According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Navy’s backlog of submarine maintenance is costing taxpayers and affecting Navy readiness.
House Report 118-529 required the GAO to assess the readiness and availability of the Navy’s attack submarine fleet. In response the GAO looked at the Navy’s 44 attack submarines, as of fiscal year 2025, to determine whether the Navy has effectively maintained them, and mitigated any challenges to the fleet.
The report found that 10 years of maintenance delays for the submarine fleet has resulted in more than 15,000 lost operational days at a cost of more $3.4 billion. Additionally, as the Navy works to decommission some of the submarines, delays stemming from lack of capacity for shipyards to start the decommissioning process, is causing backlogs costing the Navy more than $3.1 billion.
Attack submarines provide an asymmetric advantage to the Navy, allowing the ships to gather intelligence undetected, and to attack enemy targets, if necessary. These capabilities make the submarine fleet one of the most requested assets by global combatant commanders.
The GAO said finding alternative ways to reduce the maintenance backlogs could save the Navy billions of dollars.
“GAO is making two recommendations including that the U.S. Navy fully evaluate alternative options to more efficiently decommission attack submarines and develop an attack submarine inactivation plan that reduces inactive idle time,” the agency said in its report. “The Navy verbally concurred with GAO’s recommendations, but did not provide written comments.”
The GAO recommended that the Secretary of the Navy should ensure that the Chief of Naval Operations directs the Naval Sea Systems Command to evaluate alternative options for decommissioning the operational fleet, and that the Secretary of the Navy should ensure that the Chief of Naval Operations directs the Naval Sea Systems Command to use that evaluation to develop and implement a plan for attack submarine inactivations that reduces idle time for crews and submarines.