Anduril's Bet on U.S. Submarines

“By now you've heard that the American military needs more cheap drones and missiles, but U.S. forces are also facing a dangerous decline in ships, submarines and aircraft. Anduril Industries' big bet this week on helping to build U.S. submarines is a major step toward easing the national shipbuilding crisis.

 

In an announcement with President Trump on Tuesday, Anduril said it will invest $3.7 billion to build a facility that can produce sections of Virginia-class attack submarines for the U.S. Navy. The aim is to stand up the plant in Maryland by 2030 and build items such as torpedo tubes and eventually perhaps larger parts of the vessel.

 

The U.S. has long failed to build two attack submarines per year, though America dominates undersea technology and the hulls are crucial to deterring a war with China.

 

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has run a war game of a Chinese assault on Taiwan some 24 times, and it found that "in every iteration, the U.S. player moved submarines into the Taiwan Strait, where they could attack Chinese amphibious ships directly." Beijing has to assume the stealthy submarines could be in the region at any time, which enhances deterrence.

 

But U.S. submarine production is limited by a brittle supply chain, scarce skilled labor, and other dysfunctions. The Navy would be lucky to reach its fleet goal of 66 attack submarines in several decades, and in 2024 only 31 of 47 were operationally ready, according to the Congressional Research Service.

 

The status quo of building 1.1 or 1.2 subs per year hasn't improved even amid Congressional concern and billions of dollars in funding. The glacial pace is a threat to U.S. defenses and to the American promise to sell Australia at least three and up to five submarines in the Aukus deal with the U.K.

 

Anduril's new facility could add nine million labor hours a year to the Virginia-class industrial base, a 15% boost that should relieve other facilities and help put the boats together faster. The defense tech company is known for using manufacturing innovation, software and a commercial labor force to reduce production time and expense.

 

Let's hope the Administration and Congress understand this is a no-aborts mission. Anduril is putting up billions of its own capital, as Administrations of both parties are always demanding from weapons makers. But other defense companies will watch this effort and calibrate their own bets accordingly.

 

One risk is that the project is strangled by inflexibility in the Navy's technical bureaucracy that certifies parts.

 

Still, credit the Administration for injecting more competition into a calcified U.S. defense industrial base. Many in Washington have invoked America's submarine travails as a reason to write-down U.S. interests and accommodate China's Taiwan designs. This week's announcement is a sign that the U.S. is at long last starting to throw American ingenuity and capital at a major strategic problem.” [1]

 

1. Anduril's Bet on U.S. Submarines. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Oct 2026: A16.