The U.S. Navy is betting $63 billion over the next decade on 10 Virginia-class attack submarines, several of which will carry a new hull section engineered to launch hypersonic missiles and dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles. The investment, outlined in the service’s most recent 30-year shipbuilding plan, centers on the Block V configuration and its signature feature: the Virginia Payload Module, a mid-hull insert that transforms a fast-attack submarine into a long-range strike platform.
The urgency is real. The Navy’s four Ohio-class guided-missile submarines, each capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk missiles across 22 launch tubes, are approaching mandatory retirement. No other ship or aircraft in the fleet can replicate that volume of undersea firepower. If Block V boats do not arrive on schedule, the Navy faces a gap in strike capacity at a moment when it can least afford one. Whether the shipbuilding industrial base can actually deliver on that timeline is, as of June 2026, an open and uncomfortable question.
What the Virginia Payload Module actually does
The Block V Virginia-class submarine is not a minor refresh. According to a Congressional Research Service report on the program, the Virginia Payload Module adds roughly 84 feet to the submarine’s hull and introduces four large-diameter vertical launch tubes. Those tubes can carry additional Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles or, once development is complete, hypersonic strike weapons under the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program.
Structurally, the module is not bolted on or strapped to the exterior. It is a new section spliced between existing hull segments, preserving the submarine’s hydrodynamic profile while creating internal magazine space and the handling equipment needed to load and fire from the four tubes. Block V boats retain every core mission of earlier Virginias, including intelligence collection, anti-submarine warfare, and anti-surface warfare, while gaining a deep magazine of long-range weapons that can be fired without the submarine surfacing or revealing its position.
A broader CRS overview describes Block V as the first Virginia variant to incorporate this module, making it the centerpiece of the Navy’s plan to sustain undersea strike power after the Ohio guided-missile submarines leave the fleet. The four Ohio SSGNs, converted from ballistic-missile submarines in the early 2000s, have been workhorses for combatant commanders planning early salvos in scenarios where access to forward bases or contested airspace cannot be guaranteed. Losing them without a replacement would remove a tool the Navy has leaned on in contingency planning since the 1990s.
Block V procurement is already underway
This is not a concept on a whiteboard. Block V submarines are already under contract at the only two shipyards in the country that build nuclear attack submarines: Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding division in Virginia and General Dynamics Electric Boat in Connecticut. The $63 billion allocation and the 10-boat target appear in the Navy’s shipbuilding plan as a near-term priority, not a distant aspiration, because the Ohio SSGN retirements are already on the calendar.
The Virginia-class program has been the backbone of U.S. attack submarine modernization for more than two decades. Earlier blocks focused on driving down acquisition costs, improving acoustic stealth, and integrating upgraded sonar and combat systems. Block V marks a deliberate pivot from incremental refinement to a more ambitious reconfiguration, one driven not by technological opportunity but by a looming capability gap that the Navy cannot afford to leave unfilled.
The industrial base may not be able to keep up
The biggest risk to the plan is not design or funding. It is production. A Government Accountability Office report, designated GAO-26-109068, examined the realism of the Navy’s shipbuilding assumptions and Virginia-class production performance. The GAO found that the Navy’s projected build rates and delivery schedules may not reflect actual conditions at Newport News and Electric Boat. Schedule slips have already occurred, and workforce shortages at both yards have been a persistent theme in defense oversight hearings for years.
The per-hull cost of integrating the Virginia Payload Module and preparing the launch tubes for hypersonic weapons is not broken out in publicly available CRS or GAO documents. That opacity makes it difficult for outside analysts to judge whether $63 billion is sufficient for 10 boats or whether cost growth could force the Navy to cut the buy. Hypersonic missile integration introduces engineering complexity that earlier Virginia blocks never faced, and the Conventional Prompt Strike weapon itself is still in testing. If the missile program slips, the Navy could find itself fielding expensive launch tubes with nothing new to load into them, relying on additional Tomahawks to justify the added volume.
Delivery timelines for the first hypersonic-capable Block V boats remain unclear from primary sources. The Navy has not published a revised production schedule that fully accounts for recent delays, and the GAO report stops short of projecting specific delivery dates for individual hulls. What the auditors do say is blunt: without tighter cost controls and more disciplined planning, the fleet may not reach its target size within the planned window.
The supply chain problem runs deeper than the shipyards
Industrial constraints extend well beyond Newport News and Electric Boat. Sub-tier suppliers provide everything from nuclear reactor components to advanced electronics, and many of those firms operate with thin workforces and limited ability to surge production. A late delivery of a single critical component can halt work on an entire hull. The GAO’s findings on schedule risk implicitly encompass these suppliers, because the shipyards cannot build faster than their parts arrive.
Compounding the pressure, the same pool of qualified welders, nuclear engineers, and quality inspectors is being drawn on by other submarine programs, including the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine, which the Navy considers its top acquisition priority. Every worker pulled toward Columbia is a worker unavailable for Virginia Block V. The labor market for submarine construction is not one that expands quickly; training a nuclear-qualified welder takes years, not months.
For sailors, the new configuration also introduces a learning curve. While Block V builds on a familiar platform, the payload module brings new systems, new maintenance procedures, and new tactical possibilities that crews will need to absorb. Neither CRS nor GAO documents provide a detailed account of how those operational changes will be phased in, leaving open questions about readiness timelines even after the boats are delivered.
A strike gap the Navy is racing to close
The gap between plan and execution is where the stakes become tangible. The Navy needs Block V submarines in the water before the last Ohio SSGNs retire, or it will face a period of reduced undersea strike capacity. Every month of delay at the shipyards compresses that margin and increases the risk that a crisis could arrive before the replacement force is ready.
For policymakers, the question is not simply whether to fund these submarines but how to sequence that funding alongside parallel investments in the industrial base. More predictable defense budgets, targeted workforce development programs, and early identification of supplier bottlenecks could all influence whether the Navy’s undersea strike architecture arrives on time. The Congressional Research Service documentation makes clear why the Virginia Payload Module matters. The GAO audit makes equally clear that without sustained attention to execution, the most carefully designed weapon system can still arrive late.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
