Source: The Drive
By Joseph Trevithick
The U.S. Navy’s submarine community has been the focus of great attention recently as the service has offered new details about plans for multiple new classes of submarines and plans for a Topgun-like training program for submariners.
Unfortunately, a new report from a top Congressional watchdog highlights the Navy’s continuing struggles to maintain the attack sub fleet it already has, with the service incurring more than $1.5 billion in charges in the past decade to keep boats sitting pier-side for months, and sometimes years, awaiting major maintenance The result? Decades of operational time lost in the process.
On Nov. 19, 2018, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an unclassified version of its review, which focuses on the maintenance backlog impacting Los Angeles-, Virginia-, and Seawolf-class attack submarines, but does not include data relating to Ohio-class ballistic and cruise missile boats.
Just over a year earlier, U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Joseph Tofalo, then-Commander, Submarine Forces, had himself acknowledged the extent of the issue and warned that the service might not be able to meet the demands for a surge in submarine deployments during a major conflict.
Read more at: http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25031/navy-attack-subs-lost-more-than-two-decades-worth-of-operational-time-to-maintenance-delays