able to get up on the step. And that learning has not been quick, and it’s not been effective. And without a clear demand signal of what unit’s coming after Boise, I worry that that effort won’t be applied to Boise to get her completed. So working with the Secretary of the Navy, I want to take that on if I’m confirmed, and look at that hard.”
Domestic drone defense
Caudle also pushed for better base protection against drone attacks.
“This idea of having good counter-unmanned aerial systems at our installations is extremely important to me,” Caudle said. “Some of my sister services have better solutions than the Navy. I need to learn from that and field some of those capabilities. But at the heart of that, sir, is a good common operational picture so the base commander can see the environment and a range of ways to actually approach, countering attacks that they may encounter from [unmanned aerial vehicles]. And that has to be non-lethal and lethal effects.”
Caudle’s comments come as the U.S. military looks to boost its counterdrone measures domestically and in preparation for war as the use of unmanned aerial systems increases. Protecting infrastructure, including military bases in the continental U.S. and abroad, has become more of a priority following incidents including drones hovering over Joint Base Langley-Eustis in 2023, an explosion that killed three U.S. soldiers at an outpost in Jordan in 2024, and mysterious drone horde sightings in New Jersey.
“It really got highlighted with the UAVs that were seen around Langley and around [Naval Weapons Station Earle], New Jersey—kind of put this [issue] on the map. But it’s something we’ve been watching for several years, understanding we were not well equipped at all of our bases to handle that threat,” said Caudle, who is also the naval component commander to U.S. Northern Command.
To address that, Gen. Guillot, who leads both NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Defense Command, issued new standard operating procedures for base commanders to coordinate with NORTHCOM in the event of a drone attack.
Caudle also talked about the importance of unmanned systems throughout the hearing and the Navy’s need for a hybrid fleet.
“There is no question that unmanned, robotic, autonomous systems will be part of any modern warfare going forward. The learning that we’ve had from the Russia-Ukraine [war]—We see it in spades. We see it from the Israel conflicts. We’re all learning from this. Everyone is, including our adversaries. So we have to pace that. So there has to be robust investments in robotic, autonomous unmanned systems,” he said.
But the Navy’s affinity for exquisite, rather than more disposable systems, may need some work.
“It’s not in our nature in the Navy to really treat things attritable. And so we can spend money—that maybe is not necessary to—in that area, where we need to just be able to get a paradigm shift on how we treat those,” Caudle said.
