The Pentagon said late Wednesday that it has awarded Electric Boat an eye-popping $76.6 billion in new submarine contracts in what is being called the biggest naval shipbuilding award in modern history and one certain to keep the Groton shipyard operating at full capacity for decades.

The U.S. Navy is sending EB, a division of General Dynamics, $42 billion for nine more Virginia class attack submarines, $29.5 billion for five more Columbia class ballistic missile submarines and another $5 billion for shipyard improvements planned to speed production, which already is moving at an unprecedented pace.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, an eastern Connecticut Democrat and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee’s influential Seapower Subcommittee, called Wednesday’s announcement “a surging, unwavering demand signal to the entire submarine industrial base” and “the biggest shipbuilding award in modern American history.”

“These contract awards will be the driving force to stimulate growth across the submarine industrial base,” Courtney said. “Crucially, the thousands of small business manufacturers who are essential to the industrial base now have the certainty they have been asking for to make needed investments in hiring, facilities, and equipment. Congress and the Navy must now double-down on industrial base investments that are moving delivery schedules to the left.”

The high-priced contract award reflects what has become a race in the Pentagon to replace the Navy’s aging fleet of nuclear powered submarines as it tries to balance China’s rapid naval expansion and its increasingly aggressive posture in the Indo-Pacific. As the Navy’s lead submarine designer and builder, EB is at the forefront of a manufacturing effort not seen in decades.

CT defense contractor hits major milestone. It’s building key part of nation’s top defense priority

EB president Mark Rayha said earlier this year that the shipyard, southeastern Connecticut’s economic engine, has grown 300 percent as an enterprise over the last decade, as the Navy conceived and Congress began paying for current sub building program.

The shipyard has said it is spending $100 million a year on training new shipbuilders and plans to hire 8,000 this year, in exceeding the 3,000 to 5,000 it added in recent years at yards in Groton and Quonset Point, RI. In addition to hiring, the company has invested nearly $4 billion in manufacturing improvements over the last 10 years and planned to spend another $4 billion over the next five years.

EB works with suppliers across the country and paid more than $1.5 billion to Connecticut companies over the last five years.

In spite of the growth, meeting the Navy’s aggressive delivery schedule – 1 Columbia and 2.3 Virginia submarines a year – has proven to be a challenge as the company works to rebuild the workforce and supply chain that disappeared when the Navy effectively stopped building ships after the cold war.

The Navy now wants 12 Columbias, at a combined cost of about $126 billion, to replace its dated fleet of 1980s-era Trident ballistic missile subs, which Electric Boat began building in the 1970s.

At the same time the Navy wants 60 smaller and less expensive Virginia class attack subs, at as much as $5 billion a ship, to replace its aging 688 or Los Angeles class fleet that EB designed and built, also beginning in the 1970s.

In addition, EB is expected to build 3 to 5 five more Virginia class subs for delivery to Australia beginning in 2032 under the tripartite AUKUS security agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom.

“These multi-year commitments by Congress and the Navy secure work at submarine shipyards and thousands of supply chain companies well into the late 2030s, further boosted by the AUKUS security agreement and the sale of three in-service Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the 2030s,” Courtney said.

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